An English website for an established Italian translation agency

The client

As a well-established translation and interpreting agency, my client knew that the English version of their website would need to be smart, compelling, and engaging. After all, they are language and translation experts, so their website would be a showcase of what they, and their team of translators, could do.

They wanted an English website which was written naturally for English speakers and respected the conventions of the market, yet didn’t distort the original message. Anything less could jeopardise their reputation for high quality and expertise.

The mission

We decided that transcreation, rather than translation, was the best plan of attack to create a website that sounded like it had been written from scratch by an English copywriter. I needed to adjust the tone of voice and style to ensure the English version was as compelling and persuasive as the Italian original. The project included transcreating taglines and captions, accurately describing the many different services and types of technical translation, and creating readable blog content. I needed to adapt some of the content and references to make them more relevant for English speakers.

The translation agency marketplace is crowded and often uses a lot of jargon that its client don’t understand or necessarily care about. My job was to explain how the company could help its clients and how they had the necessary technical skills, without getting bogged down in detail the client didn’t need to know.

I also needed to be mindful that the intended audience was mostly non-native English speakers, so clear, simple language was essential. Although the tone of voice was friendly and approachable, I deliberately avoided using too many phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions.

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