In a rapidly globalizing world, getting your website successfully translated is critical to accessing new markets and establishing trust worldwide. And yet, many companies fall into the same pitfalls that neutralize their efforts. Below you will find the five most common missteps—and how to avoid each—with real examples to inform your plan.
1. Over-Relying on Machine Translation Without Any Human Mediation
Why is this a bad idea: Machine translations (MT) services, like Google Translate, are quick—but they tend to be literal, insensitive to tone, and miss nuance. Idioms, humor, and cultural references often go lost or poorly translated and risk offending or alienating readers.
Example: Imagine a clothing site having been translated by MT, “These trousers will make you run like a sloth!”—not exactly motivating.
Insight: Nuance cannot be solved by MT alone. You must use MT and have native language human editors or translators to ensure the meaning is expressed clearly and naturally.
2. Overlooking Cultural Context when Translating and Designing
Why it’s bad: Literal translations are usually tone-deaf to local mores. Cultural faux pas—whether in messaging, colors, imagery, or humor—can outrage or perplex.
Case study: Pepsi had a global campaign slogan that read, “Come alive with Pepsi.” The slogan translated in China as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead” generated a minor backlash. Another classic, ‘female horse fastened with wax,” was one of Coca-Cola’s earliest Chinese transliterations, which was later corrected to something pleasant and more culturally relevant.
Insight: Don’t just focus on words. Localize the visuals, colors, symbols, and total messaging to meet the expectations of the target market.
3. Ignoring Multilingual SEO
Why it’s bad: Even the best Web Content Translation does not equal visibility. SEO in one language does not (usually) transfer to another, because keywords, search patterns, and user intent vary between cultures.
Tip: Conduct localized keyword research, meta tag optimization, URL optimization, and hreflang tag implementation, so you inform search engines and don’t have a duplicate content disaster!
4. Disregarding Technical & UI Issues (Mobile device, layout, metadata)
Why it’s bad: Text growth, especially with translations, can cause problems with design. This is particularly true with mobile applications, where growing text is to be expected. Important items, such as alt text, metadata, UI layout, and forms, tend to fall into the “no man’s land” of translations, leaving broken experiences.
The mobile consideration in all of this is special—translatable text can grow in length almost 30% longer hard to see layout changes, or overflow issues.
Confirm that metadata, alt text, and error messages were appropriately localized.
Adapt UI to accommodate the various writing directions and word lengths—e.g., Arabic is right-to-left, and German words are much longer.
Keep the CMS and translations up to date; otherwise, links may break, or you may miss updates.
5. Neglecting to Update & Maintain Translations
Why it’s dangerous: Sites change—product pages are updated, blogs are updated, policies are updated—but translations lag. International users are confused by inconsistent and outdated content.
Insight:
Use translation management systems that monitor changes in content and propagate updates on all versions.
Make blogs and dynamic content part of your translation process—not only static pages.
Summary Table
| Mistake | Risk | Smart Fix |
| Overreliance on MT | Awkward or offensive phrasing | Use human review and editing |
| Ignoring cultural context | Brand damage or misinterpretation | Localize imagery, tone, symbols |
| Neglecting multilingual SEO | Low organic search visibility | SEO-research per language, hreflang, URLs |
| Overlooking technical/UI elements | Broken layouts, poor UX | Test mobile, localize metadata, adapt design |
| Failing to maintain translations | Inconsistent, outdated content | Implement translation workflows and update processes |
Final thoughts
Translating a site successfully is about so much more than word-for-word translation; it is about creating a culturally fluent, technically sound, and discoverable experience in every marketplace. If you can avoid these five major mistakes – such as incorrectly employing MT or careless maintenance, you will have created trust, clarity, and engagement with global audiences.”
