The Importance of Localization and Multilingual Workflows

The ready availability of translation services, including those provided by artificial intelligence, makes reaching a global audience easier than ever. Gaining the trust of local users within a region is more complicated because translation services often don’t account for local variations in language.

One of the biggest challenges facing global organizations is maintaining consistency across regions. Without a coordinated workflow, it becomes easy for fragmentation to distort the core message of your content program.

Translating content is important for providing consistent access within regions, but translation of words doesn’t always maintain cultural relevance for the new audience due to the way individual cultures assign meaning. By creating localized experiences, text is adapted alongside imagery, user experience, payment methods, and regulatory requirements to create an experience that users will recognize as something they can trust.

Scaling your content strategy globally requires finding the balance between centralized content governance and regional autonomy. WordPress VIP offers the flexibility to define roles, establish governance, and build workflows that achieve that balance.

The realities of enterprise multi-language operations

Enterprise-scale localization and multilingual operations require a balancing act to achieve the in-region autonomy needed to move quickly while maintaining brand consistency. Deciding where to delegate authority and where to maintain centralized governance spans a few key decision points.

A clear definition of what falls under regional ownership vs. centralized governance comes down to understanding local markets. A straight translation of English language content into other markets may not yield a message that resonates. Similarly, Spanish readers in Spain have different cultural expectations than those in Mexico. Allowing regional autonomy to adapt to these differences creates deeper trust across your content program.

Some aspects of your content program where regional ownership could make sense include:

• Release cadence: Due to time zone differences, local holidays, and work schedules, a defined release cadence that isn’t required to match the release of source content is easier to coordinate than one that requires simultaneous launches.
• Legal, compliance, and editorial nuances are all best handled in-region by experts who understand local differences. In regions like the EU, where similar legal and compliance requirements may span multiple locales, some of this can be centralized before applying local editorial differences in the way information is communicated.

Regardless of whether content is centrally created or regionally distributed, there is a consistent need for clear workflows and audit trails to understand when changes were made and by whom.

How to build a scalable localization workflow

Building a scalable localization workflow involves several components that work together to deliver localized content at a global scale.

1. Before any translation or localization takes place, your source language content must be ready for translation. This content readiness means a final version that is culturally neutral to avoid confusing idioms and structured in a modularized format that aligns with your content presentation goals.
2. Once your source version is locked, the content is ready to flow into a Translation Management System (TMS) that can orchestrate translation for all required local languages. Part of this workflow is maintaining a Translation Memory (TM) that stores every sentence or phrase ever translated. The TMS leverages Translation Memory to reuse previous translations, helping maintain brand consistency as new content assets are generated. Avoiding retranslation also prevents paying to translate the same content twice.
3. Language variants are used to handle the nuance between variations in the same language. The most frequently used example here is the difference between Mexican Spanish and the Spanish spoken in Spain.
4. Fallback patterns provide users with the next best available experience when the optimal localized experience isn’t available. If a Portuguese localization for Portugal is available but the one for Brazil isn’t, display the Portugal version in Brazil instead of showing users English or an error page. It’s not ideal, but better than other alternatives.
5. Guaranteeing users see the right content means correctly applying structured metadata for locale, region, and market. Using a schema coupled with metatags, you more easily communicate: “This content is in English, but it is specifically for the UK market.“
6. After completing all other steps, review and approval across your distributed team is still necessary to ensure content quality. Defining a workflow that includes who needs to review and approve, coupled with the necessary notification to the responsible user, provides the opportunity to have local sign-off before content goes live.

Looking at all of these workflows together, a Ready-for-Translation Checklist might look something like this:

How WordPress VIP supports multilingual and regional operations

WordPress VIP is ready to support localized experiences out of the box. By configuring a multisite network, you can provide a unique experience for each locale while leveraging common components where relevant. Themes, plugins, and core brand assets are maintained centrally, with the ability to propagate to all regional sites when changes are made. Each regional site can combine shared elements with regional-specific architecture, enabling brand consistency while allowing regional variation.

Another key advantage of WordPress VIP is the ability to share a common set of users across the entire network. Roles are defined per-site for each of these users, allowing flexibility in determining which parts of the content experience users are allowed to manage. This allows for unified governance and prevents individual teams from veering off course from the global brand strategy. It also provides cross-site visibility for admins to keep a finger on the pulse of publishing from a common dashboard.

Leveraging plugin and API integrations, WordPress VIP can take advantage of some of the leading localization translation services. Phrase, Smartling, and a number of new AI-driven agents offer flexibility in your approach to localization.

Leveraging the modular content capabilities of WordPress allows you to define a content architecture and scale it to multiple regions, without losing the flexibility to define regional variants where appropriate.

Maintaining governance over the content taxonomy, both for the source content and regional variations, allows for a consistency that is impossible when regional teams are defining each taxonomy in a silo.

Metadata can be leveraged to identify the particular region, language, and geographic variations an individual content asset supports.

Combined, this allows you to meet the expectations of users within a region while avoiding the chaos that comes from granting regional teams complete autonomy over content assets.

All performance enhancements available in a single language implementation of WordPress VIP are also available when you scale to multiple languages and regions.

• WordPress VIP delivers enterprise-grade performance at global scale by serving the right content via a geographically distributed content delivery network. 
• It offers the same reliability and security regardless of locale. 
• The multisite network architecture provides automation to eliminate manual workflows for updating content between regions.
• Auditability of all publishing offers confidence that regions are operating under defined governance criteria.

What can you achieve with a strong localization architecture?

The most important aspect of an enterprise-scale multi-language localization strategy is the ability to achieve your desired outcomes. A well-defined localization architecture sets you up for success in the following ways:

• Faster regional launches and content updates are achieved by standardizing processes and eliminating duplication of work. 
• Consistency across brands and markets is facilitated by maintaining a common asset library and defining rules for when and how those assets are used.
• Reduced duplication and manual content handling result from a combination of tools, such as a Translation Memory, and automated workflows.
• Clear performance insights by market and language are tracked through a common set of metrics, available via a standardized analytics tool like Parse.ly.
• Greater confidence in compliance and quality control is achieved by establishing a governance process in combination with content auditing to ensure that each locale maintains required standards.

Localization is an operating model, not an add-on

Succeeding with a global content strategy isn’t measured by how many languages you support. Success is defined by creating a seamless workflow that enables you to execute at regional scale. When it comes to localization, WordPress VIP is more than just a CMS. It’s the operational backbone for your global-first content strategy.