Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

There are several translation companies out there you could use. They use a mixture of software and old school translation. Most translation companies use graphic designers for layout (for print) and could be used for web graphics as well. My suggestion is to find yourself a full service translation company. They would also have the experience and background to help you with the URL question.

Question: I see that you are referring to Mexico specifically, but is your product/ website ever going to be used for Spanish speaking people in other countires?

The reason I ask is because it will determine how you go about creating the site. If Mexico is your end all, be all, then .mx (or whatever the extension is) will be a nice touch. But if a long term goal is to attract Spanish speaking people from all over, then you may want to create the spanish site within your current domain.

Other things to consider:

1. Some countries require the company to be local to host a site with it's country's extension. Mexico could be one of them. And in that case, you don't want to create the site only to find out that you can't use it the way you intended.

2. Take a look at other sites that feature the different ways of addressing the language barrier.
- bmw.com has a link that turns the text from English to German
- vw.com vs. vw.co.uk: They have different looking site for the two countries

3. Simply re-creating your site in Spanish may not be appropriate. However you choose to do it, make sure the content is appropriate to the target audience.

Hope this helps!

"(1) The exention for Mexico seems .mx. So we do we want a 2nd/Mexican domain, such as www.mycompany.com.mx ? Or do we just want to create a Mexican folder on our existing web site, such as www.mycompany.com/mexico ? If we want a Mexican domain, how do I se this up?"

The SEO answer depends upon your intent. Rading your post I assume that since you are stating "Mexican" rather than "Spanish" that you are looking to penetrate the market in Mexico and not the "Spanish" speaking community in the US.

If this is not the case, and you are seeking to reach Spanish speaking prospects in the US then the best approach would be to create a Spanish translation on your existing site.

Some CMS can accommodate Internationalization quite well. You could provide a switch for visitors to change language or you could provide a link to another section of the web site.

If your intent is to achieve search engine rankings and traffic from Mexico then you would want to have a Spanish language web site with a Mexican domain, hosted on a server located in Mexico.

I hope this answers your question.

Regards,

Greg Hill
Trinity Search Engine Marketing

In addition to the others' comments, localizing a site from one language to another often involves more than text changes - for example, graphic changes as well (colors, photographs, placement, etc.).

The code that displays your site probably doesn't need to change.

To get an idea of what your Mexican/Spanish version of your site can look like, try: https://babelfish.yahoo.com No doubt it'll have lots of mistakes & idiosyncrasies, but one technique I've used successfully is to translate a site (or document) to a foreign language, then re-translate back to English. If it's the same, odds are your translation is good. If not, change your original English to be easier to translate, and repeat.