Creating content that is appealing to Hispanic audiences requires much more than a simple translation of your existing material. Learn why transcreation is an important asset for your law firm’s bilingual digital marketing efforts. 

There are numerous reasons why your law firm should run digital marketing campaigns in Spanish, but to do it effectively, you have to speak culturally to them. You might think that a translation of your law firm’s website would be enough and that it could be your first step towards new cases coming from Hispanics. However, that’s not true, and in this article, we’ll explore the DOs and DONTs, we’ll discover transcreation, and we’ll explain why we consider it crucial to speak culturally to your prospective clients.

  • What is transcreation?

You might be getting the term’s high-level meaning by its name; transcreation is the process of re-creating content, instead of translating, in a way that is appealing to a different culture. For example, your law firm’s practice area pages wouldn’t be merely translated from English to Spanish. A native copywriter would understand and research your subject to create emotional and cultural connections with your prospective Hispanic client. Transcreation requires further involvement and contributes significantly to your bilingual digital marketing and brand awareness; it lets you rest assured that all your assets in Spanish respect your core values and that you avoid any essential misconceptions that could be caused by a non-cultural translation.

Now that we understand the meaning of transcreation, let’s dig deeper into its value, and why it’s substantially more beneficial than translation.

  • Transcreation vs Translation for law firm Google Ads.

A successful bilingual legal PPC campaign requires a complex and sophisticated process, including multiple steps, ranging from research to optimization. Part of your success with Hispanic PPC relies on effective and appealing copywriting for your Ad Copies, your landing pages, and your website. If you simply translate your English content into Spanish, you might end up missing out on great opportunities. Meanings differ from one language to the other and from one culture to the next. On the other hand, if you choose to transcreate your content, you will be viewed as part of the community, as someone who can speak to the Hispanics in their language, in a cultural, and emotional way. According to our experience, this helps law firms drastically increase their appeal to LatinX audiences and ultimately sign more cases coming from Spanish Speaking searchers.

Tip: Remember that the ultimate goal of any PPC campaign is to sign new clients. Ensure that you optimize all your conversion methods for Hispanic leads, your create dedicated forms for Hispanics, your call intake, and your live chat is handled by native speakers that can create emotional connections with the prospective client.

  • Transcreation vs Translation for law firm Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Unique, relevant, and engaging content is a crucial component of any SEO strategy. Every law firm that wants to rank organically needs to create content that is appealing to the searchers (so that they read it) and friendly to the search engines (so that they crawl it and want to rank it high). The same applies to bilingual SEO; your Hispanic Search Engine Optimization should include content in Spanish, that speaks culturally and emotionally to Latinx. Can you achieve that by translating your existing content? Let’s explore the options you have with translation.

  1. Use Translation Software

There are multiple translation software that promise to help you get in front of your law firm’s local Hispanic audience. Their positive side is that they are quick and relatively easy to use, but you sacrifice too much if you use them. If, for example, you use Google Translate (or any relevant service) for your website, you practically can only rank for English. 

The search engines won’t be able to effectively crawl your website for its Spanish pages, making it impossible for your law firm to get organic traffic. Additionally, you might end up with serious text inconsistencies. Automatic translation services don’t take into consideration idiomatic, and commonly used local expressions, they offer literal translation, word-by-word. This can be a huge turn off for your visitors as they won’t find the information they are looking for, and they won’t create the highly desired cultural connections with your law firm.

  1. Use manual translation services

Translating your existing content to Spanish can be a better option for your law firm’s Hispanic content strategy; however, it still lacks some important aspects. Using manual translation services can save you from the embarrassment of blatant linguistic mistakes, but it can’t add the desired cultural and emotional values you should be looking for. 

The way people express themselves in Spanish is different than in English, this cannot be reflected by any content translation that keeps the exact meaning and wording. To create effective Hispanic content, you need to perceive it as a standalone process. Base it on your original content, your practice areas, your Attorney Bio, about pages, FAQs, and blogs, but make sure that you work with a bilingual digital marketing agency that utilizes transcreation techniques. Among other important features, the process of transcreation includes keywords research instead of keywords translation, content re-writing in a way that captures the attention of native Spanish speakers, and detailed editing that ensures that your law firm’s content is free of linguistic mistakes. 

What are our takeaways?:

  • Translation is only halfway good for your law firm’s Hispanic digital marketing. One might argue that it’s better than nothing, but you need to keep in mind that you can’t aim high without the proper cultural connections. 
  • Transcreation is important for your law firm’s PPC as it can drastically improve your ad copies, landing pages, and ultimately conversions and signed clients.
  • It is equally valuable to your SEO efforts. It helps you speak in your prospective Latinx clients’ language, capturing their interest, while also helping you get higher ranking on SERPs and increase your law firm’s organic traffic.