translating SEO content: worth it?

ctrjunkie

Our English blogs are doing pretty well right now. So naturally, I'm thinking about testing the same content in a few other languages.

The plan: grab
about 10 pages that already pull in traffic, run them through AI translation (starting with Spanish and German - no human involved for the initial pass), then get a native speaker to proofread before publishing under language-specific URLs.

Has anyone here actually tried this? competition in other languages seems super low, but someone pointed out that might be because ad revenue in those regions is also low. That gave me pause.

Another person mentioned they doubled their French blog traffic by doing a similar thing - translating top pages into English. They saw over 8k AI quote impressions in Bing's console recently. the queries were in English, so they think the traffic came from the translations. But then they wondered what to do with that stat since users just stay on the LLM without actually visiting the site.

i'm curious if anyone else has gone down this route. Did the extra traffic justify the effort? Any surprises?

justauser

I've actually done something similar with my French blog - translated the top 10 posts into English, and traffic just about doubled too.

Then I peeked at Bing Webmaster Console this morning and saw over 8k AI citations in the last 50 days. The queries are all in English, so it's definitely coming from those translations.

Honestly, no clue what to do with that stat though 😅 Users are just staying inside the LLM and never clicking through to the site.

budgetburner

If you've actually got clients speaking that language, go for it. Just don't skimp on the translation - bad copy kills results in any language.

backlinker

Legit plan, but run a proper keyword gap analysis in that language first - direct translation rarely works for local search intent.

socialbutterfly

yes, we've been down that road too - and here's what we learned the hard way:

🤖 If you just AI-translate and hit publish, it'll dilute your authority on the English side and give Google a reason to start its ranking dance.
💡 The only safe bet? get a real human - preferably a native speaker who knows the local marketing culture - to go through every line. They'll catch the nuance that machines miss every time.

Unless you've got that pro checking the translation, don't bother. Good luck - hope you find the right person!!!

24fire

Absolutely get a native speaker to localise the AI output before publishing. translating content isn't just swapping words - it's adapting the whole growth engine to a different market. laws, cultural taboos, even humour can derail a perfectly good piece. I've seen campaigns tank because someone assumed a topic would travel. Treat each language like a new build, not a copy-paste.

prpro

It's tempting to just run everything through a translator and hit publish, but that's a recipe for wasted effort. Think of keywords as local dialects: the same concept might be searched using completely different phrases depending on the language and culture. a direct translation often misses the mark entirely. You need proper local keyword research for each market.

nightowl

It's a classic chicken-and-egg situation. Low competition in non-English markets often mirrors the underlying economics - ad revenue per click in those regions can be a fraction of what you'd see in the US or UK. The A9 algorithm (and its cousins) prioritise inventory where the monetisation potential is highest. So while you might rank easily, the return on that traffic could be disappointing unless you're selling a product with global pricing power.

Think of it like expanding into a new marketplace before the infrastructure is built. The shelf space is cheap because no one's buying the shelf.

ctrjunkie

Curious how you handled the translation - was it purely AI?

justauser

Ah sorry, that was my AI keyboard playing up. Not great, is it? 😅

backlinker

Absolutely. separate pages, no question. create individual URLs per language and implement hreflang tags to signal to Google which version serves which audience. Otherwise you're gambling with duplicate content filters. Each page builds its own authority and anchor text profile - better long-term than trying to force one page to rank for multiple languages.