A translation style guide is a set of rules for how your company presents itself textually and visually. Think of it as a guidebook for your translation service provider that includes rules about voice, writing style, sentence structure, spelling, and company usage. A style guide isn’t a grammar manual. It helps content creators and translators choose the preferred language elements for the most effective communication with customers and prospects in target markets. A terminology glossary contains your website content’s building blocks. It’s a database holding key terminology used by your company, customers, and their approved translations in all target languages. The glossary helps translators (and the AI services they may use) ensure that each time a defined key term appears in a corresponding language, it’s used consistently and correctly. Engagement: Increase relevance to customers and prospects. The glossary ensures that the terms you and your customers use are translated properly into target languages. This is crucial for building and maintaining your brand’s reputation, establishing trust, and improving engagement. Time: Get to market faster. The style guide and glossary reduce protracted discussions about how to handle certain terms or which voice is appropriate. They also reduce cycle times by negating the need for back-and-forth emails or calls about basic rules. Your LSP works faster and more accurately during the localization process. Quality: Present a consistent message across markets. These assets also ensure consistency across markets, safeguarding consistent brand messaging in any language. Providing your LSP with these guidelines empowers their language experts to localize and/or transcreate from the same core concepts. You’ll get content with one voice in many languages. Cost: Reduce spend. Style guides and glossaries reduce confusion and rework by providing a standard, authoritative reference for your marketing and translation teams. Approximately 15% of all translation project costs arise from rework. Notably, the primary cause of rework is inconsistent terminology. Safeguard against keyword competition with this advice: Client creates a list of terms that includes definitions and context. They send it to the LSP along with the content to be translated and all reference material — including previous glossaries. LSP analyzes source text and reference material via a human or AI tool. They extract terms and candidates from your source language into each target language specified. Client approves source term candidates. If client has personnel in target markets who review material before publication, they should participate. LSP translates and researches terms, using AI services if the customer wants. Client reviews and approves translated terminology. Again, if client has personnel in target markets who review material before publication, they should participate. LSP creates final glossary and inserts it in the translation technology and other linguistic assets to be used. Tip: Coordinate your SEO with your localization efforts to save time and money. While many global SEO companies perform global search analysis, few have the experience and capacity to accurately research and vet terms in every language and market. Working with an established, full-service LSP allows you to combine the research phase to cover keywords and other crucial terms in any language or market worldwide.