Case study: A British SEO specialist takes Germany

localisation EN to DE

In the summer of 2022, SEO specialist and consultant Dan White reached out to me as he wanted to create a German version of his website.

Here’s the deal

Dan has a real soft spot for Germany and plans to eventually emigrate. As he was going to expand his business and take it to Germany, he needed his English website translated. Out of the varying degrees of translation work, we settled on localisation. This was the perfect mixture of keeping to the source copy whilst adapting the tone of voice to work with his German target audience.

And here’s what we did

Dan and I first jumped on a kick-off call where we chatted about his business, his target audience, his connection to Germany and how he wants to position himself on the German market. We also had a chat about his tone of voice and how he wants to come across.

I then did some research into the language the German SEO industry uses, focussing on aspects such as terminology, (in)formal address and gender-neutral language. I also did a little bit of keyword research, although I left that mostly to Dan, seeing that he is the specialist in this field.

After submitting the first draft, Dan got back to me quickly with some constructive feedback and a few comments, which really helped to shape the copy into the perfect end result.

”I reached out to Lisa to look into getting my website translated and localised to reach the German market. The process from start to finish was excellent. She made a real point of understanding my business and my target audience and within a couple of weeks had delivered a cracking set of pages which delivered their first enquiry within 24 hours of going live.”

— Dan White

The result is a German website which mirrors Dan’s existing English version, but sounds natural and flows nicely. The effect speaks for itself: At the start of 2023, Dan secured his first German client.