As companies look to extend their operations to new markets, the main thing to be translated will usually be the website showcasing the products and services. It is furthermore also natural that the translator working with the material will prioritize the main written text on the page more than image translation and page speed.
The translator might be working with a CAT tool, and such a tool will only read text from documents and generally not images. It therefore becomes all the more tempting for the translator to not worry all that much about the graphics.
The SEO Factor
However, from an SEO perspective, this is not always the way to go. One of the main factors that impact the speed of a WordPress site will be the images. If a text in an image has been translated and saved as a new image, then it is crucial for it to also have been correctly compressed. The dimensions of the image will furthermore hold some importance, although they will be less relevant.
If the size of the translated image is not sufficiently reduced, then this will increase the load time of the page. In the case that there are several images that have been poorly compressed, this will add even further to the load time, which will be stacking up.
In a world where most people hit back in their web browser if a page doesn’t load fast enough, this will spell disaster from an e-commerce perspective.
When Image Translation and Page Speed Matter
It is not always that image translation will be required. You might very well come across a website project that only contains for example pictures of nature, where you will be able to focus your entire attention on the main text alone.
That being said, these are some of the instances where you might need to perform image translation:
- E-commerce: As a company is entering a market in a new country, it becomes necessary to translate both the body of the text, and the imagery of the products. Such images might be present on the actual website or images in downloadable guides in PDF format.
- Online learning material: A website that is offering language learning services might need to have the text in contextual images translated.
- Technical illustrations and diagrams: A company that is selling industrial products and equipment to other countries will often need to have various illustrations and diagrams translated for the target group, as well as the local maintenance staff that is going to install or handle the products.
The Image Related Factors That Impact Page Speed
When working with images that will be used on WordPress, there are certain guidelines that are good to follow if you don’t want those images to impact the load time and site speed too much.
Image Type
It used to be the case that the image formats JPEG and PNG were the most used. However, nowadays, more websites are opting for next-gen image types such as WebP and the slightly less popular AVIF in order to improve image translation and page speed.
These offer better image quality with less image size. That being said, they are not always that popular among users who download images from the site, since there are still quite a few common image programs that are not able to open them.
Compression and Size
Larger images will take a longer time to load. That’s a given. However, when working with image translation and page speed, we also want to use images that are able to give us a good visual experience. In my experience, a generic rule of thumb is to aim for an image size of no more than 100 kB.
For some images that don’t require a lot of detail to be shown, you reduce it even further. If you on the other hand have imagery containing detailed text and graphs, you might need to go somewhat beyond the 100 kB rule of thumb. As you can see, this makes it especially tricky for image translation and page speed.
Dimensions
When working with WordPress, there are two measurements to keep in mind. A featured image in a blog post should generally have the dimensions 1200 × 900 px. The images in the body hand are usually set to 1200 x 630 px.
I have seen some WordPress themes where these dimensions do not fit very well, but in general, these are the numbers that work best for most themes.
Available Tools for Image Translation and Page Speed
If you are in a hurry and need to quickly optimize your images, there are free online services such as iLoveIMG, where you can compress them to a more convenient size. But if you have a little more time on your hands and wish to optimize the images a bit more, then there is free open source software available.
My favourite tool is GIMP, which allows you to specify how much you want to compress your images. This is quite handy when working with different compression levels.
Tools Don’t Need to Be Pricey
When entering a new market and setting up a business, it can be crucial to cut down on costs before there is sufficient cash flow coming in. There is no need for pricey subscriptions or costly software, as there are enough free open source tools to help you get the job done to improve image translation and page speed.
GIMP has already been mentioned in conjunction with its utility when it comes to fine tuning the compression level. Canva is another free tool that you can use in order to create nice and professional illustrations. The free version comes with a lot of free templates as well.
If you want, it is also possible to get a premium version of Canva for a fee, but the free version is more than enough in my opinion. Then you just insert the translated text into the Canva image, download the image from Canva, and compress it with GIMP.
Image Translation and Page Speed Impact User Engagement
As we have seen, image translation is about more than just having nice pictures. It furthermore goes beyond just conveying the intended translated message. What it in the end boils down to is the user experience.
The experience that the users have on your website will impact whether or not they will stay and explore it, or whether they will just move on. What good is a persuasive message if the medium (in this case, the imagery itself) is slowing down the page to the point where the user doesn’t stick around long enough to receive it?
