Hey everyone, I'm working on translating content into other languages and running into a specific issue. Some en keywords (such as technical terms) still get searched by people in non-English markets, even when there's a perfectly good local translation. For those who've dealt with this, how do you balance the two? Do you keep the English keyword as a secondary target on the localized page? Use a hybrid title? Or just commit fully to local keyword research and let the English searches go? Appreciate any real-world experience.
it depends a lot on how the term is actually searched. look at Search Console or a keyword tool for the target country and see if people type the english term, the local one, or both, because for technical stuff it's often the english one by a mile. what usually works is making the local keyword the main target in title and h1, then using the english term naturally in the body and maybe one subheading. i'd skip a hybrid title unless the data shows both versions have real volume, otherwise it reads awkward to locals. and add hreflang so the localized page doesn't compete with your english version.
I'd start from the search data for each market rather than translating the English keyword list directly. Check Search Console and a local keyword tool to see whether people actually search in English, in the local language, or in a mix — for technical topics the English term often wins, while for everyday topics the local phrasing usually does. What tends to work well is making the local term the main target in the title and H1, and weaving the English term in naturally in the body where readers would genuinely use it. I'd avoid forcing both into the title unless both versions show real search volume, as it can read awkwardly to local readers. Two things worth getting right: use hreflang so the localised page does not compete with the English version, and have a native speaker review the final copy — a literal translation of an English keyword rarely matches how people actually search.
I would skip the hybrid title. Put the wording people actually search in that country in the title and H1, and if the English term still gets typed, drop it once into the opening paragraph or a subheading on that same page rather than building a second URL for it. Two pages aimed at the same service split the clicks, and a title that jams both languages together tends to read like it was written for a crawler. Also keep the Google Business Profile and the citations for that city in the same language as the page, or the listing and the site end up competing.
One check that hasn't come up yet: search the English term from the target country and look at what language the top results are in. If they are mostly English pages, Google is treating it as an English query and a translated page is unlikely to win it whatever you put in the title. If they are local-language pages that just use the English term, then the term belongs on your localized page and the title/H1 advice above applies. Search Console helps here too. Filter the performance report by country and see whether your English page already gets impressions there for that term. If it does and hreflang is set up, Google will usually swap in the local URL for those users anyway. The other thing I'd do is decide term by term once and keep it in a glossary: which technical words stay in English and which get translated. Without one, translators (or a translation model) flip between the two from page to page and neither version ends up used consistently.