Expand your Drupal website content both in volume and languages

If you are reading this post, you most likely already understand the power of localization for your localization expansion efforts. If not, this not, this Localization 101 Guide will help you quickly get up to speed.

TL;DR Localization can help you expand your market, audience, and reach by leveraging what you already have — not necessarily creating something new!

Chances are that you already have a good amount of content available in a language on your Drupal CMS that you want to translate and make available to a wider audience. You also have already set up a workflow for your developers and content authors for adding new sections and articles to your web application.

Taking localization into account will require a whole different dimension to the above workflow, where more people with linguistic skill sets should be added to the teams you already manage.

This new team of translators will be interested in specific aspects of your content while your existing team of authors will have to adjust their workflow to a new level. Adding localized versions of your content in Drupal will complicate things.

You can expect your authors to use a lot more the Language Filter to exclude content in other languages; the same stands true for your translators if they use Drupal’s interface for translations.

As more people work on Drupal CMS your management work will scale. You will have to streamline work between original content authors and translators, manage any edits and decide on what’s ready for publishing.

Additionally, translators working on the Drupal interface will be using a page similar to the one authors are using. Translators are usually interested in a different set of tools than your content authors, which will help them stay consistent in their translations and take into account terms and articles already translated.

Managing all these communications, content and people is multiplied by a big factor when entering localization and is one thing you should deeply consider.

Summing up, here’s a breakdown of what we analyzed above:

• A new set of people and translators will be added to your team
• Translators needs are different than your original content authors needs
• More content will be added to your Drupal CMS and all collaborators working on that content will have to manage it.
• Overview work will scale up as well, encompassing that new content and set of people

The good thing about what we described above is that there is a clear separation of concerns as well as different workflow between your existing collaborators and new ones, working on translations:

• New content is always added in a default language
• Translations should happen on top of the existing content

You have already addressed your existing workflow using your Content Management System. To solve the new workflow and collaborators you need a new system, the Translation Management System (TMS). The TMS is fitted to your new collaborator needs as well as your needs on managing the translated content, check out what Transifex has to offer.

The final step that’s needed is an interface to connect your CMS with your TMS, a pipeline transferring content between the two systems. To do that Transifex offers a Drupal 8 Integration, managing exchange of localizable content between the two systems.

From now own you manage your translators and translated content in Transifex, and your original content directly on Drupal, utilizing the best tools for each job!

To access integrations like this one and start translating your content, unlock the power of localization with this free 15-day trial of Transifex.