What cost the localization of a website?

[Maria Luisa La Marca]

Hi everybody,

I've been asked to localize an italian web-site about diet, wellness, light recipes and psychologichal support for diets.

I still don't know very well how much money I am supposed to ask and which are the criterias.

The job is the following:

Searching a good domain
Keywords optimization
Translating content in spanish (at least 300 posts)

Translating the content of the diet with which their application works, with the help of a local dietist.

Finding also a psychologist who cooperates for supporting the posts.

Making short videos about the recipes and the advices of the dietist.

I thought I should ask a fix amount for the job abd then a fix amount for the maintenaince and furthermore commissions if the website works.

But I don't know very well on which basis to calculate the amount.

They gain money with advertising, have about 30.000 followers in facebook and ranked 1,745 in Italy, according to ALexa.

I hope somebody of you experts could help me!

Thank you very much in advance!

Maria Luisa

[Rick Yagodich]

Oh, fun. How much to charge…

While I (and many others on this side of the consulting divide) like the idea of commission based on site success, the reality is that very few clients will buy in to that. They fully expect it to work, and make them loads of money, so see no reason to split the profits. You will do much better with a fixed price, and the possibility (no lock-in) of maintenance.

However, there is one critical thing to do when pitching fixed price: define very specifically what they will be getting. This isn't "translation of 300 posts," it is "translation of 300 posts, with one round of amends, feedback on the originally submitted translations being provided no later than one week after said translations are delivered (rolling process)." The key here is that you don't open yourself up to re-re-reworking things ad infinitum, and also that you do not leave yourself hanging, waiting for them to finish their part of the process, without income and unable to move on to your next project. (I was once on a project where someone stated "we will provide enough content"… and for months, there was a consistent refrain coming from the client "that's not enough".) Of course, when they miss deadlines, or want more revisions, those are available as change requests, with appropriate additional pricing. (It may be worth building a certain amount of change request padding into the initial quote.)

Alternatively, you can tell them a daily rate, and give an estimate, and work to that. Again, let them know the time they have to turn things around, and how downtime based on their failures will be billed (because it should be; I'll let you come up with less blunt wording).

One thing to consider, of course, is the overall viability of the project. What is their budget? And can you reasonably envisage delivering within those constraints. Don't be put off if your figure is higher than theirs. But if your first draft of costs will come in at 10 times what they think they can get away with paying, you might want to bat that scope back to them before wasting time with the full quote.

Rick

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[Bill Swallow]

You have a few things going on here...

Translation (usually billed per word)

Content Strategy (usually billed hourly)

Domain registration (usually flat rate based on domain price and markup for your time)

Project Management (sometimes a % of the total project cost, sometimes hourly)

Talent acquisition (up to you)

Content development (usually hourly with a scoped baseline)

I would not go flat rate. You will be losing out in that arrangement.

Hope this helps.

Bill

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Bill Swallow
Writing and Content Strategy Consultant

http://www.linkedin.com/in/techcommdood

[Maria Luisa La Marca]

Thank you very much guys!

Maria Luisa