At Come Alive Communications, we are ready to help our clients develop or maintain a state-of-the art website, intranet site or e-commerce solution in one language or in several. We have helped many of our clients launch simple websites in one language, as well as fully-programmed websites in several languages. We also regularly translate and publish clients’ existing sites into other languages, producing what are known as “mirror” sites that may or may not link to the original site. Utilizing state-of-the-art equipment and software, we strive to provide superior output in the following areas:

Website development… With the rise of e-commerce and growing dependence on the internet as a secure medium and a reliable, efficient source of information, organizations have come to recognize their website is an important part of their profile. Indeed, the worldwide web offers an unprecedented opportunity to inform, educate, market and minister in a completely new way, and to reach vast audiences in previously untapped international populations.

Though we often refer to the internet as the "worldwide" web, the potential to promote services, information and products on a global level is in the fetal stage. Since corporate American English is viewed as the internet's "standard" language, focusing on English has been the main solution for many multinational companies and organizations. An English-only site is still an adequate answer for many, and may also be a good starting point for larger organizations.

Multilingual website development has grown in a somewhat haphazard way, with various approaches. Some organizations have merely duplicated their existing website in different languages (the "global content" approach), while others have permitted complete autonomy to their divisional branches or offices which add "local content" to their site. Whatever the client’s preference, Come Alive Communications can help survey the goals and monitor the progress of an ideal web solution.

Website maintenance… Website maintenance has historically been left to the webmaster, who implements changes, updates and additions as he/she is directed. This may be adequate for single-language websites, but is indisputably more difficult to manage for every additional language added to the site. The most challenging aspects include coordination of effort, translation, review, QA, approval (on multiple levels) and publishing.

The big challenge for many organizations is keeping the English and foreign language versions of their site fully synchronized. For example, if one section or even one word of an original site is updated, corresponding sections of the foreign language sites must also be updated accordingly and efficiently. The changes are often small, but the effort, elapsed time and costs associated with keeping a multilingual website current can be high, especially if it is improperly managed. Every single text or graphic change to a site may need to be synchronized simultaneously in perhaps twenty languages.

The challenge of the next round of website administration is to put as much control as possible into the hands of the content creators rather than the webmasters. As certain elements of a site are automated, they can be updated almost automatically in numerous languages. The added plus of a database-driven solution can be a highly effective way to help efficiently manage evolving multilingual content.

This results in greatly reduced response times, and the logistics of updates are eased. The "worldwide web" truly earns its name, as organizations and their messages can reach all corners of the globe.

Come Alive’s digital design team and multilingual web developers are here to assist your organization with web updating, development and website maintenance on a regular or intermittent basis – in one language or in several. Our only gauge of success is perfection itself.