Translating your service menu: names, descriptions, and what to leave as is

Translate a service menu by rewriting it, not by converting it word for word. Give each service an English name a customer would actually type, keep the original name next to it, and add two or three sentences on what happens and what the customer gets. Leave prices, durations and your business name as they are.

A word-for-word translation keeps the grammar of the original and loses the words customers use. A renovation company can list “plasterboard finishing works” and be technically correct. A customer in the US types “drywall repair.” The menu is accurate and nobody finds it.

The cost of a bad menu isn’t only the booking you miss. It’s also the wrong booking you get: a customer who guessed at a name, booked the wrong slot, and is surprised by the price or the length when they arrive.

How to recognize it yourself

Each check takes a minute or two. Open your menu the way a customer sees it, logged out.

• Count the names that exist in one language only. Any service without an English name fails.
• Count the descriptions. Write it down as “X of Y services have a description.”
• Look for in-house words. Abbreviations, internal codes, trade shorthand only your staff use. Each one is a name a customer can’t read, in any language.
• Run the two-minute test. Give an English-speaking friend a need (“my oven is filthy and I’m moving out”) and your menu. Ask them to pick a service. If they hesitate or pick wrong, the names fail.
• Check the shape of the list. One long flat list, or groups a customer can scan?
• Check that every service shows a price and a duration. A missing duration is how a customer books a slot that’s too short.

What to do

1. Copy the current menu: every name, price and duration, exactly as it is.
2. Describe each service in one plain sentence in the original language first. You describe your own work most clearly in the language you work in.
3. Name each service in English, using the words a customer would type. The dictionary equivalent is often a different word.
4. Keep the original name beside the English one. Your current customers still find what they always booked.
5. Translate the description, not the name. Keep it to two or three sentences: what happens, how long it takes, what the customer leaves with, and anything they need to prepare.
6. Group the services under a few headings a customer would scan for.
7. Bundle services that people already book together into packages.
8. Test the finished menu on one English-speaking reader before you publish it.

Machine translation gives you a draft. It is fine for step 5. It is where step 3 usually goes wrong, because it picks the correct word instead of the word people search for.

A description does not need to be long. Three examples from other trades:

English name	Description
Move-out cleaning	The empty home cleaned top to bottom, including inside the oven, fridge and cabinets. We bring the supplies. Book it after the furniture is out.
Drywall patch and paint	Holes and cracks filled, sanded and painted to match the wall. Clear the area around the wall before we arrive.
Party catering tray	A shared tray of mixed savory dishes, ready to serve. Order ahead and pick it up, or ask about delivery.

Each one answers the same three questions: what happens, what the customer does, what they get. None of them says “high quality” or “professional.” The customer can’t check those, so they read past them.

What to leave as is

• Prices and durations. Change them for business reasons, in a separate step. If both change at once, you won’t know which one moved your bookings.
• Your business name. It’s how people who already know you find you again.
• The original service names. Next to the English, so regulars still recognize them.
• Your reviews. They are your customers’ words. Reply to them, don’t edit them.
• Prices inside service names. Keep them out of the name and in the price field. Google Business Profile asks for custom service names without prices or phone numbers, and rejects names that break its policy.

src · Google Business Profile Help: Manage your services on your Business Profile

A translated menu makes you readable. It doesn’t make you findable on its own. That depends on categories and service types, covered in Your business is invisible outside your language.

If you want a second pair of eyes on your menu before you rewrite it, ask for a free visibility audit.