When DeepL met Nature House

Nature House (also known as Natuurhuisje in the Netherlands) is on a mission to protect local biodiversity by inviting people to enjoy nature. Founded by two brothers, the company provides nature houses–unique places across Europe, hidden in nature, far away from the crowds. Committed to sustainability, the company currently donates 5% of its revenue to local biodiversity projects, with plans to increase this as the company grows.

With nearly 9,000 houses in the Netherlands and ever-growing demand for listings in Belgium, Germany and beyond; Nature House needed a scalable solution to help them meet their growth targets. They chose DeepL not only to automate their translations, but to capture the nuances of a peer-to-peer rental community and lower the SEO costs associated with on-demand localisation.

Built on reviews

For a service-based offering like Nature House, reviews are crucial. Without the insights that reviews provide, holidaymakers are less likely to book rentals; and without these bookings, landlords won’t list their homes. Which means less business will be generated and less impact on biodiversity can be made.

The problem is reviews are often provided in a range of different languages. That’s why the ability to unlock them in the language of the customer became such a huge priority for the Nature House team.

‘Costing-more-per-click’

Although based in the Netherlands, properties listed on natuurhuisje.nl attract guests from multiple neighbouring countries just an hour or two away by car. But despite being so near, visitors from these countries still typically don’t speak Dutch.

To accommodate for this, any reviews on the sites originally required prospective guests to click ‘Translate’, even if they had already done so on a previous visit to the sites, or in another browser tab. An inconvenience to them perhaps, but for Nature House, it meant incurring a cost for every click. Even the repeated ones.

Why DeepL?

“We had already been using DeepL for a limited number of translations and found it to be the best in terms of quality and experience."

Rick Naebers, Product Manager, Nature House

• The natural choice

The team at Nature House began using free translations from DeepL when translating their websites into the multiple languages needed to serve audiences outside the Netherlands. In the early days, this was mostly limited to translating their native Dutch, but the process was manual and time consuming.

Yet the localisation worked, and demand for Nature Houses continued to increase rapidly in neighbouring Germany and Belgium, necessitating a German-based team. It soon became apparent that manual translations were no longer going to cut it. Not if they needed to localise listings at scale to help guests get a better understanding of the properties before they booked.

That’s when, as Rick recollects, they began using DeepL API: “The translations are good, and that’s just so important.” After checking out the alternatives, it became clear to Rick and the team that “the DeepL translation experience was actually the best.” The shift to DeepL API Pro came with other benefits, too. Nature House was able to access the same DeepL quality , but with additional data security measures, no volume restrictions, and prioritised execution of requests by the DeepL team.

“We translated reviews for the first time with DeepL, and it made a huge difference for our guests. DeepL helped us localise content, so we could easily cater to the German and French markets."

Rick Naebers, Product Manager, Nature House

What happened next: the DeepL difference

From ‘cost-per-click’ to greater value

Before implementing DeepL API, most content was localised manually. And where it wasn’t, each individual click of the translate button on the Nature House websites cost the company money. Additionally, because the translations generated by those clicks weren’t saved, a single user would often repeat the same translation multiple times before deciding to book a property. With the shift to DeepL, however, the company had—for the first time—the ability to generate fixed translations, for both property descriptions and reviews.

With DeepL API, the product team implemented a new model that meant once a review is translated, that same review would be made available to other visitors. This incremental, on-demand translation limited character usage, ensuring no huge fluctuations in their API costs. On top of this, the removal of cost-per-click translations managed to both reduce costs and save valuable time, enabling Rick and the team to focus on new projects and markets.

SEO you later

Newly equipped with fixed translations, Nature House discovered even more benefits to scrapping its cost-per-click model. For one, its advertisements held greater SEO value, meaning landlords were able to see their properties appear far higher up the search engine rankings. As Rick points out, when the content is in a user’s native language, they’re more likely to engage with it; and the numbers prove his point. After integrating DeepL API for fixed translations, Nature House saw a decrease in the ad bounce rate of 5%, with users spending 13% more time on the ad click-thru.

“DeepL was actually cheaper than using Google’s cost-per-click, which also didn’t provide SEO value."

Rick Naebers, Product Manager, Nature House

Sustainable spending

Because their ethos is sustainable growth for people and the planet, Nature House had to balance the cost of any solution against its cost-effectiveness to not jeopardise profitability. Based on their previous cost-per-click model, Rick estimated that the company was paying up to €15,000 annually just on clicks – a figure that was only going to increase with more visitors to the sites.

A painless upgrade

Change always has the potential to cause issues. But the developers at Nature House harnessed DeepL API Pro to deliver the translation of property descriptions in a single sprint.

“Our developers found DeepL easy to integrate, and it was straightforward to use with our platform."

Rick Naebers, Product Manager, Nature House

Enabling cultural nuances

In most markets, Nature House uses a ratings scale of 1 to 10, whereby 1 is the worst and 10 is the best. It also has a “nature experience” rating that sits on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest. In some markets however, it’s reversed, with 1 being the best and 5 the worst.

This difference could easily lead to misunderstandings for guests booking across different regions. But with DeepL, the translation—and therefore the context—is immediately apparent. Because of this, Rick has not reported any issues from customers misunderstanding the ratings.

Win-win-win-win

By unlocking greater detail for site visitors via landlords listings and guests reviews, the Nature House team has created a win-win situation for both audiences.

Landlords now have clearer ads that make it easier for potential guests to understand their offering and book properties.

And Nature House has seen an increase in bookings and profitability, meaning an increase in their annual donation to local biodiversity projects year-on-year.

“DeepL’s translations helped avoid misunderstandings caused by language differences, especially with ratings and reviews."

Rick Naebers, Product Manager, Nature House

So now what?

By harnessing DeepL API Pro to swap click-based translations for a fixed model, Nature House leveled up its European expansion, slashing costs while greatly enhancing the user experience and search rankings.

"Before DeepL, every translation had a cost. Now, with fixed translations, we save money and time, while improving the user experience."

Rick Naebers, Product Manager, Nature House

Crystal clear descriptions of nature houses and reviews drive bookings and continue to helpcreate memorable guest experiences, while ensuring the green heart of Nature House remainscentral to the business. And as the portfolio of Nature House continues to grow across thecontinent and across language barriers, a more cost-effective business opens up greaterfunding opportunities for local biodiversity initiatives.