1. English proofreading was absolutely necessary since the English original was compiled by Thai speakers and very often was simply unintelligible.
   
   
2. Restructuring the classification taxonomy according to the rules of common logic also took a lot of negotiating. The situation uncannily resembled the one described in Borges' The Analytical Language of John Wilkins.
   
   On one hand, more general notions belong to the higher levels in the taxonomy. For example: Metals > Aluminum > Extruded Aluminum. On the other hand, customers may want to have their product name to be in the general category, even if it is "pig iron moulds".
   
   To top it off, general notions words for Thais do not necessarily "click" as also implying less general notions. For example, Automotive Industry does not really appear as the place where you would look for Auto Spare Parts.
   
   
3. To overcome the problem of American and British spelling/usage differences in the directory's English version, the Standard American variant was used as the main with a cross-reference to the British variant.
   
   
4. English-Thai translation. The main problem was the sheer volume: information about apprx. 800 companies and their products or services, thousands of HTML and CFM pages, huge ACCESS database files, animated images, multi-level cross-linking inside the directory. Also, the translation of very specific technical terms turned out to be a formidable task. In the process, a Thai-English-Thai Searchable Technical Terms Glossary was developed.
   
   
5. Developing a uniform system of transcribing Thai names in English was essential for search engine optimization (SEO). The official transcription follows the complicted Thai spelling rather than phonetics and is not uniformly used. Some Thai street names have up to at least 6 commonly used ways of English spelling (Suriwong, Surawong, Suriwongse, Surawongse, Suriyawongs, Surawongs) or even an altogether different translated name (Jaroen Krung Road - New Road).
   
   
6. Graphics made in Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and PaintShop Pro, Multilingual Windows 2000. The main challenge was fitting the 3-layer Thai writing and long formal words into the space provide by the original English layout. For example:
   
   

   English image:

   Thai image:

   
   or:
   

   English image:

   Thai image:

   
   or:

   mixed graphics :

   
   
   
7. Keywords adjustment here meant tedious translation of thousand entries mostly consisting of technical terms. The abundance of keyword related information on the web site allowed a very rapid improvement of both site traffic and search engine rankings. In the process I compiled a Thai-English-Thai searchable glossary of technical terms.
   
   
8. Search engine optimization (SEO) was geared mainly towards Google as there are actually no keyword-oriented Thai search engines. Individually adjusted English and Thai web pages helped boost traffic dramatically - from around 100 to 50,000 visitors per month. Achieved 1st - 3rd place in Google's keyword search ranking both in English and Thai: try searching any "Thai + industrial product" combination in Google.
   
   
9. Online marketing is an ongoing process. Exchanging links was done mostly with Thai online directories and industry-related Thai web sites: industry associations, foreign chambers of commerce, periodicals. Bilingual newsletter with newest industry updates geared towards both directory's customers and web site visitors proved a powerful tool for worldwide targeted PR.

I managed to use the wealth of knowledge I acquired working with Thailand Business Pages when I became Thailand Industries Editor providing listings and link reviews for Google, Yahoo!, Alta-Vista among many others.