When it pays off
A multilingual website pays off when an important share of your customers doesn't speak your language: tourism, boating, export, services for people relocating, businesses near borders or in international cities. Adding languages «for completeness» doesn't: every language has to be maintained over time.
Which languages to choose
Start from data: where your customers come from, which languages your staff hear most, which countries enquiries arrive from. Three complete, careful languages beat eight left half-done.
English is often the right second language, but not always: for a business near the French border, French may matter more.
Every language must be complete
A half-translated version does more harm than no translation. Menus, buttons, forms, error messages, image descriptions, titles and descriptions for search engines all need translating too. And the language switcher should lead to the equivalent page, not the home page.
Being found in every country
Each language needs its own addresses (for example /en/ for English) and links that tell search engines which pages correspond. That way, people searching in German find the German version.
Automatic translation is a good starting point; key copy — the home page, services, terms — is worth having reviewed by a native speaker.
- Separate addresses for each language
- hreflang links between versions
- Translated titles and descriptions
- Native review of key copy