Should your website be in more than one language?
If you already answer the phone in more than one language, your website can do the same. Customers who would rather read in Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole or any other language can get fully translated versions of the pages they actually use.
Start with your phone
Start with who already calls you. If your staff regularly switch languages on the phone, your site should offer those languages too. If nearly everyone you serve uses one language, put the effort into your main pages first.
How Google handles more than one language
- Give each language its own web address, rather than swapping the words with cookies or browser settings.
- Translate whole pages, not just the menu and buttons.
- Let people switch languages with a visible link, instead of sending them to a language automatically.
- Tell Google which pages are translations of each other, with tags called hreflang.
All four come from Google’s own guidance for sites in more than one language.
A site we built
The site we built for 1st Choice Financial, a Miami mortgage brokerage, is in English and Spanish. The Spanish pages have their own web address, and visitors choose with an EN and ES switch at the top of the page.
Ads in each language
If you run Google Ads in another language, write the ads in that language and set the campaign’s language to match. We give ads in each language their own ad groups, and send every ad to the page in the same language.
Questions
Can I just add a translate button?
A translate widget changes the words on screen, but Google recommends a separate address for each language version of a page. That way Google can show the right language version to the right person.
Should the site switch language automatically?
Google advises against redirecting people to another language on its own, because it can stop people and search engines from seeing every version. A visible switch lets people choose.
Do I need to translate every page?
Translate the pages people use in that language, all the way through. Google warns that translating only the menus and leaving the main text in one language makes for a poor experience.
What languages can you build in?
Any language your customers use, in as many languages as you need.
Have customers in more than one language?
See how we build websites, read what your website needs before you run ads, or book a call and tell us which languages your customers use.