Multilingual websites: the complete guide

If you don't have the faintest idea what this means, you are in the same boat as those who open a website and discover that they know little or nothing at all about the language it uses. (Don't worry: it was just a friendly "hello everyone" in Chinese, Swedish and Filipino).

Even if you sometimes don't think about it, most people on this earth don't speak the same language as us. That's precisely why it's important to have a multilingual website: it is advantageous for anyone who wants to build a solid online presence, and it is essential for companies that export their services abroad or that, in any case, deal with foreign customers.

Let's explore the topic together. We will better understand what a multilingual site is, what the benefits it guarantees are and, above all, how to create one like a pro and without making mistakes.

Let's proceed in order and let's start with a definition.

Generally, the site is identical in terms of graphics and structure for all available languages: what changes is only the language in which the content can be viewed by the user. But there are cases, as we shall see, in which the differences between the various language versions are more substantial.

The goal of a multilingual site, therefore, is clear: to reach and communicate with potential clients of different nationalities speaking, as far as possible, their own language or, at least, a language that they may be familiar with.

It has been shown that 8 out of 10 people prefer to read a website written in their native language and that they tend to stay longer on the website.

The fact is that there are over 7,000 languages in the world and it is certainly not possible to cover them all. Even narrowing down the circle by choosing only the most commonly spoken languages is not a winning strategy: there are still many and it is not guaranteed that they will satisfy our users.

So how can we understand which languages we should translate the content of our website? The best approach is to start from the analysis of your reference targets. The languages into which a website must be translated are those of the people (or markets) you want to address. Analyzing website access data can help you understand the countries from which visits come and, more precisely, to identify the languages to be developed.

Generally, considering that each additional language requires an investment of time and resources, it's worth your while to carefully choose 2 or 3 languages indispensable for talking to your audience. If needed, you'll always be able, in the future, to add other new languages to the site.

In general, answering this question is very simple: you have to translate everything!

Let's say, for example, that you have decided to have a site in Italian and English. You could create the Italian version, make a copy of it and then replace all the Italian text with the English translations.

During this process, you have to be meticulous and find every piece of content: not only page content and articles but also buttons, menu items, form labels, footers, legal notices, privacy policies, etc. Every piece of content, from the most substantial and evident, to the smallest and most hidden, must be translated and replaced.

Translating everything to get versions that differ only in language is certainly feasible for relatively simple websites. However, when websites are very rich in pages, functions and content, things can change. In these cases, it could be strategically more advantageous to decide to localize only some parts of the original site.

Always start with your audience: think about what they really need to know and based on this decide what is essential to keep in the translated version of your website. There will be some parts that you must keep (the mission, services, etc.), and others that you can omit: if you make the right choices, you will get a "lighter" but equally effective version of your site.

If you are thinking of using a machine translation service to translate your website content, before proceeding, stop for a moment to reflect on the implications of your choice.

It is true that in our everyday lives Google translate is able to help us a great deal with languages and that the quality of translations - especially in some languages - has improved over time. Despite this, it remains an unsuitable tool for translating a professional website. Google Translate fails to grasp the linguistic nuances of content and is inaccurate, sometimes making major mistakes. It is quite likely that the final result will be of poor quality and that this will cause distrust in your international audience.

To have the guarantee of obtaining content that is not only correct, but also perfectly adapted for the destination country (number or date formats, local expressions, etc.), you should rely on the services of professional translators. You can use specialized agencies or freelancers who also offer their services through portals. The most sensible advice we can give you is to take some time to evaluate alternative offers and identify the one that can guarantee you the best relationship between the cost and the quality of the service offered.

If until recently, talking about these 2 approaches - automatic translation with Google Translate and professional translators - would have exhausted the subject, today, one additional player has entered the field, which should not in any way be underestimated: Artificial intelligence. Not only can we find generative AIs like ChatGPT, which are able to write content in different languages, but there are also assistants based on Artificial Intelligence specific for the translation of text content. One of them is DeepL which, while offering automatic translations, promises results 3 times more accurate than its competitors. You can try the service for free and then eventually upgrade to a paid plan to continue using the system. Before proceeding further, the service is definitely worth testing.

When it comes to multilingual websites, the question of text localization is central, but the aspects related to graphics are also equally important: in this case, in fact, the effort to guarantee an optimal user experience is multiplied, as it is necessary to satisfy all the nuances implicit in a wider and more diverse audience.

Here are some key aspects to keep in mind when designing the layout of a multilingual site:

The positive aspect is that a site that offers content in multiple languages is appreciated not only by users, but also by search engines which, in general, reward them as being able to guarantee a better user experience. To obtain this result and see our site well positioned in the Search Engine Results Pages of the countries we are interested in reaching, however, we have to work on the International SEO aspect, intervening on technical aspects such as URL architecture, tags and page codes.

There are essentially 3 domain name strategies you can adapt to help search engines find and understand which country and language your website targets: