A hotel with international guests, a staffing agency with workers from abroad or an online shop that also sells to Belgium and Germany: for many small businesses a second language is no luxury. Yet the setup often goes wrong. A translate button that converts the text in the browser, or one address that switches language per visitor, makes life hard for search engines and visitors alike.
A good multilingual site rests on four things: its own address per language, hreflang, translated metadata and a language choice the visitor makes.
Give every language its own URL
Google recommends putting each language version on its own URL. A search engine can then read and show each version separately. There are three common forms:
- A domain per country: for example a .nl and a .com. Strong if you work differently per country, but you manage more domains.
- A subfolder per language: for example example.nl/en/. Easy to manage and everything sits under one domain.
- A subdomain per language: for example en.example.nl. It works, but for most small-business sites it offers little over a subfolder.
Avoid choosing the language through a parameter in the URL or a cookie on the same address. A search engine then usually sees only one version.
Hreflang: tell search engines which version suits whom
Hreflang is a hint in the code or in your sitemap that says: this page also exists in Dutch, at this address. Google then shows an English-speaking searcher the English version and a Dutch searcher the Dutch one.
Where it often goes wrong
- No link back: if the Dutch page points to the English one, the English page has to point back. Otherwise the hint may be ignored.
- No link to itself: every page also lists its own language version in the hreflang set.
- Wrong codes: use valid language codes such as nl and en, optionally with a region such as nl-BE.
- Canonical to the other language: a translated page is not a copy. Let the canonical of each version point to itself.
With x-default you indicate which page a visitor gets when none of your languages fits, for example a page where they choose a language themselves.
Translate the metadata and the small texts too
Translating the visible text is half the work. What a visitor sees in Google should also be in their language.
- Title and description: each language version has its own title and meta description, written for how people search in that language.
- Addresses: a translated slug such as /en/services/ reads better than a Dutch word in an English address.
- Alt texts and buttons: image descriptions, buttons, error messages and form labels.
- Emails and confirmations: an English visitor who gets a Dutch confirmation email wonders whether their enquiry arrived properly.
- Structured data: the schema markup and the language attribute of the page belong to the right language as well.
Translate the meaning, not just the words. An English searcher uses different terms and sometimes expects different examples. Have key pages read by someone who knows the language well.
Do not redirect visitors automatically on browser language
It seems convenient: someone with an English browser lands straight on the English site. In practice it causes problems. A Dutch person with an English laptop gets the wrong language, and someone who shares a Dutch link sometimes sends another person to a different page than intended. Google also advises against automatic redirects, because the crawler may then not see all versions.
Better is a calm notice at the top, such as “This page is also available in Dutch”, and a language switch in the same place on every page. Remember the visitor’s choice, so they are not bounced back each time.
How to approach it step by step
- Choose the languages: start with the language there is real demand for, for example English for a hotel in Amsterdam.
- Choose the structure: own domain or subfolder, and stick with it.
- Start with the key pages: homepage, services, prices and contact. A blog archive can follow later, based on what people search for.
- Set hreflang and canonicals: check in Google Search Console that the links are read correctly.
- Test the whole route: from search result to form and confirmation email, in every language.
If you are converting an existing site to several languages, a lot changes in your addresses. Read our article on a website migration without losing ground in Google as well.
How we do it
The websites we build can be bilingual from the start: each language with its own addresses, hreflang, translated metadata and a language switch without automatic redirects. The confirmation emails and the forms follow the visitor’s language too.
Frequently asked questions
Is an automatic translate button enough?
It can help visitors, but search engines usually do not see that translation as a separate page. If you want to be found in another language, you need real translated pages on their own addresses.
Do I have to translate every page?
No. Start with the pages customers in that language really need. A page without a translation then gets no hreflang to the other language.
Does a translated page count as duplicate content?
No, a good translation in another language is not duplicate content. Do make sure each version has a canonical to itself.