A holiday home that wants Dutch and German guests, a tradesperson working just across the border, a web shop that also delivers to Belgium and Germany, or a company doing business internationally: for more and more business owners, one language on the website isn’t enough. But adding a second or third language is more than a translate button. In this article you’ll learn when a multilingual website is worth it, what it costs and how to do it so that every language actually gets found in Google.
When is a second language worth it?
Three signs that it’s time:
- You’re already getting customers from another language area. Look at the country and language of your visitors in Google Analytics or Search Console. If 10% or more come from Germany or France, you’re leaving revenue on the table with one language.
- Your competitors are doing it. Search for your service in German or French. Do businesses from your region appear in that language? Then your single-language site is losing to them.
- Your product travels. Holiday rentals, tourism, export, international services: your customer searches in their own language, wherever you are based.
Not sure? Start with one extra language, the one with the most opportunity, and check in Search Console after a few months what it brings in.
Step 1: choose your languages based on customers, not gut feeling
English as the “international language” sounds logical, but a German guest looking for a holiday home searches in German. Choose the language of your actual customers. Every extra language means extra maintenance: every new page, every blog article and every price change has to be carried through. Two languages you keep up to date are better than five that go stale.
Step 2: translate, but don’t translate literally
A good translation is more than the same sentences in another language. A German customer expects a formal form of address (Sie), a Belgian uses different words than a Dutch person, and an English-speaking visitor wants to know whether your prices include VAT and in which currency. Have your key pages (home, services, contact, quote) checked by a native speaker. A literally translated slogan is the fastest way to look unprofessional.
Machine translation (DeepL, Google Translate, AI) is fine as a starting point, especially for long texts like blog articles. But never publish it unchecked. Google explicitly names large amounts of automatically translated text without human review as something that can hurt your rankings, and readers notice within two sentences.
Step 3: choose the right structure for your web addresses
There are three ways to put languages in your web address, each with pros and cons:
| Structure | Example | For whom |
|---|---|---|
| Subfolder | yourcompany.com/de/ | Most businesses. One website, one domain, all your findability in one place. This is what we use ourselves. |
| Subdomain | de.yourcompany.com | Technically a separate site; Google partly treats it as a new domain. Rarely the best choice. |
| Country domain | yourcompany.de | If you have a real branch or your own marketing in that country. Strongest local signal, but two websites to maintain. |
Always avoid one thing: a translate button that swaps the text on the same page without changing the address. Google then sees only one language and the others can’t be found.
Step 4: translate what visitors don’t see, too
Every language version needs its own page title, meta description, web address (slug) and alt texts for images. A German page with an English title in Google is a missed click. Also translate the menus, buttons, error messages, the contact form and the automatic confirmation email. It’s exactly those small things that decide whether a foreign visitor trusts you.
Step 5: tell Google which language belongs to which country (hreflang)
With a small piece of code on every page, the hreflang reference, you tell Google: “this is the German version of that English page”. That way Google shows a German searcher your German page and not your English one. Without hreflang, Google sometimes sees your translations as duplicate content, or shows the wrong language. Good multilingual plugins set this automatically; still check it with a free hreflang checker.
Step 6: choose tools you can maintain
For WordPress there are two widely used plugins: Polylang (free basic version, every translation is its own page) and WPML (paid, with built-in translation help). Both handle hreflang, the language switcher and translated menus correctly. Automatic “translate everything” services that convert the text live are tempting, but give you little control over quality and are often hard to find in search. Our own website runs in five languages with Polylang, and every text has been reviewed.
Step 7: leave the language choice to the visitor
Put a clear language switcher at the top of every page, with the language name in that language (Deutsch, Français), not just a flag: a flag stands for a country, not a language. Don’t redirect visitors automatically based on their location. A Dutch person on holiday in Germany just wants the Dutch page, and Google’s crawler, which comes from the US, would otherwise only see your English version.
What does a multilingual website cost?
Roughly count on three items: the technology (plugin, setup, language switcher, hreflang), the translation itself (per word or per page; with machine translation as a base plus human review you’re considerably cheaper off than with a fully manual translation) and maintenance: every change in one language has to be carried through to the others. That last one is forgotten most often and is the reason many multilingual sites have outdated translations after a year. So agree in advance who keeps it up to date.
The most common mistakes
- Translating only the homepage; the rest stays in one language.
- Literal translations of slogans and jargon.
- A translate button without its own web address per language.
- No hreflang, so Google shows the wrong language.
- A contact form that sends confirmation emails in the wrong language.
- Translations that are never updated after launch.
Read more about getting found in Google and AI search engines in Findable in Google and AI; how to see which countries and languages your visitors already come from is explained in Google Search Console for beginners.
Want to know whether an extra language is worth it for you?
Leave your website address below. We’ll look at which countries and languages your visitors currently come from, how your website is doing technically and what an extra language could bring you. You’ll receive a personal report by email. Free and without obligation.
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