Creating a multilingual website doesn't need to be a complex task. With the right planning, tools, and guidance, anyone can efficiently create a globally accessible site for everyone despite the all-so-common language barrier. Read on as we explore five key steps and options that can make developing an international web presence simple and effective.
1. Set Up a Separate Domain for Each Language
Setting up a separate domain for each language is essential in making sure that all of your site’s users can access the contentregardless of their geographic location. It allows you to easily direct each user to pages written in their preferred language, granting them access to all its resources quickly and efficiently. By setting up separate domains for different languages, you also avoid potential complications from combining different languages on the same page.
2. Learn the Languages You Can and Translate Web Pages Yourself
If you're able to learn an additional language or two, you can take on the task of translating websites yourself. Manually translated content not only gives your website an authentic look and feel, but also gives you a chance to better connect with your visitors and address their pain points. It is also beneficial for SEOpurposes, as we shall see below.
Thankfully, there are many ways to learn a new language easily these days, thanks to the internet. When targeting a French audience, for instance, you can join live French classes with Lingodaor a similar service that helps you build proficiency in the language quickly and easily. Some of the best online language-learning apps and platforms also have extra resources like downloadable audio and video tutorials designed to help you become better and more comfortable speaking the language.
Over time, this will make it easier to accurately translate website content, thus providing visitors with a better online experience. It also helps make sure the search engines easily understand what each page is about.
3. Have an Automated Translation Application Handle Content Translation
Another great option is to get an automated translation application like Google’s Translate App or Microsoft Bing's translating tools involved in the language conversion process. Basically, automated translation apps allow your website to automatically convert content into various languages based on individual user preferences and settings.
With this approach, you can access a larger global audience with content catering to multiple languages and cultural references. Optionally, you could hire professional writing and translation specialists, but this usually means forkingmore from your budget.
4. Implement Browser Language Detection Recognition Tools
From the likes of Geo Targetly, GlobalSignal Network, and BrowserStack, browser language detectiontools are incredibly useful when developing a multilingual website. It allows the platform to detect and identify the preferred language of each user, granting them access to pages written in that specific language.
Not only is this an efficient way of organizing content, but it also ensures your users get exactly what they need without delay or inconvenience caused by scrolling through irrelevant information in a different tongue than their own.
5. Optimize SEO Settings for Multiple Languages
When implemented correctly, search engine optimization(SEO) settings can greatly benefit multilingual sites. SEOcan help your website become more visible in different areas depending on the main language used there.
Remember, language is an important ranking factor on Google, especially for sites serving a multilingual audience. To ensure this optimization is implemented effectively, make sure to use unique titles and meta descriptionsfor each page. Additionally, try to include targeted keywords that are relevant to the language being used on each page, as well as localized backlinksfrom other websites of the same locale or in the same language.
This will help engines like Google to recognize what content should be appearing at the top of its results pages from your site, irrespective of the language used to perform the online search.
Creating a multilingual website isn't exactly a walk in the park, but it is very much doable if you know the important measures to take and the tools to implement. With the above few steps implemented, your site could start providing multilingual visitors with content tailored to their specific needs in no time.