Whether you are already running a website or you are currently looking for great ready-made business themes to build yours, multilingual should be a key feature to be considered. There are many metrics out there to support this intuitive statement, but if I should only pick 3 to illustrate that, it would be:
- 40% sales generated abroad for pure players web company
- 75% of internet users are non-English speakers
- 90% of non-English consumers won’t buy at English websites
So what are the key benefits of multilingual websites to take into accounts?
3 key benefits of multilingual websites
Making your website multilingual will help you to grow your business by leveraging 3 key aspects of any online activity:
- Increase your potential market: adding a new language will automatically increase the number of potential customers or readers you can reach
- Get higher conversion rate: whether you’re an e-commerce or showcase website, you’re looking for higher metrics, such as sales conversion, qualified leads per visitor or number of pages views by visitors
- Improve visitors/customers experience: with features such as language automatic detection, visitors will see your website in their language. It will increase the likelihood of converting them into customers
However, building a multilingual website might be tricky as they are several rules to follow to make sure you’re fully benefiting from this strategy.
3 key Google best practices to optimize SEO on multilingual websites
According to Google guidelines, they are several rules to follow to make sure your website is indexed and rank in all the translated versions:
- Use dedicated and unique URL for each translated version of your website page: for example, you should choose subdomains or subdirectories (such as de.example.com or example.com/de/ for German version for example). In any cases, Google does not recommend to choose URL parameter such as ?loc=de
- Add "hreflang" tags in the source code of the web page: it will indicate what are the current languages available on the website and which one is currently displayed
- Have translations in your source code: if you only display translations dynamically (with a JavaScript), Google will only see the original version and will not be able to index the translations
It might seem a little bit complex but hopefully, with a solution like Weglot (available on WordPress and Shopify), it’s automatically handled and set-up. You have nothing to do but focusing on your content.
2 examples of successful multilingual websites using Weglot
Let’s see 2 examples of successful multilingual websites using both WordPress and Shopify:
PATboard
A WooCommerce (WordPress e-commerce) website offering physical agile tools for your scrum board or kanban board. PATboard uses Weglot to power its website in 4 languages, with growing traffic in the related countries.
Léo et Violette
A Shopify e-commerce website offering beautiful leather goods for men and women. Léo et Violette uses Weglot to make its website available in 3 languages, reaching customers outside France, their base country.
How does Weglot help them with multilingualism?
Weglot service benefits are two-fold:
- Providing an optimized and ready-to-use multi lingual architecture: automatically creating and maintaining following the best practices described above
- Offering a unique place to manage translations: by default, Weglot delivers the first layer of machine translations provided by the best players available in the market (Microsoft notably), that users can easily change or edit using their Weglot account. It does not require any technical skills, you will not have to open a source file or a line of code. Additionally, you can also order professional translations from pro agencies that are directly plugged-in Weglot.
Wrapping-up about multilingual
Multilingual is a great strategy to quickly optimize your web presence in order to:
- Increase your reachable market, addressing more potential customers
- Improve your key conversion metrics through retention
- Enhance the overall customer and visitor experience on your website
While it used to be a complicated and time-consuming process, technically speaking, in particular, services such as Weglot make it easy and powerful. You can implement and manage your translations from one place without the historical hurdles and be sure they’re providing the best available solution, in line with Google best practices.
