Three tips for multilingual website optimisation

An effective multilingual website is the key for companies looking to reach an international audience and strengthen their competitiveness. But it is about more than just translating texts. To succeed globally, your website needs to be localised, that is to say adapted for each language and culture – something that makes things easier for customers and strengthens your brand.

A well-optimised website not only helps visitors find what they are looking for, but also builds trust and loyalty. With the right strategy, you can create a user experience that feels natural and relevant, no matter where your visitors come from.

At your company, you probably already have a good idea of which markets you should focus on, but if the original website is in English, it can be a good idea to analyse your visitors – for example via web statistics and customer data – so that you can identify which markets have the greatest potential. It is often better to focus on quality rather than quantity – a website that has been carefully translated into a few languages inspires greater trust among your visitors than a website that is available in many languages where the language does not quite hit the mark.

Here we share three important tips for when you are ready to translate your website into other languages.

Tips 1. Focus on localisation, not just translation

Localisation means adapting content to the cultural and linguistic context of the local market. It is about more than just translating words – localisation creates a sense that the website has been created specifically for that target audience.

A local customisation means, for example:

• Date and time format
  In Sweden, it is most common to write dates as 2025-06-15, whereas other countries, for example, use 15 June 2025 or 15/06/2025.
  
• Currencies and units of measurement
  Swedish visitors expect prices in kronor (SEK) and weights in kilograms. An American visitor and a British visitor both understand English, but have, for example, different ideas of how many litres a gallon is. Therefore, units of measurement may also need to be adapted for each country, not just for each language.
  
• Idioms and proverbs
  Expressions like There is no immediate danger hands a miss is as good as a mile cannot be translated literally into other languages, but must be adapted appropriately to be understood.
  
• Cultural nuances
  Images and texts should reflect the norms and holidays that exist in the country where they are to be used. For example, Midsummer is an important tradition in Sweden, but it is relatively unknown in other countries.

Tips 2. SEO optimisation for multilingual websites

Being visible on Google and other search engines is just as important internationally as it is on the home market. For a multilingual website, you need to ensure that each language version is optimised for search engines (SEO).

Here are some important steps:

• Create unique URLs for each language page, for example dinsida.se/en for Swedish and dinsida.se/en for English.
• Adapt keywords and content for each language version. Directly translated keywords rarely work well – instead, conduct a thorough keyword analysis for each market.
• Update metadata (title, description) and image alt texts for each language.

An SEO-optimised multilingual website increases your visibility globally and enables more customers to find your service.

Tip 3. Quality assure the website's translation

Poor or incorrect translations can quickly undermine your company's credibility. Language is not just words – it is communication and trust.

To ensure high quality in the translation of your website, you should 

• collaborate with professional translators who have a local understanding of the language and culture
• avoid machine translations that lack nuance and can often lead to misunderstandings
• review and quality assure the content regularly to keep it up to date and accurate.

An accurate and natural translation not only creates a better reading experience, but also strengthens your brand as professional and customer-focused. A technical description that is incorrectly translated, on the other hand, can confuse the user and in the worst case lead to them leaving the page. With a quality-assured text, the website is perceived as secure and clear, and inspires trust in the reader.

Technical solutions for automatic language identification

There are also technical solutions that can help the company reach a larger market and more languages. Of course, you can have the website machine translated. This is cheap and quick initially, but if the translation is not carefully reviewed by a native speaker who is familiar with the industry, there is a high risk of inaccuracies occurring. In the end, such a solution can therefore become both more expensive and take longer.

Once the website is translated into multiple languages, however, there are smart solutions that ensure the customer lands in the right place immediately. Through, for example, automatic language recognition, the website can read the user's browser language or geographical location and thereby automatically display content in the correct language. Here, it can be smart to clearly complement this with a language selector in the menu, so that users can easily change language if the automatic setting is not what is desired.

Why is a multilingual website important?

Investing in a multilingual website is a powerful way to increase your global reach and build long-term relationships with customers from different parts of the world. By offering content in multiple languages, you can create a more personal and relevant experience for your visitors. A multilingual website also strengthens brand awareness and enables you to compete effectively in international markets.

Would you like to know more about how to succeed with your website in multiple languages? Contact us at Språkbolaget – we help companies create bespoke solutions for global communication.