Should My Translation Website Be Bilingual?
As a language professional, you may have asked yourself, “Should my translation website be bilingual?”
Fair question.
After all, we all work in at least two languages. It makes sense that translators might want to have their websites in their working languages. That said, it's not always necessary to have a bilingual website.
The answer to this question really depends on several factors, all of which have one thing in common: who your clients are.
Should my translation website be bilingual?
Let me start by saying that this post isn't meant to exclude interpreters in any way. I simply hear this question less often from interpreters. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that many interpreters might have clients who only contact them in one language, depending on where they live and work. But there's no hard and fast rule for interpreters. The answer to this question still depends on who your clients are. So, if you're an interpreter and you're unsure, I invite you to keep reading. 😉
If you're thinking about making your website bilingual, it's important to understand why you are even considering taking on this task. Most translators I talk to are not thrilled with the idea of working on their websites at all, let alone creating an additional task. (Just like it's easier to come up with ideas for someone else's business than you're own, it's easier to take on more translation work from clients than to schedule time to translate your own website, right?)
A website is a necessary tool to have when you own a business these days. It's your digital calling card, your online home, the best place clients can find you online when they search for someone who provides your services. But when it comes to whether or not your site should exist in two languages, the answer will be different for everyone.
For the purpose of this post, we'll assume you have only two working languages—source and target, native and second, or if you studied linguistics like me, maybe you call them L1 and L2.
Here's what I'd ask you if we were sitting together having a coffee chat and the topic of whether or not your website should be bilingual came up.
Do your ideal clients reach out to you in both of your working languages? Notice that I said “ideal.” Are the clients who are reaching out to you the type of clients you want to continue working with long-term?
Do your clients search for you in both languages? If you've ever had someone contact you because they found you online—whether through a professional directory, LinkedIn, or through a simple Google search—then you probably have an idea of what language they used to search for you.
Do you want more clients from the countries where both of your languages are spoken? Let's say that you have ideal clients who have reached out to you or found you online in one of your working languages, but you want to expand your reach to other countries or regions. Then, you'll need to consider what language these potential clients use when they search, as well as what language they'd use in an email, phone call, or remote meeting. In other words, in what language do they expect to conduct business?
Depending on how you answer these questions, you might be able to quickly determine what languages your website should be in going forward. It makes sense to have a website in the primary language you use with clients. And you can probably assume that many will be using that same language to search for someone who provides your services.
But if you want to expand your list of clients to countries where your other working language is spoken and used in the workplace, and thus in email exchanges, online searches, etc., then it would be a smart marketing strategy to have site content that this segment of your clients can also consume.
Should I translate my entire website for my translation business?
This is a question that often comes up in my T&I Website Blueprint Course.
It's a good question. Perhaps you don't need to translate all of the content on your website.
Yes, we want clients to have as much information as possible at their fingertips, but some content just isn't relevant to all clients.
For example, if you have a blog for your clients, it would be a lot of work to translate each blog post just because you have or want a fully bilingual website. Instead, it's best to make sure that the information that is most valuable to your potential customers is something they can read and engage with.
I often tell my website course students that clients want to know a few main pieces of information when they land on your website: whether you are good at what you do, whether you can help them solve a problem, and how to contact you to get the ball rolling on the translation they need.
Make sure the most vital information they want and would search for is in their language. Then, optimize your website so that you can capture those who would search for your services.
Related: 10 Simple Ways to Boost Your Translation or Interpreting Website's SEO and How to Determine What SEO Keywords to Use for Your Translation Website
If you can provide this information to them without translating your entire website, that's totally fine. And if you feel more comfortable having a website in two languages where the content in one language is exactly the same as the content in the second language, that's fine, too.
One of our colleagues and a recent T&I Website Course student, Mayda Villar, recently created her site in English and Spanish, and it turned out beautifully!
The key is to make sure that you are talking to your ideal clients in their language and speaking directly to them, their challenges, and how you can help them overcome those challenges.
Making the case for a monolingual website
There are some reasons why translators choose to keep their website in only one language. I know many translators who have determined this is best for their business, and their list of clients is quite long and their workload quite steady.
Here are a few cases when it makes sense to keep your website in one language.
1. When you you don't want to attract clients from a specific place or who pay in a certain currency
I've had colleagues tell me that they want to create their websites only in English because they’re not interested in marketing to clients in their own countries, as the rates that clients offer in there are too low. Since they prefer to only work with clients in the U.S., they maintain their websites in English to attract clients who might search for them or find their website through another channel.
2. When your niche determines the language
Our colleague, Natalia Bertelli, who I've mentioned on my blog before for her excellent website and marketing skills, has chosen to maintain her website solely in English. Natalia's clients are English speakers who are looking to become citizens, get married, or move to Italy, so there's really no need to translate her website to Italian.
3. When one of your working languages is used by the majority of your ideal clients in the workplace
Let's say your working languages are English and German or English and Norwegian. If you constantly interact with your clients only in English, and if they work in an environment where English is the main language used in the workplace, then translating your website into German or Norwegian might be nice, but it might also be unnecessary.
Only you can determine what's best for your business. There's nothing wrong with having a monolingual website if it reflects the needs of your clients and the types of clients you want to attract in the future.
Should you keep your bilingual web content on the same website, or should you have two separate sites?
This is another factor to consider if you decide to go the route of creating a bilingual website.
My suggestion would be to keep the content in your two languages on the same site. You could argue that having two sites might help your SEO rankings, but if you optimize your site well, I don't think there's a huge benefit to creating multiple sites in the long run.
Having all your content on one site is much easier from an administrative standpoint. Also, clients might like to see that you have your website in two languages, if for no other reason than to see that you do work in the two languages you claim to work in and you're a professional.
One thing you could do, which is something I recently suggested to a website course student, is to buy more than one domain (or URL). You can redirect a second domain to the one where your website is hosted. For example, let's say I have clients in a country where the domain extension tends to be something like .es (Spain), .br (Brazil), .de (Germany), .ru (Russia), etc. If I don't mind spending the ~$20 a year for a domain with a country-specific extension, I can do that and redirect the traffic for that domain to my current .com website without users even noticing. This way, if potential clients ever try to type the URL into their browser and automatically type the country-specific extension, they will still land on my website.
Ana Ribeiro Olson and I recently discussed this in our post-website-course meeting to review her new site. Ana already owned the domain with the extension .br (Brazil) when she started the course, so she used that domain when creating her new website. Since Ana is looking to attract clients from the US and the UK, I suggested that she purchase the .com domain (no additional country-specific extension) for her English-speaking customers to more easily remember her URL and access her website if they ever search for her or type her name into their browser. This is an easy and cost-effective way to redirect potential clients and make it easier for them to find you.
If you do decide to translate your website, you don't have to go all in right away. Perhaps you want to pay a trusted colleague who is a native speaker of your second language, but you can't afford to translate the entire site at once. Or maybe you just want to test the waters a bit before you make the investment. Consider translating your website in phases.
Or maybe your ideal clients in each of your working languages are quite different and have different challenges and goals. In this case, it might not make sense to translate your website content. You might think about creating new content for each language/type of client. There's nothing wrong with this, and it shows that you understand your clients and how to help them.
The most important factor when making the decision about a bilingual website is what your ideal clients would like to see when they land on your site. If you use this question as your guide, it will be much easier to come to a conclusion about the language(s) and content to include.
Create your website in the primary language you use when dealing with clients and determine later if you want to translate it. Don't let having a monolingual site hold you back from creating and publishing your website.
Finally, it's important to remember that a website is never final or finished. Create a site you can be proud of, knowing that it will evolve with you and your business.
What are your thoughts on having a bilingual website? Does it make sense for your business, or has a monolingual site served you well? What are some other reasons you might or might not want a bilingual website for your translation business?
