Speak their language and your message resonates directly to them.

There are different types of multilingual websites so it's helpful to know your objectives and how your visitors will engage with you and your site.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
Nelson Mandela

If there's the faintest possibility of adding a second language, please give serious consideration to starting with a multilingual website from the start. The initial and incremental cost is minimal compared to the significant costs of re-creating or converting a mono-lingual website into a multilingual one and the insurmountable task of regenerating inbound links.

Using different websites for each language and territory is the easiest to manage. They might look like example.com, example.fr and example.nl.

With simple sites it's straightforward to combine multiple languages into a single site. The benefits are ease of management and use, see https://mldemo.p-o.co.uk/en/ for an example where you can select a page, share it with your client/prospect and they can click their language button and it will go to the same page in their own language. They hear your sales pitch, then selecting their own language, they have both the page in their own tongue and it's on their device for future reference. Professionally translated copy can be pasted into the site with ease.

Multilingual sites with data elements require more planning and technical competence. Companies in Great Britain https://gbcomp.p-o.co.uk/en/ is a good example where a lot of information is available in different languages. For example click on Statistics and you will get various statistics. Change language and you get the same information but annotated in your chosen language. Straightforward, but requires planning and careful implementation.

Fully localising a database driven site offers higher engagement and reduced support. Planning multilingual from the start keeps costs down as there's little to change other than the translations. See Roughcheck the checklist with added intelligence https://roughcheck.com/ for an example where users get to use a site in their own tongue, they find it easier and more intuitive reducing support costs. It's an API driven single page app.

Have an idea for your own business? Get in touch with your use case and make it a reality.

Like to know more about multilingual sites? Read on:

Our core is IT and business acumen is our a-z of bringing them together so you can get the best multilingual website that communicates your products and services to a receptive international audience in a multi-screen format.

Resources

• GB Companies
• Multi-lingual demo
• Companion tech article

Whether it's to support expanding/exporting into new markets or perhaps servicing an international product or service, supporting your export marketing efforts with a multilingual website offering a multitude of benefits including reaching out to and supporting your clients and prospects and the teams that support them.

Python's Django is a great high performance web framework. Mezzanine is an elegant CMS that fits into the Django ecosystem.  It's straightforward to create a high performance multilingual website that's both multi-screen format and easy to use thanks to the Bootstrap framework.

Multilingual doesn't remove the responsibility for translation.  Translating is still best done by a professional translator into their own language who has specific domain expertise.  Professional translations ensure you resonate with your audience and with a clear call to action ensure your export marketing efforts produce results.

It's worth clarifying our definition of a multilingual website.  Here we mean a user visits a website that is in one language, and at the click of a button can be transferred to an equivalent page in another language on the same site.

Many web frameworks offer internationalisation, and Python's Django does so exceptionally well.

Share your finest products and services in an ever shrinking world

It's straightforward to integrate internationalisation with the Django and Mezzanine cms in an intuitive and easy to use website for users and contributors.  The search engines will find the site friendly too be they Baidu, Google or Yandex.

The contributors get to update the various language sites with ease, site visitors get to switch into their preferred language at the click of a button, and search engines get to index the site as normal.

Find new customers, share your finest products and services and export to them now.

One scenario is where someone whose first language is French has found some information at https://mldemo.p-o.co.uk/fr/marketing that they wish to share with a colleague who speaks French but whose first language is Mandarin, they go to the website, click the simplified Chinese button and get to see the page in their preferred language, https://mldemo.p-o.co.uk/zh-hans/marketing.

They could have used one of the many translation sites but using professional translators, possibly your local marketing staff/agency in one of your target territories, you will get both a higher quality translation, one that better represents your product or service and one that is more under your control.  This can include graphics, contact details or even full applications.  Your export marketing efforts will resonate more too.

The world wants the best of everything, you have the finest there is to offer, meeting in this ever shrinking world brings happiness for all.

With the cloud offering you scalable hosting close to your audience, Google AdWords promoting your products and services and Google Analytics monitoring activity it's now realistic and easier then ever before to test and reach out to new territories and make export marketing more profitable.

For technical details on our open source multilingual website see the  companion technical article.

There are many ways to design a website for multiple languages, contact me for an informal chat into how we can help you reach new audiences.

Let's explore how we can increase your services in their language