In Switzerland, Luxembourg, Brussels, in any city where two languages meet, a single-language site sees only part of its customers. But a machine-translated site loses as many: the reader notices by the second sentence. Here is how I do it, and what it costs.
Three tests run while you answer 5 questions. The report arrives by WhatsApp and by email, then I call you to talk about next steps.
A German-speaking customer and a French-speaking customer do not search for the same thing with the same words. “Webdesign” on one side, “création de site internet” on the other; “Treuhand” and “fiduciaire”; “Praxis” and “cabinet”. A word-for-word translation misses the other language’s searches and sounds wrong. Each version has to be written for its reader, with their words, their examples, sometimes their arguments. That is what I do: I write the French, German and English from what you tell me, and you review each version. No machine translation, no plugin that “translates” your site in one click and fills it with sentences nobody would say.
Three languages are not three translations sitting side by side. Google expects a precise structure, and a site without it ends up visible in one language only.
A French-speaking client travelling in Berlin must be able to read the site in French. The language choice is visible at the top of every page and stays free: nothing is decided by where the visitor is. It also matters for search: Google’s robot visits from the United States, and a site that redirects by country only ever shows it the English version.
French at the root of the site, German under /de/, English under /en/. Every page exists in every language, at its own address, with the keyword translated in the address itself: /prestations/, /en/services/, /de/leistungen/. Google ranks each version separately, on searches in its own language. A site that switches language without changing address exists, for Google, in one language only.
/prestations//en/services//de/leistungen/Every page tells Google where its equivalents in the other languages are, with an invisible line in its code. Google then shows the German version to someone searching in German, the French one to someone searching in French, and does not mistake the three for copied content. Without this markup, the versions compete with each other, and the wrong one often wins.
A site whose English version has three pages and whose French version has twenty is not multilingual: the English-speaking visitor lands on dead links, and Google notices. Every language in the package includes every page, the legal pages and the contact form, written for its readers, with their words and their examples. Not a machine translation pasted on top.
The sitemap is the list of every page on the site, made for Google. It holds every address in every language, with its equivalents and the date it last changed. It is sent to Google and Bing on launch day, then updates itself with every change: a new page is found in a few days, not a few months.
You choose the package’s languages: one in Minimum, two in Visible, three in Conquête. An additional language is added on quote.
I write all three languages myself, with no machine translation. French is my mother tongue. English I speak at C2 level, and I studied in English at the University of St. Gallen. German is my mother’s language: she spoke Swiss German to me my whole childhood, and I went to a bilingual French and German high school. You review every version before launch.
The contact form records the visitor’s language, so your reply is in the right one. Legal pages exist in every language. The Google profile is configured in the main language.
Multilingual is not an option: it is in the packages. Visible includes two languages across twenty pages, Conquête three across thirty pages or more. One more language is added on quote, written.
An estimate in hours before starting, on a quote. No redesign, no commitment.
French, German and English. Italian and other languages are not languages I write; I say so from the start, and we see how to handle them if your site needs them.
Swiss by default (“ss”, « » quotation marks), German or Austrian if your market is in Germany or Austria. The vocabulary is adapted to the market: nobody says “Offerte” in Munich.
Yes, on a quote, on the same terms as before signature. The addresses and markup are built for it.
It costs less and it shows. For a site that has to convince a customer to trust you with money, it shows too much.
The free test is at the top of the page. You get the result by WhatsApp and by email, then I call you. Or by phone, on +41 26 420 00 86.