Technical4 min read
Bilingual website: how to do it properly
A flag in the corner and Google Translate is not an English version. Here's how to build two languages that can both be found.
If your site must sell in both Danish and English, three technical decisions decide whether it works.
1. Give each language its own address
Use /da/ydelser and /en/services. If the content changes without the address changing, Google can't show the right version to the right user.
2. Tell Google the pages belong together
That's done with hreflang references between the two versions. Without them, your two pages compete with each other instead of helping each other.
3. Translate — don't machine-translate
Keywords aren't the same across languages. “Hjemmeside pris” and “website cost” belong to two different markets with different competition. Write the copy for each market.