A website in more than one language: what you need to know

If your customers speak more than one language, a website in a single language loses some of them.
But a multilingual website is more than translated text; a few details make the difference between a “translated” site and one where every visitor feels it was written for them.

Direction: right to left, or left to right?

Arabic and Hebrew are written right to left; English and German left to right.
That doesn’t only change the text — it changes the whole page:

• Where the menu and the logo sit
• Which way arrows and icons point
• The order of elements in cards and forms

A good website mirrors the whole design for each language, not just the text.

Machine translation isn’t enough

Machine translation is useful as a start, but it often gets the tone, the terms and product names wrong.
It’s better when someone fluent reviews each language, and when headlines are written in a style that suits their readers.

Each language has its own typeface

A typeface that looks great in English doesn’t necessarily support Arabic or Hebrew.
We choose a typeface that suits each language and works with the others, so the site stays consistent whichever language you switch to.

Text length varies

The same sentence can run much longer in one language than in another — German, for example, is known for its long words.
So the design has to make room for every language, without broken lines or cut-off buttons.

A separate link for each language

It’s best for each language to have its own link, so search engines show each searcher the page in their language, and visitors can share the link in their language.

From our work

• Travela — a website for a travel office in Arabic, Hebrew and English, on every screen.
• The KASE website itself — in four languages: Arabic, Hebrew, English and German.

In short

A multilingual website opens your business to a wider audience — as long as every language is treated as the original.