Reach new markets with a HubSpot multi-language website

An effective way for businesses to enter international markets is to create multi-language variants of their core website to cater to audiences of different countries. Visitors want to feel as if the web page was created specifically for them, in their language and using terminology they’re used to. The design and imagery also need to be relevant and feel familiar to the audience. For example, it makes more sense for us to use an image of the Singapore city skyline on our Singapore website, than one of London’s Big Ben! 

In an increasingly connected world, it's never been more important for businesses to consider international visitors, as opposed to using a generic one-size-fits-all approach. Thankfully, HubSpot offers all of the features to do this, simply and seamlessly.

Why should you implement a multi-language website?

Adapting a global marketing campaign to the cultural nuances and trends of different regions takes loads of research and can be incredibly expensive (with no guarantee that the messaging will resonate). A HubSpot multi-language website, however, is a cost-effective way to introduce products and services to new markets.

See what other flexible themes the HubSpot CMS offers developers in our guide:  HubSpot Enterprise Tools - Everything you need to know. 

New customers and higher sales:

While a multi-language website can open doors to new markets and new audiences, a cut-and-paste job isn’t advised. Customers are more likely to trust your brand and buy your products if it’s clear you’ve done your due diligence and taken the time to understand the unique characteristics that define their location.

Search engine expansion:

As gargantuan as it is, Google isn't the only search engine available. Other countries have their own search engines uniquely tailored to their audiences. For example, China’s Baidu and Russia’s Yandex. These search engines are important if you want your multilingual website to be found by the international audiences you’re targeting. 

Reputation:

A multilingual website shows that you respect other markets enough to adapt your online presence to their languages.

Recently, Huble Digital built a multi-language website in HubSpot for Tribes, a global company that offers high-end, tailor-made office solutions. Below are three screenshots that exhibit how a multi-language website can cater to different markets (in the case of Tribes, England, France, and the Netherlands):

Launching a HubSpot multilingual website — where to begin?

A disclaimer before we get started: HubSpot will not automatically translate your core content — you’ll have to do that yourself – but what it can do right off-the-bat is ensure that the correct web pages are displayed to the right people, based on their language and location via hreflang tags. 

If a user from Italy searches for a particular website, it’s the hreflang tag that changes the link available to them in the search engine. Google advises using hreflang tags “if you have multiple versions of a page for different languages or regions” as this will help serve up the correct version of your website, based on language and region.

Page management and setup

HubSpot’s intuitive dashboard makes it pretty simple to set up and manage your various translated pages. If you’ve included global content in multiple templates already, you’ll be required to use the page editor to make a multi-language variation of your global content.

Multi-language page group setup: Once you’ve got the above in place, head over to your landing page or website page dashboard to create multiple language variations. Under the ‘'More’ dropdown, select ‘create multi-language variation’ and then choose the language you want to save the page as. From there, you’ll need to clone your master page in the content editor. Now you can begin localising your pages by populating them with the relevant translations!

Adding pages to existing multi-language groups: On your landing page or website page dashboard, look for the globe icon next to your translated page. To see the translated pages associated with the page, click on the ‘arrow’ icon to open up the dropdown.

We’ll let HubSpot explain the next steps:

• Hover over a translated page and click the Actions dropdown menu, then select Add to multi-language group.
• In the dialogue box, click the Language of selected page dropdown menu and select a language for this page.
• Then click the Select a master page dropdown menu and select a master page to associate this page with.
• Click Save.

Before you take things live, you’ll need to get a web developer to add a language switcher feature to your page template. You can do so using HubSpot’s design manager tool.

The above only scratches the surface of HubSpot’s multi-language website functionality. And we should know — Huble Digital is a full-service digital business consultancy with offices and clients that span the globe. 

As a HubSpot Elite Solutions Partner, we believe that business growth requires a customer-centric approach and the best available technology to tap into new markets. Today, that technology is the HubSpot platform and its multi-language website features. Get in touch to start making it work for you.