
This article covers 2 key factors of international website design, including:
A quick note: This article doesn’t cover or include either paid or free website design templates. There are numerous international design templates you can find online, specific to where you host your site. Instead, we focus on must-have elements of any international website design, no matter what template you’re using, and no matter where it’s hosted.
Let’s get started.
Having an international website means having a multilingual site, i.e., a site that’s available in more than one language. And you may need more than one translated version of your site. For example, if you have audiences in Germany, England, and Saudi Arabia, then you’ll want to have a German-language site, an English-language site, and an Arabic-language site.
Sometimes a website will opt to let their customers translate their website on their own, using free tools like Google Translate, but this is a mistake for two reasons.
In short, to provide the best user experience, connect with your new audience, and keep them on your website, you want to create a fully multilingual site that has everything your original site has but in a new language.
Below we show you how you can use Weglot to easily, efficiently, and affordably create a multilingual site without having to worry about:
Plus, we look at how you can use Weglot’s Visual Editor to make sure your translated content works well with any design template, layout, or design you’re using — a perfect tool for mastering international website design.
Want to try Weglot for yourself? Skip the article and start your free Weglot trial. You can get a fully multilingual website within minutes.
Weglot can create a multilingual website within minutes, no matter where your site is hosted and no matter what kind of template or design you’re using. Here’s a brief explainer video that shows you how easy it is to set Weglot up.
And when you use Weglot, your website is translated with design in mind.
For example, here’s a look at two different versions of the same site – an English version and an Arabic version.
Here’s the English version.
Here’s the Arabic version.
Notice the difference? English is a left-to-right language, while Arabic is a right-to-left language. Weglot factors this key difference when making a multilingual site. You can see that not only do the translations fit well within the site’s design, but Weglot has also changed the orientation.
The site’s shopping cart and login buttons are on the right for the English-speaking site, and on the left for the Arabic-speaking site.
Weglot maintains active API connections with leading translation providers, including DeepL, Google Translate, and Microsoft.
When you use Weglot to translate your site, we pick the provider that’s best for your project based on your site’s original language and your new target language.
You don’t need to worry about setting up any API connections, testing different translation providers, etc. Weglot does all that heavy lifting for you.
Once you’ve picked your target language, your entire site can be translated within minutes. And for about ⅔ of our customers, the process stops there. They don’t make any edits to their translated content.
But this post covers international website design, so there’s a chance you might be more interested in how you can customize or modify your translations, which is what we cover next.
After Weglot creates your multilingual, international website, all of your translations can be easily accessed through your Weglot Dashboard.
You can find specific translations by looking up: You can filter through translations by:
This visual editor is a great way to make sure your translations fit within your site’s design. You can easily check for line breaks or whether your translations are aesthetically pleasing. For example, maybe your content is longer in German, leading to an orphan in the header.
You can make edits in real-time because you don’t need to extract or download any files. It’s like editing a normal site page or post.
If you don’t have a translation team ready to review your translations, you can order professional translation services directly through your Weglot dashboard.
Simply pick the translations you wanted to be reviewed by a professional translator, validate, and pay for the order and it will be delivered back and live on your site in 24-48 hours.
Once the translator has finished reviewing the content, your site is automatically updated with any changes.
Above we looked at how you can make your site multilingual – but there are other things to consider besides the language of your content when creating a fully international website.
Depending on your site, you may want to focus on:
This is only essential if you’re offering a product or service that someone will buy on your site, i.e. if you’re running something like an eCommerce site. If this doesn’t pertain to you, skip ahead to the next section.
How you will actually localize your checkout experience will vary greatly on what CMS you’re using. For example, here’s a guide for Shopify, and here’s a guide for translating WooCommerce checkout pages.
But here are general things to keep in mind:
A big part of the design is figuring out how your design will be received by your audience. The best method may not be taking your existing design and keeping it the same, depending on where your new audience is located.
Here are some questions to ask yourself, that will help you figure out how much you need to re-design/modify your site for your new international audience.
Above we looked at:
Now let’s look at multilingual SEO, or getting your new international website its audience.
You want your new website to show up in the right search engines – this is something we automatically help you with when you use Weglot to manage your multilingual, international website.
Weglot helps your site’s SEO in three ways.
If you’re ready to create a fully-multilingual international website, start your free Weglot trial.