How do you build a multilingual corporate website?

For companies that export, work with suppliers abroad or host international guests, a multilingual corporate website is a necessity. Yet what we often see in the field is a Turkish site with an automatic translation plugin bolted on, English pages that never show up in search engines, or a menu in English with the content still in Turkish. In this article we approach multilingual corporate website setup through four decisions: which languages, how to translate, which URL structure, and how to explain it all to search engines.

Which languages should you start with?

The more languages you add, the heavier the maintenance load. Every new product, announcement and price change has to be updated in every language. So instead of assuming "the more languages, the better," ask this: in which markets do sales and business relationships actually happen?

For most exporters, English is the first step, followed by the language of the largest market. Before launching a language, also decide who will answer an email or phone call in that language. Building the site in German and replying to inquiries in Turkish damages trust.

Translation: machine, human or both

AI-assisted translation tools have improved a lot in recent years and save a great deal of time on the first draft. On a corporate website, though, there are three risks:

• Industry terminology: When the name of a technical product is mistranslated, the buyer matches you with the wrong product.
• Tone: A formal or friendly Turkish expression can sound odd in the target language.
• Consistency: Translating the same term differently on different pages undermines the impression of professionalism.

The approach we recommend is a hybrid process: a machine-translated draft, a consistency check against a glossary, and then a final review by someone who knows both the language and the industry. That glossary keeps paying off in later updates.

Plugins that translate on the fly in the browser do not create separate pages for search engines, so they do not help you get found in a foreign language.

URL structure: each language at its own address

Each language should have its own separate, permanent address. There are three common options:

For the vast majority of corporate websites, the subfolder structure is the most balanced choice. Whichever structure you pick, changing it later means migrating URLs, so make the decision up front.

The URLs themselves should also be translated. The address of the English page should be /en/products, not /en/urunler.

hreflang: telling search engines about language versions

hreflang is a signal that tells search engines which pages are the equivalents of a page in other languages. As Google's own documentation explains, it ensures that users searching in English are shown the English page rather than the Turkish one, and that language versions of the same content are not mistaken for duplicates.

Things to watch for a correct setup:

• Each page must list all its language equivalents, including itself
• The markup must be reciprocal; if the English page points to the Turkish one, the Turkish page must point back to the English one
• A page with no equivalent must not be linked to the home page of another language
• The x-default value can be used for the default version

Technical auditing of this work is part of our SEO and AI visibility service.

Language switcher and automatic redirects

Forcing visitors to another language based on browser language or location is a common mistake. A Turkish buyer living abroad may want to read in Turkish, and search engine bots usually crawl from a single location, so they may never see the other languages at all. A better approach suggests the language without deciding for the visitor: a notice at the top of the page such as "This page is also available in English," plus a visible language switcher on every page.

In the language switcher, it is better to use language names rather than flags, since a language is spoken in more than one country.

Multilingual website checklist

• Languages were chosen based on sales and communication capacity
• A glossary has been prepared
• Each language has permanent, translated URLs
• hreflang tags are reciprocal and complete
• No automatic redirects, and a visible language switcher is in place
• Forms, KVKK (Türkiye's Personal Data Protection Law) notices and error pages are translated too
• It is clear who handles translation when new content is added

How we do it at Globya

We build multilingual sites with this structure from day one: each language at its own address, hreflang tags generated automatically, and every piece of content shown side by side with its language versions in the admin panel. We never skip the glossary and final review steps in translation. For exporting manufacturing and industrial companies, we also plan for technical data sheets to be available in every language. For details, see our corporate website page or the contact page.

Frequently asked questions