Multilingual website SEO: getting it right, from English to Arabic

Translating your pages is not enough to be found abroad. To get search engine optimisation (SEO) right on a multilingual website, you need to tell Google clearly which page to show to which audience, speak the language of each market and stay fast everywhere. Otherwise, your translated versions do exist, but few visitors find them.

The site you are reading is designed for four languages: English, French, Spanish and Arabic, one of which is written from right to left. Here is the method we follow, on this site as in our web projects.

One URL per language: the foundation of a multilingual website

First rule: each language has its own address. If the same URL shows English or French depending on the browser or a cookie, Google’s crawler usually sees only one version. The others may never appear in the results.

There are three possible structures:

• One domain per country (example.fr, example.es): a strong local signal, but as many sites to manage, secure and promote.
• One subdomain per language (fr.example.com): technically flexible, but each version is managed almost like a separate site.
• One folder per language (example.com/fr/, example.com/es/), also called a subdirectory: a single domain, a single site to maintain, and the reputation the site builds up benefits every language.

For most SMEs, one folder per language is the best compromise. It’s the choice made for this site: /en/, /fr/, /es/ and /ar/. Avoid parameters such as ?lang=fr, however: they are harder to read and more fragile.

Next, two details matter for your visitors:

• A visible language switcher that leads to the equivalent page, not to the home page. Write the name of each language in that language: English, Français, Español, العربية. Avoid flags: they stand for countries, not languages, and Spanish and Arabic are both spoken in many countries.
• No forced redirects. Suggesting the browser’s language: yes. Stopping a visitor, or Google, from reaching the other versions: no. Simply remember the visitor’s choice for their next visits.

Hreflang: telling Google which page to show to whom

Once each language has its place, the versions need to be linked to each other. That’s the job of hreflang tags. Placed in the HTML head of each page, or in the XML sitemap, they tell Google that a page also exists in French, Spanish or Arabic, and at which address. Google can then offer each searcher the right version.

The rules are simple, but often misapplied:

1. Each version lists all the others, and itself. If the English page points to the French one, the French page must point back to the English one. Without that return link, Google may ignore the tags.
2. Exact codes: the language first (en, fr, es, ar), then the country if needed (en-GB, es-MX, ar-AE). A classic mistake: writing en-UK instead of en-GB.
3. A default version, marked x-default, for visitors whose language isn’t offered: often the international home page or a language selection page.
4. A canonical tag that points to the page itself, never to its version in another language. Otherwise, you are asking Google to keep only one language.
5. Only between equivalent, published pages. A tag that points to a missing or untranslated page is useless, and can even cause confusion.

On a well-built site, these tags are generated automatically for every page. Nobody has to write them by hand, or update them when a page is added.

Translation isn’t enough: keywords for each market

People don’t search with the words of your translation, but with their own. What people search for as “custom software” in English, they search for as “logiciel sur mesure” in French and “software a medida” in Spanish. And within the same language, vocabulary changes from one country to another: a computer is an “ordenador” in Spain, but a “computadora” in much of Latin America.

For each target market:

• Research keywords in the target language, with someone who speaks it fluently and knows your business. Don’t just translate your original keyword list.
• Adapt rather than copy: examples, references, units, currency, formats. The date 03/10/2026 reads as “3 October” in France, but “10 March” in the United States.
• Translate everything: the title and description of each page, menus, buttons, image alt text, forms, error messages and legal pages. Google determines a page’s language from its visible content: a half-translated page blurs the signal.

What about machine translation? It makes a good first draft, not a page ready to publish. Google doesn’t forbid it, but its rules target mass-produced content with no value for the reader, and a raw translation published without review can fall into that category. Above all, your visitors spot it quickly. A review by a native speaker who knows the subject remains essential.

We work in English, French, Spanish and Arabic ourselves, and the experience of our founder, gained in seven countries on five continents, confirms it: the same idea is never expressed in quite the same way from one language to another. English is the reference version of this site; the French, Spanish and Arabic versions are adapted from it.

RTL Arabic websites: everything reads from right to left

Arabic is written from right to left, hence the abbreviation RTL (right-to-left). So for an Arabic website, translation is only part of the work: the entire layout is mirrored. The logo moves to the right, the columns swap order, and the “next” arrow points to the left.

A few rules prevent most unpleasant surprises:

• Declare the language and the reading direction on every page, so that browsers and screen readers handle it correctly.
• Think of the layout in terms of “start” and “end” rather than “left” and “right”. Modern style sheets make this possible through what are called logical properties: the page then mirrors itself, with no separate style sheet for Arabic.
• Know what doesn’t mirror: the logo artwork, phone numbers, prices, email addresses, brand names in Latin letters. Nor does a clock: its hands turn the same way everywhere.
• Test with real mixed text. An Arabic sentence that contains a brand name, an email address or a number can display in the wrong order if it isn’t handled correctly.
• Choose your digits: Western digits (0 to 9) or Eastern Arabic numerals, depending on your audience. On this site, we chose Western digits.

A font designed for Arabic

Many Latin fonts simply don’t contain Arabic letters. The browser then picks another font, often poorly matched with the rest of the site. Plan for a font designed for Arabic, and adapt the typography: slightly larger text, more generous line spacing, and never any letter spacing, which breaks the joins between Arabic letters. Italics, which have no natural equivalent in Arabic, are also best avoided.

Speed, time zones, contact details: adapt to each country

A multilingual website speaks to visitors who are far apart. What loads quickly in Paris can be slow in Sydney or Dubai, and what reassures a French visitor may puzzle another.

Performance in every country

• Load only the fonts you need: the character sets (Latin, Arabic) and the weights each language requires, nothing more.
• Host your fonts on your own domain: one less request to an outside service, and none of your visitors’ IP addresses passed on to it, which makes compliance with Europe’s GDPR simpler.
• Serve your pages from a content delivery network (CDN), which keeps a copy of them in several regions of the world, as close as possible to each visitor.
• Avoid text in images: you would need one image per language, and that text is largely invisible to search engines.
• Measure market by market: test speed from several countries, and track your results by country and by language folder in Google Search Console.

Reassuring local touches

• Time zones: show your times in the visitor’s local time. On our booking page, slots are shown automatically in the visitor’s time zone. On the home page, clocks give the time in each country where our founder has worked, next to the visitor’s local time.
• Contact details: phone numbers in international format (+61, +971, +33), an email address and, if you have them, a local address or contact person.
• Legal pages: the legal notice and the privacy policy translated too, and adapted to local rules where needed.

Multilingual website: ten points to check before going live

1. One URL per language, ideally one folder per language.
2. A visible language switcher that leads to the equivalent page.
3. Reciprocal hreflang tags on every page, with exact codes and an x-default version.
4. A canonical tag that points to the page itself.
5. Keywords researched in each language, with native speakers.
6. Content fully translated and reviewed, including titles, descriptions, menus and alt text.
7. For Arabic: a mirrored layout, a suitable font and tested mixed text.
8. Local formats: dates, currencies, phone numbers, time zones.
9. An up-to-date sitemap, submitted in Search Console.
10. Fast pages from each of your markets.

Once the site is live, track a few metrics by language and by country: visits from Google, contact requests, meetings booked. The principle is the same as for an executive dashboard: few figures, but useful ones.

Frequently asked questions

Do you need a domain name for each country?

Rarely. One domain per country makes sense if you have a strong local presence, with teams and offers specific to each country. For most SMEs, a single domain with one folder per language is simpler to manage, and enough to compete in each market.

Does machine translation hurt SEO?

Not in itself. The problem is text published without review, clumsy or inaccurate: it fails to convince your visitors and adds little value. Use it as a first draft, then have every page reviewed by a native speaker.

Do you have to translate the whole site at once?

No. Start with the pages that matter for each market: the home page, your services, the contact page. But every page you publish must be fully translated, and hreflang tags should link only pages that really are translated.

In short

A multilingual website that ranks well rests on a few principles: one URL per language, correct hreflang tags, content written for each market, a right-to-left layout for Arabic and fast pages everywhere. None of these points is complicated in itself, but there are many of them: it’s best to plan for them from the moment the site is built. And if you are looking for someone to help you, here is how to choose your IT provider.

Planning a website in several languages, or struggling to get yours found abroad? Book a 30-minute discovery call, free and with no obligation. The slot will be shown in your time zone.