Can I make my website multilingual?
The hreflang attribute allows you to specify the language of your website. This allows search engines to show the right version of your website (in the right language) to the right audience. If someone from Italy looks up your website, they should not see a German version of your website. The website should be modified to Italian using the herflang attribute. In Belgium, a website would then have to be presented in Dutch, French and English.
Why use a hreflang attribute?
This attribute ensures that you don’t have duplicate content. In fact, you may be creating both a Belgian and a Dutch website. These websites will probably be exactly the same in Dutch. To make the relationship between the two pages clear to the search engines, you can use the hreflang attribute. This declares that the pages are the same but focus on a different language or region.
Advantage
The biggest advantage to hreflang, is that your website visitors will see your website in their own language. This way they can read and understand everything that is on your website. Someone from France will not order anything on your website if everything is in Dutch. He will not understand it and your website will probably not even show up as a search result. The sites are automatically adjusted according to the country of the website visitor. A Frenchman will see the French site .fr, a Dutchman will see the Dutch site .nl …
How do you set the hreflang attribute?
- Choose which languages and countries you need
Insert both the languages of the people you want them to visit your website and the countries/country codes of these people. - Add an html code by language/country to each page
You must indicate which country as well as which language is involved. The Netherlands and Belgium (Flanders) have the same language, but they are two different countries. Also the other way around: Belgium is one country where you have to have a website in two or more languages: Dutch and French. - Place the html code in the <head> of the source code
Is this too complicated?
Then you can opt for tools such as WPML Translate.
