How Do I Make a Webflow Multilingual?

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In today’s globalized world, creating a multilingual website is essential for reaching a wider audience and providing a better user experience. Webflow, with its powerful design and content management system, makes it easy to build and maintain a multilingual website. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps to make your Webflow site multilingual.

Step 1: Planning Your Multilingual Website

Before you start building your multilingual website in Webflow, it’s important to plan out the structure and content for each language. Consider the languages you want to support and how your content will be translated.

Define Your Language Options

Bold text can be used to highlight important points. You can use it here to emphasize the importance of deciding which languages you want to include on your website.

  • Create a list of languages that you want to support on your website.
  • Consider the Target audience for each language and their preferences.
  • Take into account any technical limitations or challenges that may arise when implementing multiple languages.

Content Translation

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  • Determine which sections of your website need to be translated.
  • Hire professional translators or use translation services for accurate translations.
  • Create a style guide or glossary to ensure consistent translations across different pages and languages.

Step 2: Setting Up Your Webflow Project

In this step, we will guide you through the process of setting up your Webflow project to support multiple languages.

Creating a New Collection

Webflow Collections allow you to manage and organize content for your website. We will create a new Collection specifically for managing multilingual content.

  1. In the Webflow Designer, go to the “Collections” tab.
  2. Create a new Collection by clicking on the “New Collection” button.
  3. Give your Collection a name, such as “Multilingual Content”.
  4. Add fields to your Collection for each language you want to support. For example, if you want to support English and Spanish, add fields like “English Content” and “Spanish Content”.

Designing Your Language Switcher

In order for users to switch between languages on your website, you need to design a language switcher element. This element will allow users to select their preferred language.

  • Add an HTML embed element to your page where you want the language switcher to appear.
  • Write custom HTML code or use third-party tools/plugins to create a language switcher. You can use CSS classes and JavaScript/jQuery code to handle the language switching functionality.

Step 3: Translating Your Webflow Pages

In this step, we will show you how to translate your Webflow pages using the Multilingual Content Collection we created earlier.

Duplicating Pages for Each Language

To translate your pages, you need to duplicate them for each language you want to support. This allows you to have separate versions of each page with translated content.

  • Select the page you want to translate in the Webflow Designer.
  • Click on the “Duplicate” button to create a copy of the page.
  • Rename the duplicated page with the language code or name, such as “about-us-es” for the Spanish version of the “About Us” page.

Translating Content in Webflow Editor

The Webflow Editor provides an intuitive interface for translating content in your Multilingual Content Collection.

  • In the Webflow Designer, go to the “Editor” tab.
  • Select the language you want to translate from the dropdown menu at the top.
  • Navigate to each page and fill in the translated content fields in your Multilingual Content Collection.

Step 4: Implementing Language-Specific URLs

In this step, we will show you how to implement language-specific URLs for each translated version of your website. This allows search engines and users to easily identify and access different language versions of your website.

Setting Up URL Structure

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  • If you want to use country-specific TLDs, register domain names for each language. For example, example.com for English and example.es for Spanish.
  • If you prefer subdirectories, create separate folders for each language.com/en/ for English and example.com/es/ for Spanish.

Creating Redirects

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  • Create redirects from the default domain to the appropriate language-specific URLs. For example, redirect example.com to example.com/en/ for English.
  • Add language switcher functionality to your website, allowing users to switch between different language versions.

Congratulations! You have successfully made your Webflow site multilingual. By following these steps, you can now reach a wider audience and provide a better user experience for visitors who speak different languages.

Remember: Regularly update and maintain your multilingual website by adding new translations and keeping existing content up-to-date. This will ensure that your website remains relevant and effective in reaching your Target audience.