A multilingual website: when and how

Each language should have its own separate URL (e.g. yoursite.com for the local language, yoursite.com/en for English) with hreflang tags in the code explicitly telling Google which version of the page corresponds to which language and region.

Without correct hreflang tags, Google can show the wrong language version to the wrong audience, or treat two language versions as duplicate content, which harms both.

The translation must be done by a person who understands your industry's context and expresses themselves naturally in the target language — automatic machine translation often feels unnatural, sometimes comically wrong, and seriously harms trust with foreign visitors who immediately notice the text "wasn't written by a native speaker".

Each language version needs its own SEO optimisation — the keywords people type in English are not a literal translation of the local-language keywords, but require their own research for that language and market.

If all your actual and potential customers speak the same language, additional languages on the site are just a build cost and, more importantly, a long-term maintenance cost — every content change must be translated and updated in every language.

Start from the languages of the markets you actually serve or plan to serve in the near future, not from all the languages you "might need one day" — a site in five languages that is rarely updated in four of them is worse than a site in one language that is always current.

A multilingual site is a powerful tool for expanding to new markets, but only if done technically correctly (hreflang, separate URLs) and with quality content (human translation, not machine). Start selectively, from the languages that actually bring business.