Arabic, French, English: designing one website for three languages.

In Morocco, a website often speaks to customers in several languages, and one of them reads right to left. Translation is only the start: structure, design and search all change.

A Moroccan business may sell to local customers in Arabic or French, to tourists in English and to partners abroad in several languages at once. A multilingual website is the natural answer, but it is more than a translated copy of the original.

Right to left is a different layout

Arabic reads from right to left, so the whole page is mirrored: navigation, alignment, icons that point in a direction, even the order of steps in a form. Fonts need care too, as Arabic type needs room to breathe and a size that stays readable on a phone. Designing for it from the start costs far less than adapting a finished site.

Translate the message, not just the words

• Work with translators who know your sector, and review the result with native speakers.
• Adapt examples, references and calls to action to each audience.
• Keep the same quality in every language: a weak version damages trust.

Let people choose, and remember

• A visible language switch on every page, leading to the same page in the other language.
• No automatic redirection that traps a visitor in the wrong version.
• Separate addresses for each language, so each can be shared and indexed.

Search in every language

Each version should have its own titles, descriptions and keywords, based on how people actually search in that language. Search engines also need to know which pages are translations of each other, through the right technical tags.

A visitor should feel the site was written for them, in their language, from the first line.

Planning a site in several languages? Tell us about your project through our estimate form: we will reply with an estimate and the next steps.