Hardly any request comes up as reliably in consultations as this one: “Can we do the site in English as well?” The honest answer is no more often than most expect. At first glance the figures look unambiguous: 90 percent (European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 313) of EU internet users prefer to visit a website in their own language, 42 percent (European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 313) do not buy online in a language other than their own at all, and 40 percent (CSA Research) do not shop on foreign-language sites in the first place. The catch: these numbers describe people who can actually reach your offer. For a painting business with a catchment area of 20 kilometres, an English version changes little about that. For a guest house, a supplier with customers in the Netherlands or a business looking for international specialists, it can be the cheapest revenue lever there is. This article helps with the sober decision: when a multilingual website pays off, when it is a waste of money, what it really costs in upkeep and what a lean entry looks like.
Key takeaways
- The language statistics apply to people who can reach your offer – not automatically to your target group.
- A second language pays off above all with tourism, customers from other EU countries, international applications and multilingual club members.
- Browser translation and one-click plugins do not replace a real language version: marketing copy comes out distorted, legal pages are rendered wrongly, and search engines often cannot find the version at all.
- The build does not double, but the upkeep does. Better three pages properly bilingual than thirty half-done.
What the Numbers Really Say – and What They Do Not
The data on language preference online is unusually clear. In a survey by the European Commission, 90 percent (European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 313) of the internet users questioned said that, given a choice, they always visit the version of a website in their own language. Only a slim majority of 53 percent (European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 313) would accept an English version instead when their own language is missing. And 44 percent (European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 313) feel they miss interesting information because pages are not available in a language they understand. Applied to your site that means: whoever does not speak your language rarely stays long.
With buying it becomes even clearer. 42 percent (European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 313) of respondents do not buy online in a language other than their own at all. An independent consumer survey with 8,709 (CSA Research) verified participants in 29 countries (CSA Research) arrives at a similar picture: 76 percent (CSA Research) prefer products with information in their native language, and 40 percent (CSA Research) do not shop on foreign-language sites in the first place. Language is therefore not a feel-good topic but a hard buying threshold.
The Thinking Error Behind These Numbers
There is also a nuance that translation marketing likes to skip: Europe has become more multilingual. About 59 percent (European Commission, Special Eurobarometer 540) of Europeans are able to hold a conversation in at least one language besides their mother tongue, 47 percent (European Commission, Special Eurobarometer 540) say they speak English well enough for a conversation, and 44 percent (European Commission, Special Eurobarometer 540) use their best foreign language on the internet. Part of your possible foreign clientele would therefore get by with a German site too. The numbers argue for a second language – but they do not argue for every second language on every page.
Four Cases Where a Second Language Pays Off
In practice the worthwhile cases can be narrowed down quite well. What they have in common is that there really are people who would buy, book or use your offer but fail at the language. Exactly then a second language is not a prestige project but the cheapest lever you have – cheaper than any additional advertisement, because the demand already exists.
Tourism, Holiday Flats, Guest Rooms
In German accommodation businesses, around 83.8 million (Federal Statistical Office) out of a total of 497.5 million (Federal Statistical Office) overnight stays in 2025 were made by guests from abroad, a share of 16.8 percent (Federal Statistical Office). Anyone renting out rooms, holiday flats or experiences loses a measurable part of demand without an English version – and specifically the part willing to pay that already wants to travel.
Customers from Other EU Countries
German goods exports in 2025 went to other EU member states to the tune of 876.5 billion euros (Federal Statistical Office) out of a total of 1,569.6 billion euros (Federal Statistical Office), around 56 percent (Federal Statistical Office). If you sell components, specialist products or services across the border, the buying threshold is real: 40 percent (CSA Research) do not shop on foreign-language sites.
International Specialists and Applications
Anyone looking for nurses, fitters, cooks or developers from abroad turns the careers page into the entrance door. An English version of the pages on tasks, team, location and how to apply costs little and often decides whether an application happens at all. The rest of the website can safely stay German.
Clubs with Multilingual Members
Sports clubs, cultural initiatives and support associations often have members who do not yet speak German confidently. Here it is rarely about revenue and almost always about participation: training times, fees, contact persons and the registration form in a second language noticeably lower the barrier.
What is striking is what connects these four cases: it is rarely about the whole website but about a manageable number of pages where the decision is made. For the guest house that means rooms, prices and directions; for the supplier services, references and contact; for recruiting the job description. How closely language and hospitality are linked in the restaurant trade is also shown in our article on the website for restaurants, and anyone starting out in this sector will find the matching building blocks on our page about the website for restaurants and cafés.
Four Cases Where It Demonstrably Achieves Nothing
The more uncomfortable part of the consultation. In these constellations we regularly see a second language tie up money and attention without producing a single additional inquiry (project experience). The reason is as a rule the same: the potential clientele that would have to exist simply does not.
- Purely local trades business. Anyone renovating bathrooms, roofing houses or servicing heating systems within a 30-kilometre radius gets their jobs from the neighbourhood. An English version reaches nobody here who would not have inquired anyway.
- Practice with a local patient base. Appointments are usually booked out, the catchment area clearly limited. More sensible than a second language here are legal certainty, clear consultation hours and proper online appointment booking.
- Regional club without international ties. The shooting club, the fire brigade, the local history society: the members come from the village. Time and budget are better spent on current dates and photos than on an English version nobody opens.
- Shop living on walk-in customers. Anyone who lives off passing trade sells through location, opening hours and the shop window. Here a well-maintained business profile on Google pays off considerably more than a second language.
With practices there is the added point that the scarce time for the website is usually better invested in mandatory legal details, data protection and reachability – we have gathered the specifics in our article on the legally sound practice website. And for all four cases the same applies: when the budget is limited, the groundwork almost always wins. Which pages actually decide over inquiries is shown in our overview of the five most important pages of a website.
The most expensive second language is the one with no target group. It does not only cost money once, but time again with every price change – and at some point the English page shows a price that has not existed for two years.
Why Browser Translation and One-Click Plugins Are Not Enough
The obvious objection comes immediately: modern browsers translate at the push of a button, and for every system there is a plugin that supposedly turns one page into ten within seconds. Machine translation has indeed arrived in everyday life: 66 percent (CSA Research) of the consumers surveyed use it online. The remarkable thing is only that in the same survey 40 percent (CSA Research) still state that they do not shop on foreign-language sites. The translation is available – it evidently does not suffice to create trust.
We see three problems again and again. First, marketing copy gets distorted. Precisely the sentences a business has polished longest – slogans, wordplay, allusions to the region – are rendered literally and mean, at best, nothing in the target language and, at worst, something unintended. Second, legal pages are transferred unreliably. The imprint and the privacy policy are legal texts with fixed terms; an automatic transfer produces wording that, in case of doubt, does not say what it should. What belongs in them is described in our articles on the imprint obligation and on the GDPR basics for small websites.
Third – and this weighs heaviest for visibility – the translated version often does not exist for search engines at all. A browser translation is only created on the visitor's device after they have already found the page. It has no address of its own, cannot be linked to and cannot be indexed. Anyone searched for in English is not found that way. Google therefore explicitly recommends using a separate URL for each language version of a page instead of switching the language via cookies or browser settings (Google Search Central). A translated page without an address is like a second shop window in the back yard.
Machine Translation as a Draft, Not as a Result
What Technically Belongs to It – Explained in Everyday Language
A second language is technically no wizardry, but there are four points where clean solutions differ from improvised ones. You do not have to be able to implement them yourself – but you should be able to ask about them before awarding a contract.
Its Own Address per Language
Every language version needs its own URL, for example /de/leistungen/ and /en/services/. A toggle that merely swaps the text and leaves the address unchanged does not create a findable second version. Google recommends a separate address for each language version instead of switching via cookies or browser settings (Google Search Central).
hreflang Markup
A short note in the source code tells search engines that two addresses are the same page in different languages. Without this link the versions look like random individual pages; with it the appropriate version can be served (Google Search Central). That is one step during the build, not an add-on product.
Language Choice Visible on Top
The switch belongs where visitors look for it: in the header, as a readable label such as “DE” and “EN”, not as a tiny flag in the footer. Flags also stand for countries, not for languages – an English-speaking guest from Rotterdam rarely feels addressed by the British flag.
No Forced Redirect by IP
Forcing visitors into a language version based on their internet address regularly misfires: the German guest on holiday abroad lands on English, the Dutch customer on a German company connection on German. Google explicitly advises against automatically redirecting users from one language version to another (Google Search Central). Suggesting yes, forcing no.
The Three Questions for Every Quote
The Honest Price: Build Once, Maintain Twice
This is where the maths usually goes wrong – in both directions. The build does not double: design, structure, technology, images and forms are created only once anyway. What is added are texts and a few technical steps. That is why a second language is cheapest at the time of a new build and rarely the big cost block many take it for.
Upkeep, by contrast, really does double. Every price change, every new service, every changed opening hour and every new contact person has to be maintained twice – permanently, not once. This is exactly where most multilingual websites fail: not at the start but in the second year, when the English version shows prices from the day before yesterday. An outdated foreign-language page harms trust more than not having one ever would have cost.
| Aspect | One language | Two languages |
|---|---|---|
| Design and technology | Built once | Built once, unchanged |
| Texts | Written once | Written and checked twice |
| Addresses and hreflang | Not needed | Own URL per language plus linking |
| Price change | Maintain in one place | Maintain in two places |
| New service or page | Add once | Add twice, otherwise a gap appears |
| Legal texts | Checked once | Checked twice, not machine-translated |
| Risk | Manageable | Outdated foreign-language version |
Better Three Pages Properly Bilingual than Thirty Half-Done
Economically, the second language is therefore a running-cost question, not a purchase. Anyone with ongoing website maintenance can carry it along with manageable extra effort. Anyone maintaining everything themselves should honestly assess whether the second version really keeps up in daily business. How plannable fixed prices differ from billing by effort is broken down in our article on website costs: fixed price or hourly rate.
The Lean Entry: One Good English Overview Page
For most businesses where a second language is worthwhile at all, the entry is smaller than they think. A single, well-made English overview page can suffice to begin with: who you are, what you offer, where you can be found, when you are reachable and how to contact you. It answers the questions a foreign-language prospect actually has, and it can be kept up to date in a few minutes.
- A short introduction: who you are and who you work for – in three or four sentences, without advertising phrases.
- Services at a glance: what you offer, without mirroring every sub-page.
- Directions and reachability: address, opening or consultation hours, parking, arrival by train or bus.
- Contact in both directions: phone number, email and a form that is also labelled understandably in the second language.
- Prices or a price range, provided you state them publicly anyway – otherwise an honest note on how a quote comes about.
- A visible language switch at the top so German-speaking visitors find their way back.
If demand grows, the next pages follow – but demonstrably and not on suspicion. One more point about billing: we consider a per-word price the wrong basis, because it measures effort by text volume and not by outcome. Instead, we work with a transparent fixed-price surcharge for the second language that you know in advance. What is included is set out on the page about the multilingual website; the text work itself is described under website copywriting.
And if the honest answer in the end is “no”? Then that is a good result. The saved budget is almost always better invested in a fast, accessible and findable German site – for example in a compact starter website from 390 euros. A second language is a tool, not a seal of quality.
Sources and Studies