We’ve talked a lot about accessibility – which impacts about 28% of visitors to your website – but what about language barriers? In the Yakima Valley, upwards of 50% of the population are Hispanic or Latino, and many of those people speak Spanish as their first language. If they don’t speak English fluently – or at all – that’s a significant portion of your customer base who may not be able to interact with your website.
Fortunately, it has never been easier to offer translation options for your website. From free automatic translation services like Google Translate to manual translation done by a real person, your business has more options than ever to make your website more inclusive.
To keep things simple, we’ll break down the options into two basic categories; automatic vs. manual translation.
The ubiquitous free online translation service is Google Translate. Since 2006, website users have had the option to enter a website address into Google to see real-time automatic translations in over 50 languages. Google even offers a widget we can build directly into your website to let visitors quickly change your site into their native language. While this option works great in most cases, the more literal nature of automatic translation can sometimes lead to inaccurate results.
Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, we also have access to more robust automatic translation services that use AI to translate content in real time, giving visitors more accurate translations with improved understanding of language structure than one to one literal translation of words on the page. Keep in mind AI does still have the potential to hallucinate, so even a paid service still has the potential to produce mistakes.
If automatic translation services aren’t quite cutting it, manually translating your site’s content can help guarantee your site is providing accurate information in the languages your customers use to communicate.
Manual translation tends to be more expensive to set up and maintain, but taking the extra time and care to fully translate your site can lead to improved readability and increased trust from your customers.
Starting out, you can simply copy your existing content into a translation tool and paste the output into a copy of your English language site. This is like the automatic translation tools but still requires your site to be duplicated for each additional language you add.
Don’t trust an online service or LLM to accurately translate your content? Sometimes there’s just no substitute for good old-fashioned human translation. If your company has someone on staff who can translate your site, going the extra mile to ensure your translations are accurate and reflect regional dialects can really put you a step above the competition.
Whether the translations are made with a free online tool, AI, or by actual humans, creating separate versions of your site for each language makes your site more shareable and easier to fine-tune with specific messaging for different audiences.
Bonus: If your competitors aren’t paying attention, adding translation options can make their loss your gain.
If your business serves a diverse clientele, consider adding dual-language or multi-language support to your website today. Get in touch for details.
Posted August 11, 2026