Multilingual Website Development

A properly localized website, not just an automatic translation widget — localized URLs, hreflang, per-language sitemaps, and an admin your team can run without a developer.

Description

A multilingual website involves more than translating the text and adding a language switcher to the header. Search engines need to know which URL is which language. Editors need to publish fa and en on different calendars. Some pages will exist in one locale and not the other.

We build that as architecture:

  • Locale-aware routing and localized slugs.
  • hreflang only for locales that actually exist on that document — never a dangling alternate.
  • Per-locale sitemaps.
  • Content for each language is managed in the same CMS, so your team doesn't have to maintain separate websites.
  • We configure the relevant SEO metadata and technical SEO settings for each language, rather than only for the default language.

The current Bscenius site is the working example. The rules we follow are in Multilingual SEO, and you can see how we treat a content-heavy product in the Bscenius case study.

What's included

  • Locale architectureURL strategy, routing, and how documents relate across languages — decided before we write the first localized field.
  • Correct hreflangOn every page, only for locales that exist. Self-referential and x-default handled on purpose, not by accident.
  • Localized sitemapsEach language gets the URLs that are actually published in that language.
  • Editor-led publishingYour team adds and updates a language without a deploy and without us.

The challenge

Most multilingual setups fail in one of two ways. Search engines get confused (wrong hreflang, duplicate defaults, one sitemap for all languages). Or the editorial team cannot ship a translation without pinging a developer.

We address both problems as part of the same implementation. If a locale is not ready, it should be absent — not empty.

What we do

  • Design the locale model firstWhich languages, prefix vs subdomain, what happens when a translation is missing.
  • Implement SEO per localeMetadata, canonicals, hreflang, sitemaps — each language is a first-class site.
  • Show the working versionWe point you at our own docs and case study so this is not a slide deck.

Our process

  1. 01

    Locale strategy

    Languages, URL shape, fallback rules, and who will translate.

  2. 02

    CMS localization

    Payload (or equivalent) fields, localized slugs, and admin UX for translators.

  3. 03

    Technical SEO per locale

    hreflang, sitemaps, metadata, and canonical rules.

  4. 04

    Editorial handoff

    How to add a language, how to leave one unpublished, what not to duplicate.

Why choose us

  • We run this on our own site

    Bscenius is multilingual on Payload with the same SEO rules we sell. You can inspect the approach in the docs.

  • SEO-first, not widget-first

    A translate plugin that rewrites the DOM is not a multilingual site. Crawlers need stable URLs.

  • Editors stay independent

    Your content team can manage missing translations without needing a developer to change the site's code.

Frequently asked questions

We only emit hreflang for locales that exist on that document. A missing translation is omitted, not pointed at a 404 or the default language pretending to be the other one.