Multilingual firm websites: how to reach clients in their language without promising more than you deliver

When a second language pays off

A multilingual website is not an end in itself. It pays off when three things come together: you or someone on your team really advises in that language, there are enough people in your region who prefer it, and your practice areas match their concerns. If, for example, you offer employment law, family law or payroll and speak Turkish, you have a clearly defined target group in many cities in Austria and Germany. In immigration law, language is often even the main reason for choosing a firm; what else matters there is covered in the guide to the website for immigration and residence law.

Check the demand before you invest: do your clients ask for a language? Do enquiries arrive in broken German or in English? Google Search Console shows queries such as “turkish speaking lawyer vienna” or “steuerberater polnisch” (Polish-speaking tax adviser) for which your site is already being found today. Do not offer a language that nobody on the team speaks, even if there is a large community.

State languages honestly

Saying “advice in Turkish” is objective information about your service and therefore permitted in all six professions. But it has to be true. If you have a Turkish website but only advise through an interpreter, you are misleading people. Misleading statements are prohibited by the unfair competition law of both countries and by the professional rules of every firm profession.

Which pages to translate first

A firm website with thirty pages and twenty guide articles does not need to be translated in full. A small, well-maintained language version with the pages that lead to first contact is better:

Translate guide articles later and selectively: an article on dismissal in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, one on the employee tax assessment in Polish. Which content a firm website needs in general is covered in the guide firm website content, and how to present practice areas in practice areas.

Professional or machine translation

Machine translation is surprisingly good today, but risky for legal and tax texts. It translates words, not legal systems. “Abfertigung” (Austrian severance pay), “Verlassenschaft” (estate), “Arbeitnehmerveranlagung” (employee tax assessment), “Kündigungsschutzklage” (action for unfair dismissal) or “Steuerberater” have no exact equivalent in other languages, and a wrong translation creates wrong expectations. Google also treats automatically generated, unchecked translations at scale as spam if they add no value for readers.

• Professional titles stay German and are explained: “Rechtsanwältin (lawyer admitted in Austria)”, “Steuerberater (tax adviser)”. Do not invent foreign titles such as “solicitor” or “CPA” that you do not hold.
• Fachanwalt titles (certified specialist lawyer) exist only in Germany. Do not translate them loosely as “specialist”; name the title and explain it.
• Legal terms: give the German term the first time and explain it in the language. Clients will hear the German terms at authorities and courts anyway.
• A glossary with agreed translations ensures that the same term is translated the same way everywhere.

Separate URLs and hreflang

For Google to find the language versions and assign them correctly, each language version of a page needs its own address. Google explicitly advises against switching the language only via cookies or browser settings, because search engines then see only one version.

• Subdirectories such as /en/, /tr/, /pl/ are usually the simplest solution for firms: one domain, one certificate, one website. Separate domains per language are rarely worth it.
• hreflang annotations link the language versions of the same page. Each version must list itself and all others; if the return link is missing, Google ignores the annotation.
• Language codes follow ISO 639-1: de, en, tr, hr, bs, sr, pl, ru, uk. A region is optional, such as de-AT, and only makes sense if the content really differs.
• x-default marks the page for everyone whose language you do not offer, usually the German one.
• One language per page: Google detects the language from the visible content. Mixed pages with a German menu and Turkish text confuse search engines and readers.
• The lang attribute in the code is not used by Google to detect language, but screen readers rely on it: without it, a Polish text is read aloud with German pronunciation. More in the guide to the accessible firm website.

The language switcher

• Language names in their own language: “English”, “Türkçe”, “Hrvatski”, “Polski”, “Русский”, “Українська”. Someone who does not speak German will not look for “Türkisch”.
• No flags: English is not just the language of the UK, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are linked to several countries, and some flags trigger unwanted associations among clients.
• Go to the matching page, not the home page: anyone who clicks Türkçe on the “Employment law” page lands on the Turkish page on employment law. If there is none, say so briefly and link to the closest page.
• Easy to find: in the header, on smartphones too, not hidden in the footer.

Languages in the Google profile and directories

Many people search on Google Maps first. There is only one Google Business Profile, not one per language, and the name must match the firm's actual name. Additions such as “Kanzlei Huber – Turkish-speaking lawyer” in the name violate Google's guidelines. Instead, mention the languages in the description and services, and link to the matching language version of your website.

Also keep language details up to date in official and private directories where they have a field for it, and keep them identical everywhere. How to set up the profile is explained in the guide to the Google profile, and which directories count in online directories. And because AI assistants repeat facts that are clearly stated in the text, the same applies here: write “We advise in German, English and Turkish” as a full sentence, not as a row of symbols. More in firms in AI search.

Legal notice and privacy policy in several languages

The legal notice (Impressum) and privacy policy must be easy to reach from every language version. The German versions remain authoritative; a translation still makes sense. Article 12 GDPR requires information to be given in clear and plain language. If you address a page specifically to Turkish- or Polish-speaking clients, you should therefore also offer the privacy information in that language.

• The mandatory professional disclosures apply unchanged in the foreign language too: professional title, chamber, state in which the title was awarded, professional rules. Details for each profession are in the guides to mandatory information, for example for lawyers in Austria or tax advisers in Germany.
• Professional title and chamber name stay German; an explanation in brackets helps.
• A note that the German version prevails in case of discrepancies creates clarity.
• Contact forms, error messages and consent texts need translating too, otherwise the language version breaks off at the most important point.

Staying consistent: maintaining the language versions

The biggest risk with multilingual websites is not the launch but the second year: the German pages show the new opening hours, the new colleague and the updated fees, the English ones still the old ones. Outdated information in a language version can be misleading and is embarrassing by the first meeting at the latest.

You can create bilingual out-of-office replies with the out-of-office generator. If you are planning a relaunch anyway, build multilingual support into the system from the start: a translation plugin bolted on later usually costs more than a website that handles language versions out of the box.