Creating a multilingual site with Instant Site

With Instant Site, you can create a multilingual site without hiring a developer. You create your site once in your main language, then add a translated version for each language directly from your Site Editor. The layout and design remain the same across languages, only the content (text blocks, SEO title and description, etc.) changes per language. When translations are published, visitors can navigate between site versions through a language switcher in the site’s header and footer.

Translating Instant Site content

Your Instant Site consists of blocks, e.g., About Us, Customer Reviews, Feature List, etc. Each block includes content you can translate: cover headings, navigation menu, customer reviews, and basically all text elements of your site. When you add a new block, it's automatically added in all languages – you just need to adjust the translation to your target locale.

Before translating your site, you first need to enable a new language for your store in settings. Currently, there are 36 languages available for translation. Each new language will appear in the language switcher and shoppers will be able to switch between them.

To translate your Instant Site:

1. From your store admin, go to Settings → General → Regional Settings.
2. In the Store Language block, click Language Settings.
3. Click +Add Languages and select a language from the drop-down.
4. Click Add Language. 
5. Go to Website → Edit Site.
6. Click Settings (or the gear icon) → Languages & Translations.
7. Click Manage Translation under the language name.
8. Fill in the translation to the corresponding field in the right column:
   

   

   While you are adding translations, they are not visible to your customers, only to you.
9. (optional) You can click Preview Translation at the top to see how the content looks in another language.
10. Once you are done adding translations, click Back.
11. To make a translated site visible for customers, turn on the Visible for customers toggle under the language name.
12. Click Publish.

That’s it. Now your site is multilingual. Each new translation you add will appear in the language switcher at the top of the site, and shoppers will be able to choose a preferred language for making a purchase. If you want to add more languages, repeat the steps above.

Optimizing SEO for language versions

Instant Site lets you translate your SEO title and description, making search results and sharing on social media look more relevant for audiences with different browser languages.

To localize site title and description for SEO:

1. Add SEO title and description to the main site in the default language.
2. Go to Website → Edit Site.
3. Click Settings (or the gear icon) → Languages & Translations.
4. Click Manage Translation under the language name.
5. Scroll down to the bottom and enter the corresponding translations to the Site title and Site description in the right column.
6. Once you are done adding translations, click Back.
7. To make a translated site visible for customers, turn on the Visible for customers toggle under the language name.
8. Click Publish.

Please be aware that each translated version of your site has its own subdomain with a language code displayed in the site address. For example, if your site is https://YourSite.com, the French subdomain would be https://YourSite.com/fr. Search engines consider each subdomain site as unique and distinct from your main site. You need to optimize each version to make it high ranked in search results.

How site translation works for customers

After you enable additional languages and translate the Instant Site into them, your website will become multilingual. Customers can navigate between translations with the language switcher.

By default, the site will be shown to visitors in your default language disregarding their browser preferred language.

When switching to another language, customers can purchase from you with the auto-translated checkout. They will receive an email notification in the same language they chose on your site. The invoice in the email will also be translated.

Removing a translation from Instant Site

If you no longer need your site in another language, you can turn off the language switcher on Instant Site and hide translation from customers.

To hide a translation from Instant Site:

1. From your store admin, go to Website → Edit Site.
2. Click Settings (or gear icon) → Languages & Translations.
3. Turn off the Visible for customers toggle.
4. Click Publish.

The language switcher for the language you hid will no longer be shown on your website, and visitors won’t be able to browse your site in that language. Still, all translations will be saved in your Instant Site editor. If later you re-enable that language for your store, all translations made for your site content will remain, so you don’t have to re-enter text.