Bilingual and Export-Ready Websites for Cher Businesses
French and English done properly — separate URLs, real copywriting, and the trust signals a foreign buyer looks for before making contact.
A foreign buyer evaluating a supplier in the Cher does something specific before they write to you: they read your site in their own language and decide whether you look like a company that can handle an export order. Machine-translated pages fail that test in the first paragraph. So does a French-only site with an English PDF attached. Bilingual done properly is not a translation task — it is an architecture decision, and getting it wrong creates two versions of your site competing against each other in search.
Where Bilingual Sites Usually Go Wrong
The common route is an automatic translation plugin. It is cheap, it takes an afternoon, and it produces a version of your site that reads as obviously machine-generated to the exact reader you were trying to impress. Worse, it frequently publishes both languages at addresses that search engines cannot tell apart, so the two versions compete for the same searches and neither establishes itself. The second common route is a French site with an English brochure attached as a PDF. That fails differently: nothing in the PDF is searchable in a way that brings you buyers, and the visitor has to work to understand you. Neither approach reflects a company ready to export, which is precisely the judgement being made.
How It Should Be Built
Two languages, two clean sets of addresses, each declaring the other as its alternate so search engines understand they are the same content for different audiences rather than duplicates. Real copywriting in each language, because a technical buyer notices translation artefacts immediately. And an English version written for the reader it actually serves — units they use, standards they recognise, lead times and shipping stated plainly, and a way to make contact that does not assume they are in your time zone.
What an Export-Ready Site Actually Needs
Correct URL Architecture
A directory per language on one domain is the pragmatic choice for a company of your size — it concentrates authority rather than splitting it across separate country domains you would then have to build up individually.
Declared Language Alternates
Each page states its counterpart in the other language. Without it, search engines can treat your two versions as duplicates and pick one to ignore — usually not the one you would have chosen.
Genuine Copywriting
Written by someone who works in the language, not generated and lightly corrected. This is the single most visible quality signal on an export-facing site.
Units, Standards and Norms
Dimensions in the units your buyer works in, standards named as they know them, and certifications stated in a form they can verify. Small details that decide whether you look like a supplier who has exported before.
Logistics Stated Plainly
Lead times, packaging, shipping terms, and whether you have exported to their region before. Buyers ask these questions early, and answering them on the page shortens the exchange considerably.
Contact Across Time Zones
A form that works, a stated response time, and a named contact who handles export enquiries. A phone number alone assumes the buyer will call during your office hours, which they will not.
Which Architecture for a Small Exporter?
Separate country domains, or a translation plugin
One domain, a directory per language
What You Receive
Bilingual and Export Website Questions
Can we not just use an automatic translation plugin?
You can, and for a purely informational site with no commercial stake it may be acceptable. For an export-facing site it works against you: the reader you are trying to convince is precisely the one who notices, and it often creates duplicate addresses that compete with your French pages. If budget is the constraint, translate fewer pages properly rather than all of them badly.
Separate domains per country, or one domain with language folders?
For a company of your size, one domain with a folder per language, almost always. Country domains mean building search authority separately for each one, which is a multi-year investment justified only when you have a genuine local presence and budget per market. Folders keep everything concentrated and can be extended later.
Which pages actually need translating?
The ones an export buyer reads before making contact: what you make or do, your capabilities and capacity, your certifications, and how to reach you. Company history, local news and recruitment pages rarely justify the cost. We identify the set with you rather than pricing a blanket translation.
Should the English version target the same searches as the French one?
No, and assuming it does is a common and expensive error. Your French pages target local and national searches; your English pages should target how a foreign buyer describes what they need, which is often a different vocabulary entirely — process and standard rather than town and region. The two versions serve different demand.
Get the Architecture Right Before You Translate
Send us your current site and the markets you sell into. We will come back with the architecture we would use, which pages are worth translating first, and what your existing setup would cost you if left as it is.
Request the ReviewAreas We Serve
We work with exporting businesses across the Cher and the Berry — Bourges, Vierzon, Saint-Amand-Montrond, Mehun-sur-Yevre, the Sancerre vineyards and the wider Centre-Val de Loire.
Pricing
Quoted by scope, from the 1,500 EUR base of the web design service. The second language is priced by volume of pages requiring genuine copywriting, not by word count of machine output. Monthly optimization from 300 EUR.
Request Your Bilingual Architecture ReviewOther pillars in this service
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