Offering your international customers a website in their native language will boost rapport, increase your potential customer base, and help your rankings in foreign search engines.

However, if your business involves customer contact (e.g. an accommodation property,) do not pay to have your website translated into a language that you do not speak within your business!

And most certainly do not insult your international visitors by using a computer translator service. Automatic translation services such as AltaVista/Yahoo!’s Babel Fish are excellent for interpreting text written in a language you are unfamiliar with, but are not designed to produce sensible prose!

If you are on a budget, one option is to create a one-page summary of your business in each of your spoken languages. Having your entire website available in each spoken language is, of course, ideal, but don’t forget you also need to keep all translated versions in sync — as you change an important piece of information on one page, you’ll need to update them all to remain consistent.