A website in two languages: when your business needs English and what to translate first

Your website needs English when some of the customers you want cannot read Albanian: tourists booking rooms, tours or rental cars, foreign companies looking for suppliers, or partners who want to know the business before contacting you. You do not have to translate the whole website at once. Start with the pages that lead to a booking or an enquiry: your services or rooms, prices and terms, directions and contact details. Machine translation can produce the first draft, but someone who knows the language well should read the prices, terms and any legal text. For Google to find the English version, each page needs its own address, the language switch must lead to the same page, and the two versions must point to each other with hreflang.

According to INSTAT, 12.47 million entries of foreign citizens were recorded in Albania in 2025, 6.6% more than a year earlier, about 95% of them from European countries. Many of them look for information in their own language: in a 2011 European Commission survey, 90% of internet users in the EU preferred websites in their own language and 42% never bought online in another language (Flash Eurobarometer 313).

Google’s guidance and the data were checked against official sources on 27 October 2026.

When English pays off

The clearest signs are already on your phone and in your inbox:

• Customers write to you in English on WhatsApp, Instagram or email, and ask about things the website explains only in Albanian.
• Bookings or orders arrive through platforms where questions and reviews are in English.
• Google Analytics or Search Console show visitors from outside Albania, or English searches for your business name and area.
• You sell to foreign companies or work with partners who ask, in English, for information about the company, its products or certificates.

For a local service such as an accounting office or a car repair shop, where almost every customer speaks Albanian, English can wait. There it is worth more to improve the Albanian pages, the contact details and your Google Business Profile.

English, or your customers’ language?

English is the language most tourists and foreign companies understand, but it is not always the most useful one. If most of your guests come from Italy, Poland or Germany, a page in their language may bring more bookings than an English version. Look at the nationalities in last year’s bookings and the language of the messages you receive. Start with one extra language you can maintain well, not several half-translated ones.

Albanian is not replaced. Albania’s consumer protection law requires the essential information about goods and services to be in Albanian (Article 12), so English is added alongside Albanian, not instead of it.

Which pages to translate first

For a tourism business, such as a guesthouse, a tour operator or a car rental company, translate first the pages a customer needs to decide and to book. The rest can follow later.

The blog, news, the family history or the jobs page can wait. But do not put pages that exist only in Albanian in the English menu: a visitor who clicks and finds text they cannot read usually leaves.

For a business that sells to foreign companies, the order changes slightly: translate the services or catalogue, the company page with registration details, certificates and contact details. For guesthouses and agritourism farms, the key pages are covered in our guesthouse website guide.

What not to leave to machine translation

Machine translation tools are useful for a first draft, and Google does not forbid them. Its spam policies target large numbers of pages produced through automated transformations, including translation, where little value is provided to users. For content created with AI tools, Google asks you to review it before publishing, including the title, description and image alt text. The problem is not the tool but publishing without anyone who knows the language reading it. Take particular care with:

• Prices and terms. “The prepayment is non-refundable” and “the deposit is returned on arrival” are different rules. The translation must state your rule exactly, because the customer will ask you to honour it.
• Legal texts. Booking terms, the privacy policy and cancellation rules have consequences. Give them to a professional translator or to the lawyer who drafted them.
• Names. Do not translate the business name or place names. For dishes, keep the Albanian name and add a short explanation, for example: “Fërgesë: peppers, tomatoes and cottage cheese baked in a clay dish.”
• The words customers search for. A word-for-word translation is not always what tourists type into Google. For “bujtinë” they search “guesthouse”; for agritourism, “agritourism” or “farm stay”. Translate the page title and description as well, because they appear in Google’s results.
• Dates, numbers and phone numbers. Write dates with the month’s name, because 06/07 reads differently to an American and a European. State times and the currency clearly, and give your phone number with the +355 prefix so it works from abroad.
• Text inside images. A menu or offer published as a photo is not translated, and Google does not read it as text. Put it on the page as text.
• Automatic messages. Confirmation emails, form error messages and WhatsApp auto-replies are often forgotten and stay in Albanian.

How Google finds the English version

Google recommends a separate address for each language version of a page, rather than cookies or browser settings that change the language at the same address. In practice:

1. One address per language. Use a folder for English on the same domain, for example example.al/en/rooms/ alongside example.al/dhomat/.
2. The language switch leads to the same page. From a room page in Albanian, “EN” should lead to the same room in English, not to the home page. These links also help Google discover the pages.
3. hreflang links. Each version lists itself and the other version, and both must point to each other: according to Google, if two pages do not point to each other, the tags are ignored. Add x-default for the page shown when no language matches. The tags can go in the page code, in HTTP headers or in the sitemap (Google’s hreflang guidance).
4. No automatic redirects. Google advises against automatically sending visitors from one language version to another based on the language you think they speak, and warns that when the language changes automatically, it might not find all your versions. Let visitors choose.
5. The whole page in one language. Google determines the language from the visible text on the page, not from the lang attribute or the URL. The /en/ folder helps visitors, but the menu, footer, buttons, title, description and image alt text should all be in English.

A button that translates the page inside the browser does not create English pages with their own addresses. Google has nothing to show for English searches, and you do not control what the customer reads.

You do not need to change your domain. A .al domain ties the website to Albania, which suits a business that welcomes tourists here, and you do not need a separate .com for English: an /en/ folder is enough and easier to maintain. Our .al domain guide explains how to choose and protect the domain.

After launch, check in Search Console that the English pages are indexed and which searches they appear for. Our SEO guide explains how to read the reports.

Your Google profile and social media

• Google Business Profile: do not add an English version to your business name, such as “Bujtina Guri / Stone Guesthouse”. Google’s guidelines do not allow the name to be repeated in several languages, even when your sign shows it that way. Links are not allowed in the description; your website address goes in the website field.
• Instagram: write your bio in both languages and add links to the pages in each language; Instagram allows up to five links.
• Booking platforms: your descriptions on Booking or Airbnb should say the same things as your website: prices, times and rules.

Who keeps the translations up to date

An English page with last year’s prices costs you more than having no English page at all. Every change in Albanian, such as prices, season dates, the menu or opening hours, must also be made in English.

• Name one person who makes each change in both languages, or who checks it after someone else does.
• Keep a short list of how recurring words are translated, such as room names, dishes and services. That way the same thing has the same name on every page.
• Before each season, read the English pages as a customer would: prices, dates, rules and contact numbers.

Each additional language adds work to the project: translation, review, a design that holds longer words, and testing. Our guide to website costs explains how this affects the price.

Illustrative example: an agritourism farm adds English

An agritourism farm near Berat receives more and more messages in English from Polish, Italian and German guests. The owner does not translate the whole website. The first English version covers the rooms, seasonal rates and what is included, directions to the farm with a map, because the last two kilometres are a village road, the restaurant hours and a menu with the Albanian dish names and an explanation, the booking form with its confirmation email, and the cancellation rules.

The first translation is done with a machine translation tool, then read and corrected by someone who speaks English well. The farm’s history and the blog stay in Albanian only and do not appear in the English menu. Each page has its own address under /en/ and hreflang links. After three months, the owner checks in Search Console which English searches the pages appear for and how many bookings came through the English version.

Checklist

• Do you know where your customers come from and which language they write in?
• Have you translated the pages that lead to a booking or enquiry, including the form and the confirmation email?
• Has someone who knows the language well read the prices, terms and legal texts?
• Does every page have its own address in each language?
• Does the language switch lead to the same page in the other language?
• Do the two versions point to each other with hreflang?
• Are the title, description, menu, buttons and image alt text translated?
• Is your phone number shown with the +355 prefix?
• Who updates the translations when prices or opening hours change?

Frequently asked questions

Is an automatic translation button on the website enough?

Not for a business that expects customers from abroad. The translation is unchecked, and Google has no English pages to show in search.

Do I need a separate domain for English?

Usually not. An /en/ folder on the same domain is easier to maintain and keeps the business name at a single address.

What does adding a language cost?

It depends on how many pages are translated, who translates them and who reviews them. Ask for the proposal to show it separately, along with updating the translations after launch.

We build websites in Albanian, English and Italian, where each language has its own addresses, the switch leads to the same page and hreflang links tell Google about the versions. The proposal sets out who prepares and who reviews the translations. Explore our website design service or tell us about your project.