Professional website translation Your website in over 220 languages. Without losing SEO.
We translate websites for businesses: CMS content, product pages, landing pages and blog articles. Straight from your system via API or as a file export. With a translation memory, you don't pay twice for content updates.
Four ISO certificationsTranslation partner for demanding companies
- Service: Translation of complete websites (CMS content, landing pages, blog, product pages) in over 220 languages
- Integration: API connection to WordPress, Typo3, Shopify, HubSpot and other CMS. File export too (HTML, XLIFF, JSON)
- Cost: MTPE from €0.05/word, specialist translation from €0.12/word. Up to 70% off through a translation memory on updates
- SEO: Meta tags, title tags and keywords are translated too. hreflang implementation is on the client side
More than plain text translation
What sets a website translation apart from a document
A professional website translation covers the linguistic and cultural transfer of all web content (body copy, meta tags, alt text, UI strings and CTAs) into the target language. Unlike documents, this has to account for CMS structures, SEO metadata and ongoing content updates. tolingo offers this service via API connection from €0.05/word (MTPE) or €0.12/word (specialist translation to ISO 17100).
Translating a PDF and translating a website are two fundamentally different projects. A website is alive: content changes weekly, product pages are added, blog posts get updated. Then there's the technical dimension. Meta tags, URL structures, character limits in navigation elements and the question of whether "Buy now" still fits the button in Japanese.
A professional website translation has to do three things at once: linguistic quality (does the text sound natural in the target market?), technical integrity (are any tags, placeholders or formatting lost?) and economic efficiency (how do I avoid re-translating the whole site with every update?). tolingo solves this through a translation memory, API integration and a clear process.
CMS integration & file formats
How your content gets into our system and back
tolingo offers an API interface for connecting common content management systems. New or changed pages are passed automatically to our translation management system (TMS) and returned to your CMS after translation. This saves the manual export-import cycle and reduces sources of error. All data is processed on German servers to ISO 27001.
Supported systems and formats
| CMS / platform | Integration method | Typical file formats |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress | API via XLIFF export or plugin | XLIFF, HTML, PO |
| Typo3 | Native XLIFF connection | XLIFF |
| Shopify | API / JSON export | JSON, CSV |
| HubSpot | API / HTML export | HTML, JSON |
| Other / custom build | REST API or file exchange | XLIFF, JSON, XML, HTML, CSV |
If your CMS doesn't support a direct connection, we work with file export. You export the content to be translated as HTML, XLIFF or JSON, and we translate and return the files in the same format. More on the technical options: tolingo API and system integration.
Plugin, DeepL or translation agency?
When each approach makes sense
Tools like Weglot, WPML or DeepL solve a real problem: they make websites multilingual fast. For a low-traffic blog or an internal knowledge platform, that can be enough. For business websites meant to convert, these tools hit three limits.
| Criterion | Plugin / AI tool | Professional agency |
|---|---|---|
| Terminological consistency | None. Each page is translated in isolation. "Rückstellung" becomes "provision" one time and "reserve" another. | A glossary and terminology management keep the terminology consistent. |
| SEO in the target market | Translates the source literally. German keywords end up one-to-one in English, even if nobody searches that way. | SEO adaptation: keywords are matched to search behaviour in the target market. |
| Legally relevant texts | Not reviewed. Terms and conditions, privacy policies and legal notice remain at your own risk. | Four-eyes principle to ISO 17100. Specialist translators with a legal background. |
| Cost on updates | Ongoing licence fees (Weglot: from €150/month at 10+ languages). No reuse. | Translation memory: paid once, up to 70% cheaper on updates. |
| Cultural adaptation | Literal. A CTA like "Jetzt Beratung sichern" sounds stiff in English. | Website localisation: CTAs, currencies and imagery are adapted to the market. |
Our recommendation: use plugins for internal content with low risk. For everything your customers see (homepages, product pages, legal texts, SEO landing pages) professional translation is worth it. Mixed strategies work too: a plugin for the blog, an agency for the conversion-critical pages. For an assessment of which pages need which quality level, we're happy to advise.
SEO in website translation
What we translate and what you implement
A website translation involves far more than body copy. Search engines assess each language version separately. If meta descriptions, title tags or alt text aren't translated too, the new language version ranks poorly or not at all.
By default, tolingo translates all SEO-relevant text components: title tags, meta descriptions, H1 to H3 headings, alt text for images and structured data (where it exists as text). Where needed, our translators match keywords to the search habits of the target market. A US user searches differently from a British one, and a Japanese user uses different terms from a Chinese one.
tolingo handles: Translation of all text content (including meta tags, alt text, UI strings, CTAs), SEO-appropriate keyword adaptation for the target market, terminology management for consistent wording across all pages and languages, a translation memory for cost-efficient updates.
Your team handles: hreflang tags in HTML/sitemap, the URL structure of the language versions (subdomain, subfolder or ccTLD), technical deployment of the translated files into your CMS. Where needed: layout adaptation (DTP) if translated texts run longer than the original.
Cost & translation memory
Transparently calculated, efficient on updates
Website translations are billed by word count. The price per word depends on three factors: language combination, the quality level you want (MTPE or human translation) and subject field. A decisive cost lever is the translation memory (TM).
| Service | Price from | Suitable for |
|---|---|---|
| MTPE (post-editing) | €0.05/word | Blog articles, product descriptions, high-volume support pages |
| Specialist translation (ISO 17100) | €0.12/word | Homepages, landing pages, legally relevant content (terms and conditions, privacy) |
| TM matches | up to 70% off | Content updates, seasonal refreshes, product-page expansions |
| Express (24 h) | +30 to 50% | Campaign launches, time-critical landing pages |
A worked example: you translate 200 product pages into English (40,000 words in total). On the first order you pay the full word price. Six months later you update 30 pages. The TM recognises that 60% of the text is identical. You only pay for the new and changed passages. On large e-commerce sites with recurring text blocks (shipping information, return conditions), this saves considerably.
5 mistakes companies make with website translation
And how to avoid them
- Translating the text, forgetting the metadata
The visible content is translated, but title tags and meta descriptions stay in German. Google indexes the page with German snippets in the English version. Result: a low click-through rate in the target market.
- Not building a translation memory
Every content update is translated from scratch instead of drawing on existing translations. That costs twice over and puts terminological consistency at risk. On product pages with recurring elements especially, it throws money away.
- Trying to translate everything at once
A website relaunch in 15 languages at once is complex. Better: start with your highest-revenue markets, gather feedback, build a glossary, then roll out step by step.
- Confusing localisation with translation
Literal translation is enough for legal content. Marketing pages need cultural adaptation: different imagery, different CTAs, different arguments. More on this: localisation vs. translation.
- Implementing hreflang incorrectly
Even a perfect translation is worthless if Google can't map the language versions. hreflang tags must be bidirectional and point to all the others from every language version. That's a job for your development team, not the translator.
Frequently asked questions
Website translation at tolingo
Ready to make your website multilingual?
Describe your project: CMS, number of pages, target languages. We'll get back to you with a concrete quote.
ISO 17100 · ISO 18587 · translation memory included · Since 2007Glossary
Terms around website translation
- Localisation
- Cultural and linguistic adaptation of web content to a target market. Goes beyond plain text translation: it covers currencies, date formats, imagery and the structure of the argument. More: localisation in the glossary.
- hreflang
- HTML attribute that signals to search engines which language version of a page is meant for which market. Must be set bidirectionally in every language version. Faulty implementation leads to duplicate content and ranking losses.
- XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format)
- Standardised interchange format for translation projects. Separates translatable text from code and formatting, which prevents errors on re-import into CMS. More: XLIFF in the glossary.
- Translation Memory (TM)
- Database that stores all translated segments. On follow-up orders or content updates, the system recognises identical passages and doesn't charge for them again. Saves up to 70% on recurring texts. More: Enterprise TM in the glossary.