How many languages does your real estate website need?
Your real estate website on the Costa Blanca: how many languages are really needed?
A quick look at real estate agency websites on the Costa Blanca often reveals a colourful row of flags. 🍍 The temptation to offer as many languages as possible is understandable, but in practice it is rarely a good strategy. A multilingual website can increase trust and conversions, but only when handled thoughtfully. This blog explains why quality matters more than quantity, how to choose the right languages, and why three to four languages are often ideal for a real estate website.
Why not “all languages”?
Poor-quality translations damage your reputation
Many real estate agents choose automatic translation or cheap translation services to quickly add dozens of languages. That may seem efficient, but the result can be damaging:
- Machine translations do not understand context. According to BLEND, automatic translation services are cheap and fast, but they lack sensitivity to context and local culture, which can result in errors or even offensive wording.
- Literal translations lose meaning. The same source warns that a literal translation of your texts (for example via Google Translate) causes the message to disappear; translating is essentially writing new content.
- Spelling and grammatical errors reduce trust. Errors on your website show that you are not investing in your audience. This makes your site look unprofessional and reduces the likelihood that visitors will get in touch.
Real estate is built on trust. Poorly translated terminology relating to law, contracts or location directly undermines that trust. Keep in mind that 65% of consumers prefer content in their own language. A website with many mediocre translations is therefore more likely to repel visitors than attract them.
Duplicate content and SEO issues
Another common pitfall is duplicate content. Some companies place the same English article on multiple pages and only partially translate it. Google considers these pages to be duplicate content and may negatively affect your site’s rankings. A multilingual website must provide each language version with unique, locally optimised keywords and content. Simply copying texts and running them through Google Translate is not an option.
Time and maintenance costs
Maintaining multiple languages is costly. Each language means extra content, more updates, SEO adjustments and legal accuracy. An article by Digital Ink highlights that keeping a website up to date in multiple languages requires significant time, effort and expense; every additional language adds another step to your workflow. That is why it is better to focus on a few core languages and maintain them properly, rather than delivering half-finished content everywhere.
How do you choose the right languages?
Define your audience and markets
The most important question is: who visits your website? Multilingual web development is not about adding as many languages as possible, but about offering the languages that are relevant to your clients. Use website statistics and customer feedback to determine which countries or regions your traffic comes from and where conversions take place. This quickly shows which languages truly add value.
Use a growth model
The German translation expert Intercontact recommends a phased approach:
- Local start – for small and local businesses, the native language is sufficient.
- A second language – once you generate revenue from abroad, your website should be translated into at least one additional language (usually English) to reach a wider audience.
- Languages for key markets – companies with significant foreign revenue translate their website into the languages of their main target markets.
This layered approach prevents adding too many languages too quickly. Your website grows along with your business.
Speak the language or work with professionals
A good rule of thumb is to only offer languages you speak fluently yourself or for which you have a fixed native speaker. Most Dutch and Belgian buyers investing on the Costa Blanca speak Dutch, English or German. Spanish clients naturally expect Spanish. If you or your team do not speak French fluently, offering a French website may not be a good idea. According to BLEND, human translators are necessary to understand nuance and avoid sensitive mistakes. Choose quality over quantity.
How many languages are ideal for a real estate website on the Costa Blanca?
Focus on 3–4 languages
For most real estate agents on the Costa Blanca, three to four languages are sufficient. A combination of Spanish, English, Dutch and optionally German covers the majority of the target audience:
- Spanish – essential for the local market and all legal communication.
- English – the lingua franca that serves the international market and is understood by many locals.
- Dutch – there is a large community of Dutch and Belgian buyers on the Costa Blanca.
- German – depending on your client base, German can be a valuable additional language.
Adding more languages only makes sense if you are actively doing business in them. EC Innovations emphasises that companies should focus on the languages of their most important markets instead of trying to cover all languages at once. Starting with three or four languages keeps things manageable, ensures quality, and still allows room for future expansion.
Additional options: portals and targeted marketing
Instead of adding eight languages to your own website, you can use portals and advertising to reach specific audiences. List your properties on Spanish and international real estate portals that already operate in multiple languages. Advertising in specialised media can also attract visitors from other countries without overloading your website with extra languages. After the first contact, you can support clients in other languages via email or phone.
Practical tips for a successful multilingual website
- Use a professional CMS with strong multilingual support to easily scale structure and manage content per language.
- Localise content instead of translating it literally. Adjust tone, examples and references to the culture, and perform local keyword research for SEO in each language.
- Make language switching clear. Place the language selector in a fixed position in your menu and use clear text instead of flags, so users do not have to search for it.
- Use hreflang tags and a single URL structure per language. Subdirectories such as /es/, /en/ or /nl/ consolidate SEO value.
- Test with native speakers. Let people from your target audience use the site and provide feedback.
Conclusion
A multilingual website is essential for attracting buyers from different countries, but more languages do not automatically mean more clients. Machine translations and duplicate content undermine trust and SEO. Choosing the right languages — often three to four — based on your target market delivers better results. Invest in high-quality translations or native support, optimise each language version separately, and allow your website to grow along with your business. This is how you build a strong online presence for your real estate activities on the Costa Blanca.
