Why a language button costs you customers

Why a language utton Costs You Customers

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Many websites that want to reach international audiences choose what seems like a simple solution: a language button. One click, another language, done. It looks efficient. In reality, it is one of the most common reasons multilingual websites fail to perform.

A language button does not make your website multilingual. It only makes it look that way.

What a language button actually does

A translation widget, such as Google Translate, only translates the website inside the visitor’s browser. No real language pages are created and nothing changes in the site structure.

For Google, this means:

the website technically exists in only one language
translated text is not indexed
there are no separate URLs per language
SEO titles and descriptions per language are impossible
the website cannot rank in other languages

To users the site appears multilingual. To search engines, it is not.

Why this directly harms your SEO

SEO works per page and per language. To rank in English, Dutch or Spanish, Google needs separate pages with their own content and SEO signals.

With a language button, all of that is missing:

no keywords per language
no control over search intent
no internal linking per language
no authority per language

As a result, your website remains visible only in its original language. Other languages generate little to no organic traffic.

Automatic translations damage trust

Beyond SEO, there is a trust issue. Translation widgets almost always produce literal, unnatural translations. Industry terms are incorrect, sentences feel awkward and the tone is off.

Visitors notice this immediately, even if they cannot explain why. This leads to:

reduced trust
fewer enquiries
higher bounce rates
lower conversion rates

For high-involvement services such as real estate or professional services, language plays a critical role in decision-making.

Why language buttons are still popular

Language buttons are chosen not because they work, but because they are:

fast
cheap
visually convincing

But SEO and conversions do not work on appearance. They rely on structure, content and intent. On all three, language buttons fail.

What actually works for multilingual websites

Websites that generate real results in multiple languages are built with intention:

separate pages per language
clear URL structures (such as /en/, /nl/, /es/)
unique content per language
individual SEO titles and descriptions
correct hreflang implementation

In my own work using Sanity CMS, I structure websites this way deliberately. Each language is treated as a full version of the site, with its own content and SEO configuration. This is the only way to build visibility and trust per language.