Choose audiences and reviewers
Identify the people you actually serve and the pages needed for their journey: home, services, terms and contact. A language in the selector creates an expectation of usable coverage.
Assign someone to check terminology, examples, prices, units and contact details. Machine translation may help draft copy, but review for the intended audience remains essential.
Give each version its own address
Use a stable URL per language. Connect genuinely equivalent pages with reciprocal hreflang links, including self links, and keep a separate canonical URL for each version.
The selector should open the equivalent page when available. Otherwise, state clearly that the section has no translation. Google’s localized versions guide describes these conventions.
Test and maintain every journey
Check menus, filters, forms, errors and confirmations in every language, on phone and desktop. Test accented characters, longer text and right-to-left scripts when published.
After a price or service change, identify all affected translations. Article counts can differ, but pages presented as equivalents should serve the same purpose.