How to Create a Multilingual Wix Website

This article is part of our complete Wix guide.

A multilingual Wix website lets you serve customers in their own language, which builds trust, improves conversions and opens up search traffic you cannot reach in English alone. Wix has a built-in solution, Wix Multilingual, that adds languages to your existing site, gives each language its own URLs and handles the technical SEO signals for you. This guide covers how to plan your languages, set up Wix Multilingual, translate pages, store and CMS content, and avoid the mistakes that leave translated pages invisible on Google.

Key takeaways

• Wix Multilingual keeps one site with several languages, so design changes apply everywhere.
• Each language gets its own URL (a subdirectory such as /es/ by default), and Wix adds hreflang tags automatically.
• Machine translation is a fast start; human review is essential for key pages, especially service pages and checkout.
• Translate SEO titles, descriptions, image alt text and URLs, not just visible text.
• Only add languages you can support with customer service and updated content.

In this guide

• Which languages should your Wix site have?
• Wix Multilingual vs separate sites vs third-party apps
• How to set up Wix Multilingual step by step
• How to translate pages and design
• Translating the CMS, Wix Stores and the blog
• Multilingual SEO on Wix
• How to keep a multilingual Wix site up to date
• Common multilingual mistakes
• Need help with a multilingual site? Let MIVAQ do it for you
• Frequently asked questions

Which languages should your Wix site have?

Do not add languages because you can; add them because customers need them. Good reasons include:

• You already receive enquiries or orders from a country with another language.
• You serve a local area with a large community speaking another language, such as Spanish in parts of the United States or Polish and Urdu in many UK cities.
• You operate in a bilingual country, such as Canada, Belgium or Switzerland.
• You run tourism, hospitality or education businesses where visitors come from abroad.

Check your analytics for visitor countries and browser languages, and look at search demand in the target language with a keyword tool. Our guide to keyword research for small business explains how. Remember that each language is a commitment: new pages, offers and policies must be translated too, and enquiries in that language need answering.

Wix Multilingual vs separate sites vs third-party apps

For most small and medium businesses, Wix Multilingual is the right choice. Separate sites only make sense when each market genuinely needs different products, prices, branding or legal content.

How to set up Wix Multilingual step by step

Wix updates its interface often, so use the Wix Help Center (search for Wix Multilingual) for current screens. The general process is:

1. Back up first. Duplicate the site or note a Site History version before making big changes.
2. Open the Multilingual settings from the editor or your dashboard settings.
3. Confirm your main language. This is the language your existing content is written in; choose carefully, as changing it later is awkward.
4. Add secondary languages and choose the regional variant if needed, such as Spanish (Spain) vs Spanish (Mexico), or English (UK) vs English (US).
5. Choose the language URL format. Subdirectories (example.com/fr) are the default and usually best for SEO; subdomains are an option in some setups.
6. Add a language menu to your header so visitors can switch languages, with flags or language names (names are clearer, since languages and countries are not the same thing).
7. Decide on automatic language detection, which can show visitors the version matching their browser settings.
8. Translate content using the methods in the next section.
9. Set each language to visible only when its translation is complete and reviewed, then publish.

Want a team to handle the setup and translation review? Multilingual projects are part of our Wix website services.

How to translate pages and design

Wix gives you three ways to translate:

• Machine translation fills in a full language quickly. Wix includes a limited allowance and offers more as needed; check current limits in the Help Center.
• Manual translation in the editor, where you switch language at the top of the editor and edit text directly on the page, seeing exactly how it fits the design.
• The Translation Manager, a side-by-side table of original and translated text that is faster for long pages and for working with a professional translator.

The best workflow for most businesses: machine translate everything, then have a fluent speaker review the homepage, service or product pages, checkout and legal pages. Translated text is often longer than English (German and French frequently run noticeably longer), so check buttons, menus and headings for overflow on mobile.

Some design changes can be made per language, such as hiding an element or swapping an image that contains text. Avoid images with embedded words where possible; real text translates and is better for accessibility and SEO.

Translating the CMS, Wix Stores and the blog

Pages are only part of the job. Business content lives in apps and collections:

• CMS collections: enable multilingual support for the collection, then translate each item’s fields. Dynamic pages then show the right language automatically. Learn more about collections in Wix CMS and dynamic pages explained.
• Wix Stores: translate product names, descriptions, options and variants, and store emails. Check that checkout, shipping and tax messages read naturally. Remember that currency display is separate from language.
• Wix Blog: translate posts that matter in each market rather than every post. Write some posts specifically for each audience, since search intent varies by country.
• Forms and automated emails: translate field labels, confirmation messages and automation emails so the whole journey stays in one language. See our Wix Forms guide.
• Bookings and events: translate service names, descriptions and reminder emails.

If you use Velo custom code, text written in code is not translated automatically. Store such text in a CMS collection or check the current language in code and display the right version.

Multilingual SEO on Wix

Wix Multilingual handles the technical foundations: separate URLs per language, hreflang tags that tell Google which version to show to which audience, and language versions in your sitemap. You still need to do the on-page work for each language:

• Translate SEO titles and meta descriptions for every page. Do keyword research in the target language; direct translations of English keywords are often not what people search for.
• Translate URL slugs where Wix allows, so /es/servicios reads naturally.
• Translate image alt text. Our Wix image SEO guide explains good alt text.
• Use local signals: local phone numbers, addresses and currencies where relevant. Our Wix local SEO guide covers this.
• Build links in each language, such as local directories and partners.
• Monitor in Search Console by filtering performance by country and page path.

For the full technical picture, see Google’s guidance on multi-regional and multilingual sites and our Wix and Squarespace SEO complete guide.

How to keep a multilingual Wix site up to date

Launching languages is the easy part; keeping them in sync is where most multilingual sites fail. Six months after launch it is common to find new services that exist only in English, prices that differ between languages, or a holiday notice still showing in one version. A simple process prevents this:

1. Make one person responsible for each language, even if that person uses a freelance translator.
2. Translate as part of publishing. Treat a page as unfinished until every live language is updated, and use the Translation Manager to spot untranslated text.
3. Keep a glossary of product names, service names and key terms with their approved translations, so wording stays consistent across pages and emails.
4. Review quarterly. Click through each language on mobile, test forms and checkout, and check that automated emails arrive in the right language.
5. Compare performance by language in Google Analytics and Search Console. A language that brings neither traffic nor enquiries after a fair trial may be better removed than left outdated.

Customer support matters as much as the website. If a German visitor sends an enquiry in German, they expect a reply they can understand. Prepare templated replies for common questions in each language, or make it clear which languages you can support by phone or chat.

Common multilingual mistakes

• Publishing raw machine translation on key pages, which reads awkwardly and reduces trust.
• Half-translated pages, where menus are translated but footers, forms or emails are not.
• Using flags for languages, which confuses visitors (Spanish is not only Spain).
• Forced redirects that stop visitors and search engines from reaching other language versions.
• Forgetting SEO fields, leaving English titles on translated pages.
• Adding languages you cannot support, then leaving them outdated.

Multilingual launch checklist

• Main language confirmed and secondary languages added
• Language switcher in header on desktop and mobile
• Pages, CMS, store, forms and emails translated
• Key pages reviewed by a fluent speaker
• SEO titles, descriptions, slugs and alt text translated
• Layouts checked for text overflow
• Search Console checked after launch

Need help with a multilingual site? Let MIVAQ do it for you

MIVAQ builds and upgrades multilingual Wix websites: language planning, Wix Multilingual setup, machine translation with human review workflows, translation of CMS, store, bookings and forms, layout fixes for longer text, and multilingual keyword research and SEO for each market. If your site uses custom code, we make that multilingual too.

We start with a free consultation and give a fixed-price quote per language. Visit our Wix solutions page, or our Wix SEO service if you want each language to rank.

• WhatsApp: message us
• Email: hello@mivaq.com
• Form: send your project details

Frequently asked questions

Is Wix Multilingual free?

Wix Multilingual is built into Wix, with a limited machine translation allowance. Some features and larger translation volumes may require a premium plan or extra credits.

Does Wix add hreflang tags automatically?

Yes. When you use Wix Multilingual, Wix generates hreflang tags for each language version of your pages.

Can I have different content for each language?

Partly. You can hide elements or change images per language, but layouts are shared. For very different content per market, consider separate pages or sites.

How many languages can a Wix site have?

Wix supports many languages and several secondary languages per site. Check the current limits on the Wix Help Center before planning a large rollout.

Can MIVAQ translate and set up my multilingual Wix website?

Yes. We set up Wix Multilingual, manage translation and review, and optimise each language for search, for a fixed price agreed after a free consultation.

Related Wix guides

• Wix CMS and dynamic pages explained
• How to start an online store on Wix
• How to redesign your Wix website without losing traffic
• How to make your Wix website accessible
• Wix marketing tools: email, social and ads
• The complete Wix guide

Conclusion

A multilingual Wix website can open new markets with one site to manage. Plan languages around real demand, use Wix Multilingual, review key translations with a fluent speaker and optimise every language for search. If you want it done properly, contact MIVAQ for a fixed-price multilingual setup.