Multilingual websites with Webflow

In the last article, we focused primarily on Weglot and started by revisiting the basics and recalling the key information. You can find a link here: LINK

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What does Webflow do? 

Webflow is a professional site builder for static websites, the most important thing here is "static". This is because Webflow uses its builder to generate solid, robust and ready-made HTML websites, which are then provided by the Webflow servers.

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What does Weglot do?

When a translation is called up, the content of your page is transferred to the Weglot servers, translated and the translated texts are sent back to your browser and the German content is replaced. This means that your content is changed by Weglot.

Webflow on the rise: An era of multilingualism begins

For a long time, the demand for integrated multilingualism sat at the top of the Webflow community's wish list like an unfulfilled dream. But towards the end of 2023, this dream finally became reality: Webflow introduced a long-awaited feature under the banner of "Webflow localization".

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In typical Webflow style, multilingualism has been integrated in such a way that you don't have to change. Handling remains intuitive and user-friendly. You define your content as usual on the Webflow interface. When it comes to translation, you simply switch languages within the platform and use the translation AI to localize your content. With a simple right-click, you can have both individual text passages and entire pages translated automatically. However, this process must be carried out once for each page until all of your content has been translated.

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But why is this the case?

As with the original language, Webflow also creates static HTML files with the translated content. This means that your page is available once in German and once in English, for example. This is a clear advantage, especially from an SEO perspective, as all the meta data can be read directly by search engines. The translated pages are then available in a system of subfolders, e.g. www.wagemut.studio/en/. This is also the most common scheme for multilingual websites. 

A special plus: as you translate the content directly in the Webflow interface, you retain full control over the quality of the translations, even if they are generated automatically. Although images and other non-text-based content are not yet translated automatically, it is only a matter of time before Webflow provides a solution for this too. With this step, Webflow has not only listened to the voices of its community, but is also paving the way for an even more global presence of Webflow pages on the Internet.

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The dark side

The biggest downside of Webflow at the moment is the handling of translations. While we have many advantages through the direct integration of translations, this is also a direct disadvantage. This is because the translations can currently only be adapted via Designer access, but this makes collaboration with other translators or employees more difficult or more expensive, as additional slots have to be booked for editing. Integration into the editor would be desirable here.

Other disadvantages are that images can only be translated or exchanged in a higher plan, and the same applies to automatic forwarding based on the browser's language settings.

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The bottom line

Although the disadvantages of Webflow don't sound so nice, translation using Webflow can still make sense. Webflow localization is a good approach, especially if many pages need to be available in several languages, if you have an extensive blog with a lot of text, or if the content only changes sporadically. 

Weglot, on the other hand, is worthwhile if the website is not too extensive and the content changes somewhat frequently. This is because Weglot then takes care of the translation automatically without you having to worry about it.

This is partly due to the pricing structure of both services. In the smallest plan, Webflow costs USD 9 per language and offers a translation of 50,000 words per month. Only the words that are to be translated count, regardless of how many words your website has.

Weglot costs €15 per month for 10,000 words, but all words on your site count. To have up to 50,000 words translated, you pay €29 per month. There is also a limit on page views, which you should also keep an eye on (even if this is generous).

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What is wagemut doing in terms of localization? 

We are currently still using Weglot and so far we are very happy with the results. But in the future we will make the leap from Weglot to Webflow. Because our website falls exactly into the Webflow scheme:

• We edit our site completely ourselves
• The site is getting bigger and bigger with blogs and case studies 
• The lion's share of the content does not change (blog, case studies, etc.)

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So before we fall into the "Advanced Plan" with a cost of 3,000€, we move on to Webflow localization and are faced with a bill of 108 USD, or with a few extras in the Webflow Advanced Plan at 348 USD.

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