A Welsh–English bilingual website for a small business

Short answer: For most small businesses, the best set-up is matching Welsh and English pages at their own URLs, a language switch on every page that goes straight to the same page in the other language, and hreflang tags (cy and en) linking each pair. Check that your fonts handle every Welsh character, including ŵ and ŷ, and make forms and automatic emails bilingual too. The Welsh Language Commissioner's Hybu team offers free support to businesses, including guidance on bilingual design.

A bilingual website is a practical decision as much as a cultural one: Welsh-speaking customers notice when they're offered their language, and a half-translated site notices less kindly. This guide is for private businesses choosing to go bilingual. Public bodies work under the Welsh language standards, which are a separate matter not covered here.

The three options compared

Option	How it works	Good for	Watch out for
Side-by-side on one page	Welsh and English blocks next to each other or one above the other	Very short pages, landing pages, signage-style content	Pages double in length on mobile; Google determines language from visible content and suggests avoiding side-by-side translations
Language toggle with separate pages	Each page exists twice (e.g. `/cy/` and `/en/`); a switch swaps between them	Almost every small business website	Every page and update must be done twice; the switch must go to the matching page
Separate websites or domains	A Welsh domain and an English domain	Large organisations, distinct brands	More to maintain; links and hreflang across two sites

The Commissioner's technology guidance describes three domain options: a language-neutral address, one that combines both languages, or separate Welsh and English addresses. For a small business, a single language-neutral domain with /cy/ and /en/ folders is usually the easiest to run.

Side-by-side is common in print, and the Commissioner's bilingual design guide covers several print layouts. On the web, though, Google's multilingual guidance recommends a single language per page and separate URLs for each language version, so the toggle approach suits search better.

What the Commissioner's guidance says a good bilingual site does

The "Technology, websites and software: Welsh language considerations" document sets out what a good bilingual website does. In summary:

Offers a proactive choice of language from the start of the visit.
Shows a prominent language choice on every page, in the upper right-hand corner, without using country flags to represent languages.
Switches to the corresponding page in the other language, not back to the home page.
Keeps visitors in their language when linking to other sites that have Welsh pages.

The bilingual design guide also suggests a bilingual front page, ideally a "splash" page offering the choice of language. If you use one, don't automatically redirect visitors based on a guess about their language; Google's guidance warns against that. A splash page where the visitor chooses is exactly what Google's x-default value was designed for.

Build checklist

Structure and search

[ ] Give each language its own URL: /cy/gwasanaethau/ and /en/services/.
[ ] Add reciprocal hreflang tags. Each page lists itself and its partner, and both must point to each other or Google ignores them:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="cy" href="https://example.co.uk/cy/gwasanaethau/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.co.uk/en/services/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.co.uk/" />

[ ] Set <html lang="cy"> on Welsh pages and lang="en" on English pages.
[ ] Translate page titles, meta descriptions, image alt text and URL slugs.
[ ] Put the language switch in the header of every page, labelled "Cymraeg" and "English" (not flags).

Welsh characters

[ ] Choose fonts that support the full Welsh alphabet. The Commissioner's technology guidance says a font must cater for all 56 diacritic characters, and advises against pseudo-Celtic, calligraphic or designer fonts that handle accents in non-standard ways.
[ ] Test headings, buttons and menus with ŵ, ŷ, â, ê, î, ô, û and their capitals.
[ ] Keep URL slugs simple. Accented letters work in URLs but get percent-encoded, which looks messy when shared; many sites drop the accent in slugs and keep it in the text.
[ ] Make sure your site, database and email system all use UTF-8, so ŵ doesn't turn into "?" in a confirmation email.

Forms and emails

[ ] Translate form labels, placeholders, error messages and "thank you" pages.
[ ] Record which language each enquiry came in, and reply in that language.
[ ] Make automated emails bilingual or language-specific. The Commissioner's guidance suggests bilingual subject lines with the preferred language first when you know it, and bilingual or language-neutral email addresses (for example both contact@ and cyswllt@).
[ ] Check booking, payment and shop systems: their customer emails often come in English only by default. Many let you edit templates; some don't, which is worth knowing before you choose one.

Content workflow

The hard part isn't building the site; it's keeping both languages in step.

Plan bilingually from the start. The design guide's advice: include Welsh in the brief from the outset and allow time for translation and proofreading before design work begins.
Write the English (or Welsh) first, then translate. Use a qualified translator. The Commissioner's translation page points to the association of Welsh translators and interpreters (Cymdeithas Cyfieithwyr Cymru) for finding a professional.
Proofread short texts free. The Commissioner's social media guide mentions a proofreading service that can check and correct text. Ask the Hybu team about current limits.
Publish both versions together. A new English page without its Welsh partner breaks the switch and the hreflang pair.
Keep a glossary of your service names and key terms in both languages, so everyone uses the same words.
Review monthly: list pages changed in one language and check the other was updated.

Machine translation can help a translator work faster, but text that goes on your site should be checked by a fluent, ideally professional, Welsh speaker. Errors in Welsh are noticed, and they undermine the point of being bilingual.

Getting help

The Welsh Language Commissioner's Hybu team supports businesses and charities with, among other things, one-to-one support on topics such as bilingual design and social media, practical guides, and help working towards the Cynnig Cymraeg recognition. Their contact email is listed on their businesses and charities page.

FAQ

Do I need to translate my whole site at once?

No. Start with the pages customers use most: home, services, contact and booking. Add others over time, and don't link the switch to pages that don't have a partner yet.

Will a Welsh version help me rank in Google?

Welsh pages with correct hreflang can be shown to people searching in Welsh, a different audience from English searchers. They won't harm your English pages.

Is a translation plugin enough?

An automatic translation widget doesn't create real Welsh pages and the quality is unreliable. Use proper translations at their own URLs.

Should Welsh or English come first?

That's your choice. Many businesses in Wales lead with Welsh; be consistent across the site, signs and emails.

If you're planning a bilingual rebuild and want the switch, hreflang and emails set up properly from day one, tell us how many pages you have.