Jul 30, 2025·8 min
How to Build a Multilingual Website for Schools and Colleges
Learn how to plan, build, translate, and maintain a multilingual website for schools and universities, with clear UX, SEO basics, and governance.
Learn how to plan, build, translate, and maintain a multilingual website for schools and universities, with clear UX, SEO basics, and governance.
A multilingual education website works best when it starts with clarity: who you’re serving, what they need to do, and which languages remove real barriers. Before choosing tools or starting translation, align leadership, admissions, and communications around a shared plan.
Most school and university sites serve multiple groups at once. List them explicitly so you can prioritize content later:
If your institution has distinct campuses, programs, or age groups, note where needs differ (e.g., K–12 parents vs. graduate applicants).
Multilingual content should support actions, not just “translated pages.” Write down the top tasks for each audience, such as:
These tasks help you decide what must be accurate and current in every language.
Choose languages based on evidence: enrollment goals, applicant markets, community demographics, and support requests. Start with languages that reduce friction in high-stakes journeys (applications, payments, safety information). If resources are limited, define a “minimum viable” language set for launch and a roadmap for expansion.
Pick metrics tied to outcomes, for example:
Document these decisions in a short one-page brief so every later choice (content, design, workflow) supports the same goals.
Translation is most effective when you translate the right content—not everything by default. Start with a clear inventory so you know what exists, what’s missing, and what should be retired before translation begins.
List every public-facing page and file, including PDFs and “hidden” documents that families often rely on: policies, handbooks, enrollment guides, fee schedules, transportation rules, safeguarding statements, and accessibility info. Include media with text (images of flyers, scanned forms) because they often need rewriting, not just translation.
A simple spreadsheet is enough. Capture URL, page title, owner, last updated date, and where it lives (CMS page, PDF, Google Doc).
Group items into:
This helps you avoid translating content that will expire in a week, and it clarifies what needs faster turnaround.
For each audience (parents/guardians, applicants, current students, alumni), mark content as:
Translation multiplies maintenance. Combine duplicate pages, delete outdated content, and standardize terminology (program names, grade levels, office titles) so your translations stay consistent and easier to keep updated.
Your URL structure is the backbone of a multilingual education site. It affects SEO, analytics, editing workflows, and how easily students and parents can share the right version of a page.
example.edu/es/ and example.edu/fr/
Best when you want one website to manage, consistent branding, and simpler analytics.For most schools and colleges, subfolders are the practical default: one CMS, one design system, one set of technical settings, and easier cross-language navigation.
Pick a predictable pattern and keep it stable over time:
/es/, /ar/, /zh/./es/admissions/ mirrors /en/admissions/.Consistency makes it easier to maintain menus, breadcrumbs, and translation workflows—especially when multiple departments publish content.
Navigation should be translated and culturally clear, not just copied. Build:
Institutions often have programs, campuses, or forms available in only one location or language. Decide upfront:
This avoids dead ends and prevents students from feeling like they’ve reached an incomplete website.
A multilingual education website succeeds or fails on day-to-day operations. The right CMS should make it easy to create language versions, route them to the right people, and publish consistently—without relying on a single “web person” to do everything.
Choose a CMS that supports multi-language pages and content types natively (or via well-supported modules). Key capabilities to confirm before you commit:
If your institution already uses a CMS, test multilingual publishing on a small set of pages first (e.g., admissions and contact) to reveal gaps.
If you’re also building net-new experiences (a microsite for international applicants, a scholarship portal, or a multilingual events hub), consider prototyping outside the CMS first. For example, Koder.ai can help teams quickly generate a working web app from a chat-based spec—useful for validating page templates, language switching behavior, and workflows before committing to a full implementation. Because Koder.ai can export source code and supports deployment/hosting plus snapshots and rollback, it can fit both early-stage prototyping and production handoff when your internal team is ready.
Set expectations early by defining roles like:
Keep ownership clear: departments can update program details, while central teams maintain global navigation, policy pages, and brand voice.
Standardize templates so translations stay predictable:
Templates reduce rework and help reviewers focus on meaning.
Your media library should support alt text per language (and ideally captions/transcripts for video). Alt text often needs translation because it conveys meaning and supports accessibility—especially for forms, infographics, and instructional images.
A multilingual school or university site succeeds when visitors can switch languages quickly and still feel oriented afterward. International students, parents, and faculty often arrive through deep links (a program page, a deadline notice), so the language experience has to work beyond the homepage.
Put the language switcher in a consistent, easy-to-find location across all templates—typically the top header (right side for left-to-right languages). Keep it visible on mobile as well (in the header or the first items inside the menu), not buried in the footer.
Label languages with their native names—“English”, “Español”, “العربية”—rather than flags only. Flags can be ambiguous (e.g., Spanish varies by country), and many users don’t identify their language with a single flag.
Avoid abbreviations in menus (“Acad.”, “Intl.”) because they don’t translate cleanly. Use short, plain terms like “Admissions”, “Programs”, “Student Life”. If items become longer after translation, allow the layout to wrap gracefully instead of shrinking text.
If you support Arabic, Hebrew, or similar, design for RTL from the start: mirrored layouts, appropriate typography, correct alignment for icons and arrows, and forms that behave naturally. Test key pages (admissions, request info, apply) in RTL early.
Decide what happens when a page isn’t translated yet. Common patterns include:
Whichever you choose, keep users informed—silent redirects can feel like the site is “broken.”
A multilingual site succeeds or fails on trust. For schools and colleges, that means families must be able to rely on what they read—especially when the topic is admissions, safety, policies, and student support.
Start by classifying content by risk and impact. Use human translation (not just machine output) for critical pages such as:
For lower-risk content (news posts, event recaps), you can move faster—but still apply review and clear ownership.
Educational websites repeat specialized terms: program names, campus locations, grade levels, scholarship titles, and “official” phrases used in policies. Create:
This prevents small inconsistencies that confuse readers (for example, the same program being translated two different ways across pages).
Define a lightweight workflow so updates don’t stall:
Add service-level expectations (e.g., “admissions pages updated within 3 business days”) so language versions don’t lag behind.
Machine translation can help for non-critical content, but avoid publishing it on important pages without disclosure. If you do use it, label it clearly and provide a way to report issues (for example, a short note and feedback link in the footer).
When you’re ready, document the process in a simple internal page (e.g., /blog/translation-workflow) so new staff can follow the same steps.
Multilingual SEO helps families and applicants land on the right language version of your pages from Google—without seeing duplicates, mixed languages, or the wrong campus information. The goal is clarity: one topic, multiple language versions, each clearly labeled for search engines.
Give each language its own, stable URL. Common options include:
/en/admissions/ and /es/admisiones/ (often easiest to manage)en.example and es.exampleWhichever you choose, keep navigation and internal links consistent within each language so search engines (and users) don’t bounce between languages unexpectedly.
Create a unique page title and meta description for every language version—don’t leave English metadata on translated pages. Aim for natural phrasing that matches how people search in that language (especially for high-intent pages like Admissions, Tuition & Fees, Programs, and Contact).
Also translate key on-page headings (H1/H2) naturally. Avoid keyword stuffing; it reads poorly and can hurt trust—particularly for schools where credibility matters.
Use hreflang to tell search engines which language (and optionally region) each page targets, and how pages relate across languages. Pair it with correct canonical tags so Google doesn’t treat translations as duplicates.
A simplified example (on the English page) looks like:
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="/en/admissions/" />
< = = = />
Each language page should reference itself and its counterparts.
If your setup requires it, create multilingual sitemaps (either one sitemap with language URLs or separate sitemaps per language). Submit them in Google Search Console.
For partially translated sections, consider temporarily using noindex until the page is complete—this prevents half-finished translations from being indexed and shared. After launch, monitor indexing and “language mismatch” issues, and spot-check results by searching key pages in each language.
Accessibility is not “nice to have” for education websites—students, parents, faculty, and applicants may rely on assistive technology every day. When you add multiple languages, you also multiply the number of places where accessibility issues can hide.
Start by ensuring your core layouts meet widely used standards such as WCAG 2.2 AA (often referenced by ADA/Section 508 in the US, and by EN 301 549 in the EU). Focus on fundamentals that affect every language:
Schools often publish key information as PDFs. Avoid scanned PDFs when possible; they are difficult to read with assistive tech. Provide properly structured documents (real text, headings, lists, table headers) and keep file titles and link text descriptive.
For audio/video, include captions and, where required, transcripts—then translate them, too.
Accessibility content must be translated with the same care as page copy:
Also set the correct page language (and changes within a page) so screen readers pronounce content correctly.
Check each language on mobile and desktop. Run keyboard-only tests and validate with at least one screen reader (e.g., NVDA/JAWS on Windows, VoiceOver on iOS/macOS). Small differences in text length can break layouts—catch those before launch.
A multilingual school or university site is easier to maintain when the “moving parts” are designed for translation from the start. Focus on standard components that departments can reuse, and make sure time-sensitive content (alerts, events, announcements) can be published quickly in every language.
Create a small set of templates that cover most needs—department home, program detail, staff profile, news post, and FAQ. Keep layout elements (headings, labels, buttons, callouts) in editable fields rather than baked into images.
A practical approach is to define a shared component library that every department uses:
This reduces translation effort and prevents one-off pages that break consistency.
Calendars and alerts are the hardest to keep synchronized across languages because they change often.
Make these items structured: title, short summary, full details, location, audience, and “publish until” date. Avoid embedding critical info inside PDFs or images. If you need rapid updates, support a “primary language first” workflow with clear status indicators (e.g., “Translation in progress”) so users aren’t misled.
Decide early what is translated:
Also plan how you’ll store submissions: if users answer in different languages, staff may need a consistent internal format or a tagged “submission language” field.
Common integrations—student portals, payment processors, campus maps, and embedded vendor widgets—may not support every language.
Inventory them and confirm what can be localized (UI text, emails, receipts, error states). When a widget can’t be translated, provide a clear alternative path on the page (for example, a translated contact method or a link to a translated portal landing page).
A multilingual education website isn’t done after launch. Languages evolve, programs change, and international audiences behave differently from local visitors. A simple monitoring routine helps you spot issues early and keep every language equally trustworthy.
Start by separating performance by locale (language + region when relevant). Look at:
This data tells you where to invest translation and UX improvements. For example, if Spanish visitors land mostly on admissions pages, prioritize keeping those pages fresh and fully translated.
Multilingual sites can quietly drift out of sync. Set up regular checks to:
If your CMS supports it, create a dashboard or scheduled report for “translation completeness” by section.
Create a content freshness schedule for high-stakes pages, such as admissions, program descriptions, tuition/fees, deadlines, and scholarship pages. Tie updates to the academic calendar so changes trigger a review in every language—not just the default one.
Include a visible “Report a translation issue” option (for example in the footer of translated pages). Route submissions to the team responsible for language QA, and tag the page + language automatically.
Over time, these signals help you refine your translation workflow, reduce support emails, and improve multilingual SEO without major redesigns. For related setup steps, see /blog/multilingual-seo-hreflang-metadata and /blog/translation-review-workflow.
A multilingual launch is easier (and safer) when you treat it as a series of small, measurable releases—not a single “big bang.” The goal is to ship something useful to families and applicants quickly, then expand with confidence.
Begin with the pages that answer the most common questions and drive inquiries. For most schools and colleges, that means:
This first set should feel complete and trustworthy in the new language: correct dates, phone numbers, addresses, and links—not just translated paragraphs.
Choose one additional language for a pilot. This lets you test the full workflow—translation, review, publishing, and updates—without multiplying effort across many languages.
During the pilot, watch for practical issues that affect real users:
Create a backlog of pages and components to translate, then release in batches. A simple cadence (for example, weekly or biweekly) keeps momentum and makes it easier for staff to review.
A good batch is “task complete,” not “section complete.” For example, translate all content needed for “Apply,” including the program page, requirements, deadlines, confirmation messages, and any email templates.
Before each batch goes live, run quick acceptance checks so the site looks professional in every language:
A phased rollout keeps risk low and creates a clear path from “pilot language” to a fully supported multilingual education website.
A multilingual education website stays useful only if it stays consistent. The best time to prevent “translation drift” (where pages slowly stop matching across languages) is before the next update cycle starts.
Write a short style guide that all contributors can follow—staff writers, student workers, and external translators.
Include:
Keep it brief enough to be used, and store it where editors and translators will actually see it (often inside the CMS or in a shared drive).
Maintain a shared glossary that includes:
Assign an owner (often Marketing/Comms) and a simple change process: requests come in, updates are reviewed, and the glossary is published to translators and content editors.
Governance fails when “everyone can edit everything.” Define content ownership by section:
Then define translation triggers so updates don’t get missed. For example:
Create a lightweight “how we publish” playbook: page types, approval steps, and escalation contacts.
If you’re evaluating tooling to support this, prioritize systems that reduce handoffs and make rollback safe. For instance, teams building custom multilingual features with Koder.ai often use its planning mode to map roles/workflow up front, then rely on snapshots and rollback when rolling out navigation or language-routing changes across many templates.
You may also find it helpful to compare options on /pricing or browse related workflow tips in /blog.
Start by listing your key audiences (students, parents/guardians, applicants, faculty/staff, alumni) and the top tasks they must complete (apply, pay tuition, find deadlines, contact offices). Then choose languages based on evidence—enrollment goals, applicant markets, and community demographics—not “nice-to-have” requests.
A one-page brief that documents audiences, priority tasks, supported languages, and success metrics will keep decisions aligned across departments.
Translate the content that supports high-stakes actions first:
Avoid translating short-lived content by default (like event recaps) unless it directly supports a priority audience task.
Create a content inventory (pages, PDFs, forms, “hidden” documents) and tag each item as evergreen or time-sensitive. Then mark each as Required, Recommended, or Single-language acceptable.
Before translation, remove duplicates and standardize terminology (program names, office titles). Translation multiplies maintenance, so cleanup saves time long-term.
For most institutions, subfolders are the practical default (e.g., /en/, /es/) because they keep one CMS, one design system, and simpler analytics.
Subdomains can work when teams are independent, and separate domains add the most overhead (governance, SEO, parity). Choose one pattern and keep it consistent over time.
Use a visible switcher in the header (and on mobile), label languages by their native names (e.g., “English”, “Español”), and link to the matching page when it exists.
For missing translations, decide a clear fallback:
Avoid silent redirects that make users feel lost.
Pick a CMS that supports linked translations, per-language metadata, roles/permissions, and workflow states (draft → translation → review → publish). Define roles so work doesn’t bottleneck:
Use templates for key pages (Admissions, Programs, Contact) to keep translations consistent and easier to QA.
Use human translation for critical, high-risk content (admissions, tuition/refunds, legal/privacy, safety/emergency, accessibility). For lower-risk content (news, recaps), you can use faster approaches—but still include review and clear ownership.
If you publish machine-translated content, disclose it and provide a way to report issues.
Maintain a glossary of preferred translations (and “do not translate” terms like brand names) plus translation memory to reuse approved phrasing.
This prevents common problems like one program name being translated multiple ways across pages, and it reduces cost and turnaround time as the site grows.
Give each language a unique URL and implement hreflang plus correct canonical tags so search engines understand language relationships. Also localize metadata:
Submit multilingual sitemaps in Google Search Console, and consider noindex for incomplete translations until they’re ready.
Build accessible templates first (keyboard navigation, headings, contrast), then localize accessibility elements—not just body text:
Test each language on mobile/desktop and with at least one screen reader, because text expansion and RTL layouts can introduce new issues.
es.example.eduexample.edu and example.edu.mx (or different TLDs)