Most guests who book a room, a table or a tour in Crete don’t speak Greek, and many of them would rather not read English either. A German family searching for a villa near Hersonissos will usually search in German, and they will trust a site that answers in German.
A multilingual website lets you reach those guests directly, instead of leaving them to the booking platforms. Done badly, it can also confuse Google and put off the visitors you wanted. Here is how to do it well.
Which languages should you offer?
Don’t guess, and don’t add ten languages because a plugin makes it easy. Every language is a version of your site you have to keep up to date.
Start with your own data:
- Your booking history. Booking platforms and most booking engines can show where your guests come from.
- Google Analytics. Check the countries and browser languages of your current visitors.
- Google Business Profile. Look at the languages of the reviews you receive.
For many tourism businesses in Crete, the answer is Greek, English and German, often followed by French, Dutch, Polish, Italian or a Scandinavian language, depending on your area and type of guest. Two or three languages kept accurate are worth more than eight that are out of date.
Give every language its own address
Each language version should have its own URL, for example:
yourvilla.com/en/for Englishyourvilla.com/de/for Germanyourvilla.com/gr/for Greek
This is the structure Google recommends because it can find, index and show each version separately. Avoid sites where the language changes on the same address with a cookie or a script: Google may only ever see one language.
Subfolders like /de/ are usually the best choice for small businesses. They are simple, cheap, and every language benefits from the reputation of the same domain.
Tell Google which page is which: hreflang
Hreflang tags are small lines in the page code that tell Google “this page also exists in German, here is the address”. They help Google show the German page to German searchers and the English page to British ones.
Three rules matter:
- Every language version lists all versions, including itself.
- The links work both ways: if the English page points to the German one, the German page points back.
- Add an x-default version, the page to show when no language matches. Usually that is English.
Most modern website platforms can add hreflang automatically, but check that it is actually there. Errors are common, especially after a redesign.
Don’t redirect visitors by location
It is tempting to send everyone from Germany straight to the German site. Don’t do it automatically. A British guest living in Munich, or a German guest using an English browser, ends up on the wrong language with no obvious way back. Google’s crawlers mostly visit from the US, so automatic redirects can also hide versions from Google.
Instead, show the language that matches the address, and offer a clear language switcher in the header. The switcher should take visitors to the same page in the other language, not back to the home page.
Translate the whole page, not only the text
Visitors notice when a “German” page still has an English menu, an English booking form or Greek confirmation emails. Translate:
- Page titles and meta descriptions, the text people see in Google results
- URLs, where your platform allows it (
/de/zimmer/rather than/de/rooms/) - Image alt text, buttons, forms, error messages and cookie banner
- The booking flow and its confirmation emails
- Prices, dates and phone numbers in the format your visitors expect
Machine translation: useful draft, risky final
Machine translation is now very good, and it is a sensible way to produce a first draft. Publishing it without review is risky. It gets local names, dishes and tone wrong, and it can make your business sound careless right where guests decide whether to trust you.
Google’s guidelines also warn against pages produced at scale without care for the reader. Translated content that nobody has checked can count as low-quality content.
A good middle way: machine-translate, then have a native speaker review the pages that matter most: home, rooms or menu, prices, booking and contact.
Write for how people search, in each language
Translation is not the same as keyword research. A guest searching in German may use terms that are not a literal translation of your English keywords: “Ferienhaus mit Pool Kreta” rather than “villa with pool Crete”. Check what people actually search in each language, and use those words in titles and headings.
The same applies in Greek: our guide on keyword research in Greek shows how.
A short checklist
- Two to four languages, chosen from your guest data
- A separate URL for each language
- Hreflang on every page, with x-default
- A language switcher that keeps the visitor on the same page
- Translated titles, descriptions, menus, forms and booking emails
- Native-speaker review of your key pages
- Keyword research in each language, not only translation
Let us build it with you
We build multilingual websites and booking systems for hotels, villas, restaurants and tour operators in Crete and across Greece and Cyprus, with the structure above built in from day one. To grow your direct bookings further, read our guide on getting more direct bookings, or get in touch.