Multilingual Website - PLEASE help

Hi everybody!

I am new to Xara and I would like to make a multilingual site with at least 4 languages using Xara Web Designer MX (v8).
I was hoping to make a drop down box linking to the individual the languages similar to the way it is done on the main xara website but I have been told that this can't be done with Xara Web Designer MX . Did any of you ever try to do such a thing? Are there any tutorials on making drop down menus for different languages? Maybe by adding html code?
Example: http://www.xara.com/uk/


If I can't link the language pages using drop down menus, I would like to use country flag images. Unfortunately, I don't really understand how to do this. I know that there are a few tutorials here but I'm still unsure of what to do exactly and find it hard to follow. Do you copy and link the pages within Xara Web Designer (as in all in the same .web file) or do you export them individually first and then upload them into sub folders on the server?
I was quite impressed with this site: http://www.casacaterina.nl/index_english.htm
Whoever designed this came up with a great website and the multilingual solution doesn't take ages to load. Does anybody know how this is done step by step?

I have also looked at this tutorial http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/workbook85/Workbook%201.html but I'm not sure if this is the way to go for multilingual sites. My site is fairly small, about 5 pages per language but I need it in 5 languages. There might be additional pages added in future.
I'm fairly stuck due to a lack of knowledge so any advice from you experienced people would be GREATLY appreciated.

Kerstin

My suggestion would be to look at Gary's tutorial on XaraXone for managing a large website http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/wo...kbook%201.html and use this as a basis for designing the structure of your site. ie create a separate website document in Web Designer per language version of the site and upload each to different sub-folders on your web server.

You could include a nav bar with sub menu's to choose between your different languages.

If I were to do this I would fully design 1 language version of the site, create a copy of that file and then go about translating it and repeat that process per language.

Thank you very much Pete!

I have looked at that tutorial but I find it a bit confusing - all down to my limited experience, not the tutorial of course. I wish there was a similar diagram showing how to structure it for languages rather than tabs. I'll go through it again and maybe it will become clearer.

The nav bar idea is great! I assume you mean using a second nav bar on the website just for the selection of languages. I'll have to try that straight away. Thanks Pete.

Does anybody know if breaking up a site like this into sub folders has an effect on SEO? I would like my site to show up in search results in for example Spanish or French. Will it still show up in google (France, Germany, etc.) if the content is in subfolders?

Kerstin

Hello Kerstin

Simply, create your website in your preferred language and name save this document. For example, My Website - German.web

Save the same document with a new name and call this document, My website - French. Now replace the text with the French version.

Continue to do this until you have a separate document for each language.

Publish each version to a separate folder on your server. Name each folder. So for example, publish the French version to a folder that you have named French. The Spanish version goes into a folder named Spanish.

When you publish each of these different language sites, the home page should be named index.htm or index.html. So each language folder will have its own index.html file and index_html_files folder.

Links

When you create the link buttons for each language, link each button to the appropriate folder.

So, if your website domain name is mysite.com then link the French version to mysite.com/French, the Spanish version to mysite.com/Spanish etc.

Does this make sense?

Quote:

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Will it still show up in google (France, Germany, etc.) if the content is in subfolders?

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Yes :)

I doubt if you will have any negative SEO impact doing things this way

Thanks for that. The perfect explanation! Appreciate it. :D

Glad we could help.