Your Guide to Translation

If your charity works with communities who speak different languages, offering translations on your website can make your content more inclusive. But there’s no one-size-fits-all answer—it’s all about budget, quality expectations, and how much ongoing work your team can take on.

Do nothing

Some browsers (especially Google Chrome) automatically offer to translate pages if the visitor’s language doesn’t match the site. This often uses Google Translate behind the scenes.

• Pros: Zero cost, zero setup, no editor workload.
• Cons: Inconsistent—depends on the user’s browser and settings, no control over translation quality or presentation.
• Best for: Organisations with no budget and no time to configure translation features.

Google Translate widget

Google still offers a free translation widget to charities. It’s a quick, low-effort way to let users choose a language from a dropdown, with translations handled by Google.

• Pros: Fast to set up, works instantly, remembers visitor’s language choice.
• Cons: Machine translation only; quality can vary. Chrome users may already get automatic prompts.
• Best for: Low budget, want something live immediately.

Full multilingual site structure

The heavyweight option—creating separate site trees for each language. Every page, menu, and form is translated, including system text like error messages.

• Pros: Maximum control; can adapt content to cultural context, not just language.
• Cons: High setup cost; every page must be maintained in every language.
• Best for: Large, stable sites where full localisation is part of the mission.

Page-by-page translation

Rather than duplicate the entire site, you duplicate and translate only certain pages—like key service info or campaign landing pages.

• Pros: Lower workload; focus on the most important content.
• Cons: Users might encounter a mix of translated and untranslated pages.
• Best for: Organisations with targeted translation needs.

Optional: Automated translation integration

Your CMS can integrate with services like DeepL, Google Cloud Translate, or OpenAI. Editors create a page in English, hit “translate,” and the system generates a version in another language. Naturally nothing is good as a human translating meaning and context, but sometimes that's not required to get the key messages across.

• Pros: Very fast; reduces repetitive copy-paste work.
• Cons: Paid API usage; machine translations may need human review for quality.
• Best for: Sites with frequent updates and a budget for automation.

How to Choose

A quick rule of thumb:

• No budget, no time → Do nothing or use the Google Translate widget.
• Need full cultural/local context → Full multilingual site.
• Key pages only → Page-by-page translation.
• Frequent content churn + budget → Automated translation integration may help.

We can help you work through the options, set up the right approach in Wagtail, and make sure your multilingual site works for everyone who needs it. Get in touch—we’re here to explain and support.