One website for clients in several countries: one site or one per country?

For most coaches and consultants, one multilingual website beats a separate site per country. If you are building one website for clients in several countries, a single site with a page set per language is usually cheaper to keep up and easier to explain to search engines. A separate site only makes sense when the offer itself differs by country.

What the two options really are

Option one is a single site with language versions, for example /en, /nl and /cs on the same domain. Option two is a separate site for each country, each with its own domain, its own pages and its own upkeep. Both can work. The difference is how much you have to maintain afterwards.

Why one multilingual site is usually the better start

• One domain, so the trust and links you earn count for the whole site.
• One design and one structure, so every language feels like the same business.
• One place to update a price, a service or a booking link.
• One set of logins and one owner, which keeps upkeep simple.
• A smaller bill than building and running several sites.

This is how FluoSite runs its own website: English, Dutch and Czech versions live side by side, each with its own blog feed. A visitor picks a language and stays in it.

What it does to search

Search engines need to know which page is meant for which reader. When each language has its own clearly separate pages, a Dutch visitor can land on the Dutch page and a Czech visitor on the Czech one. Machine-translated copy pasted across is the usual mistake. Write each version in the words your clients in that country actually use, because people search differently in each language.

When separate country sites make sense

• The offer, price or legal terms differ by country.
• You have a local team or a local brand in each market.
• The audiences in each country need completely different pages, not translations.
• You are happy to pay for and maintain each site separately.

If none of these apply, splitting only doubles the work. Most solo coaches and small consultancies are in the first group, serving the same kind of client in more than one language.

What to decide before the build

Decide which languages you will really keep up. Three half-finished versions are worse than two good ones. Agree the page structure once, then translate it. Check that every language has its own way to book a call, so nobody lands on a form they cannot read.

Ownership and cost

Whichever route you take, make sure you own the code, the hosting and the logins. At FluoSite most projects cost €2,000-€4,000, fixed and agreed before we start, and the scope is written down upfront, so languages and pages are part of the number you agree, not a surprise later. We work in Dutch, English and Czech.

A quick way to choose

• Same offer in every country: one multilingual site.
• Different offers or prices per country: consider separate sites.
• Unsure: start with one site and two languages, and add more once they earn their place.

You can always split later. It is much harder to merge several neglected sites into one.