Bilingual website in Quebec: rules and SEO best practices
Bilingual French-English website in Quebec: what the Charter of the French Language requires, common mistakes to avoid and SEO best practices to follow.
A bilingual French-English website is the norm for a business selling in Quebec and the rest of Canada. It still has to comply with the Charter of the French Language, and avoid the two versions competing with each other in Google. Here are the rules to know and the best practices for building an effective bilingual site.
This article is a practical guide, not legal advice: for your situation, consult a legal adviser or the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).
What the law says in Quebec
Section 52 of the Charter of the French Language provides that commercial publications must be written in French, including those published on a website (Éducaloi). A business established in Quebec must therefore offer its site in French.
Three points to remember:
- French is mandatory, English is allowed: you can offer other languages, provided the French version is at least as complete;
- businesses outside Quebec can be covered: the rule applies to e-commerce sites run from outside Quebec to the extent that they sell to Quebec residents (Osler);
- enforcement has tightened: since Bill 96, the OQLF can carry out inspections on its own initiative, and fines range from $3,000 to $30,000 per offence (Osler).
Common mistakes on a bilingual site
An incomplete French version
Half-translated pages, a blog in English only, product pages with no equivalent: this is the most frequent complaint. Every English commercial page should have its French page.
Unreviewed machine translation
A translation tool conveys the general meaning, not your customers' vocabulary. In Quebec, people write "courriel", "magasiner", "soumission": text modelled on the French of France, or translated word for word from English, is noticed straight away.
Forced redirection by browser language
Automatically redirecting a visitor to English or French stops them choosing, and stops Google crawling both versions properly. Offer a visible language switcher on every page instead.
Everything around the site
Confirmation emails, invoices, terms of sale, error messages, chat window: these often stay in English even though the site is translated.
SEO best practices
One address per language
Each version must have its own address, for example yoursite.ca/fr/ and yoursite.ca/en/. Avoid showing two languages on the same address depending on a cookie: Google will only index one.
Hreflang tags
They tell Google which page to show to which audience. For Canada, use fr-CA and en-CA. They prevent the English version appearing to a French-speaking user, and the two versions being treated as duplicate content.
Keywords specific to each language
A Quebecer does not search for the literal translation of what an Ontarian searches for. Carry out separate keyword research for each language, rather than translating the English list.
Local content
Address, area code, prices in Canadian dollars, towns served: these signals help local SEO and reassure the visitor.
How much extra work?
A bilingual site is not two sites. The structure, design and development are shared. What is added:
- writing or adapting the content in the second language;
- the technical set-up of addresses and tags;
- updating both versions with every change.
The last point is the one people underestimate: decide from the start who updates the second language.
In practice
Check three things on your current site: does every commercial page exist in French, is the language switcher visible, and are the automatic emails translated?
The KPS Agency website is itself bilingual, with translated addresses and hreflang tags: we apply the same method to our clients' sites. Book a call or ask for a free quote, received within 48 hours. Discover our website design service and our SEO & GEO service, as well as our guide to Law 25 and websites.
To go further: Web agency for Quebec