Starting a website in English
With a website, you can choose to make it in any language you like. However, it depends on a number of core issues with which you make the choice. In these blog posts we will provide some tips and explain a few things when choosing to start a Dutch language website.
The Netherlands is a small country, with ~17 million inhabitants it is only a small country compared to our neighbors like Germany. So you will always have a smaller target group than if you would do this in English for example. However, a Dutch website has some sharp advantages. Let's discuss these further in this article about how a Dutch website works.
Backend or Content Management System in Dutch
With a website in Dutch it is of course also nice for yourself to have the backend in Dutch. Not only are the frontend functions immediately processed in Dutch. But I also find it easier to work with a Dutch website. You don't have to switch between languages. Which is nicer in my eyes. This is also a matter of personal preference, of course.
A Content Management System is a way of creating a website. It is also easy to make a website with a CMS in general. This is because a lot of things don't require coding. And you can use Plugins and themes to get to a nice end result. By far the most popular Content Management System at the time of writing is still the WordPress Content Management System. WordPress hosting is also available to install entirely in Dutch thanks to the often volunteer translators. This is of course great for those who want to create a Dutch website and may be doing so for the first time. Websites created using Umbraco hosting are also available to use entirely in Dutch. For the companies and websites using the most popular system for ASP.NET web hosting.
Choosing a Dutch-language website - The audience
Furthermore, the audience or potential audience of a website is also important. However, this is also highly dependent on the target audience or niche you find yourself in. With a website for a Dutch product, or a Dutch phenomenon, it is of course logical in which language the website should be built. However, in a different direction such as the general topic of website development, cycling or so on. Is it perhaps also interesting to write in English. That way you will attract more audience all over the world, not only in the Netherlands. The competition that you will find in English language websites is greater than that you could find in Dutch websites.
The Netherlands does have a very large percentage of people that use the Internet on a daily basis, from using social media to searching for topics that people are interested in. So in the right niche you can always find a certain amount of audience. Provided of course you use ads, social media and rank high in the organic search results.
English website - writing content
Writing content in your own language will be easier for almost everyone. With your own language, you will make fewer spelling mistakes (if it's good) and you may find it easier to write. In a foreign language or second language like English, you will probably make mistakes in sentence structure. Or overlook logical issues since you may not have to deal with this on a daily basis.
However, with the international market on the Internet, you will also often have to deal with English, whether it is in the series you watch, the Social Media websites you visit or any other source on the Internet. English is the general working language in this. So decide for yourself if you are comfortable enough writing Content in English, and weigh this into your choice of website language.
Further advantages of a Dutch website
A local website for a business, a portfolio for your Dutch target audience and other websites that have the Netherlands as their main focus are obviously better written in Dutch. What you will also see is that it is easier to climb in the organic search results. Since there is generally less competition for the same topic in Dutch than in English. However, this also has a grain of salt to it, since this also varies per topic. So always make an inventory of your possible competition before you start a website. And the number of keywords that are available with low competence.
This can mean the difference between a successful website and failure of a website in any language.
What language do you create your websites in? Or do you make multinational websites? We are interested in how you see this. And how you experienced this in your niche. Share it with us!
