French Website Translation Services

Native Canadian French translation aligned with Quebec’s Charter of the French Language and Bill 96

Why French Website Translation Rarely Goes The Way Clients Expect

Most prospective clients arrive with the same instinct: send the URL, get a per-word quote, paste the French back into the CMS. In practice, a website translation project that ends well almost never works that way. A website is not a document — it is a structured system of templates, components, navigation, metadata, dynamic content, embedded media and SEO signals, often spread across a CMS, a database, a theme and a set of plugins. Translating only the visible body copy and ignoring the rest produces a French site that looks unfinished, ranks poorly in French search, and creates technical debt the marketing team will spend months unwinding. The job, done properly, covers seven distinct content layers — page bodies, navigation and UI strings, metadata (title tags, meta descriptions, Open Graph), URL slugs, alt text on images, structured data, and templated/dynamic content (product listings, filters, cart flows, system emails). Working with a Frenchside translation company that knows how to handle each of these layers — and how to coordinate with your developers and your SEO team — is what determines whether the bilingual site launches cleanly or gets stuck in revisions.

What We Translate When We Translate a Website

A complete French website translation project usually covers the following content layers:

• Page body content: homepage, about, services, products, blog articles, case studies, landing pages, legal pages
• Navigation and UI strings: menus, buttons, form labels, error messages, confirmation messages, system notifications
• Metadata for SEO: title tags, meta descriptions, Open Graph and Twitter Card metadata, canonical references
• URL slugs: translated and SEO-optimised URL structures for the French site
• Image alt text and captions: accessibility content, decorative captions, infographic text
• Structured data and schema markup: Schema.org Organization, LocalBusiness, Product, Article, FAQ, BreadcrumbList in French
• Forms and conversion flows: contact forms, quote forms, checkout pages, account creation, cart and checkout copu
• System and transactional emails: order confirmations, password resets, newsletter confirmations, abandoned cart messages
• Legal and policy content: privacy policy, terms of service, cookie banner, accessibility statement, Bill 96 disclosures
• Blog and editorial content: articles, author bios, category and tag pages, search functionality
• E-commerce content: product titles, descriptions, specifications, variant labels, category pages, filters and facets
• Marketing and lead-generation assets: landing pages, gated content, lead magnets, popups, banners

Quebec French Website Translation Services Across The Platforms You Actually Use

Whether you run a corporate site on WordPress, an online store on Shopify, a marketing site on Webflow, a custom-built application or a multilingual platform with thousands of pages, our team works directly within the CMS and platform stacks Canadian businesses actually run on, including:

• WordPress: through WPML, Polylang or TranslatePress, with translation memory continuity across versions
• Shopify and Shopify Plus: through native Markets translation, Langify, Weglot or direct theme/locale file editing for stores selling into Quebec
• Webflow: through native Webflow Localization, with locale-specific CMS collections and SEO settings
• Wix and Squarespace: through native multilingual features, with manual review of edge cases
• Drupal and TYPO3: for institutional, university and government sites with multilingual content frameworks
• Magento and Adobe Commerce: for larger e-commerce stores with multi-store-view configurations
• Custom-built sites and headless CMS: Contentful, Sanity, Strapi, Storyblok, with JSON/YAML/CSV exchange formats
• Static site generators: Next.js, Nuxt, Hugo, Jekyll, Gatsby, with locale file workflows
• Translation management platforms: Crowdin, Phrase, Lokalise, Transifex, Smartling for clients who already maintain a centralised localisation pipeline

If your platform is not on this list, we can almost certainly handle it — send us the technical details and we will confirm the workflow.

Our French Website Localization Process, Step By Step

Our team handles the full project: scoping, content extraction, translation by certified Canadian French linguists, multilingual SEO setup, hreflang configuration, integration into your CMS and quality review on the live staging environment. This is the part most translation agencies leave vague — and it is the part that determines whether your bilingual launch goes well. Here is how we run a website translation project from first contact to live French site.

Step 1 — Scoping and content audit

We start with a working call and a content audit. We crawl your site (with your authorisation) to count pages, identify content types, flag dynamic and templated content, and produce a precise word count broken down by content layer. We discuss your goals: are you launching a Quebec market presence, complying with Bill 96, expanding into francophone Europe, or improving SEO in French-language search? The answers shape the rest of the project.

Step 2 — Quotation and project plan

Based on the audit, we send you a fixed-price quote with a clear breakdown — content body, metadata and SEO, system strings, e-commerce content, integration time. We confirm the timeline, the integration method (we work in your CMS, or we deliver structured exports your team imports), the review and approval cycle, and any specialised content needing senior translators (legal pages, regulated content, technical specifications).

Step 3 — Content extraction

We extract content in the format that fits your stack: an XLIFF export from Crowdin or Phrase, a CSV from Shopify, a JSON file from a headless CMS, an .idml from your designer’s InDesign templates, or a manual extraction from a CMS without good export tools. The extraction includes everything that needs to be translated — body, metadata, alt text, slugs, system strings — not just the visible page text.

Step 4 — Translation, SEO copywriting and terminology setup

Your content is assigned to translators with web and SEO copywriting experience. We build a project glossary from your existing French content (if any) and your industry terminology. Where your French keywords differ from a literal translation of your English keywords — which is almost always the case in SEO — we research the right Canadian French search terms and write metadata accordingly. The result is a translation that reads as if it had been written for francophone audiences from the start.

Step 5 — Multilingual SEO configuration

We set up the technical SEO foundation for the French site: hreflang tags between language versions, translated and search-optimised URL slugs, French-language sitemap, language-specific structured data, canonical references, French-language Open Graph metadata for social sharing. If your site uses subdirectories (/fr/), subdomains (fr.yoursite.com) or country-code TLDs (yoursite.ca/fr/ vs yoursite.fr), we work with your developers to ensure the chosen architecture is implemented correctly.

Step 6 — Integration and staging review

We integrate the translated content into your CMS, theme or locale files — either directly (with appropriate access) or by handing structured deliverables to your development team. Once the French site is live on staging, we run a full QA pass: visual review of every template, length checks (French is typically 15–20% longer than English and breaks tight UI elements), link checks, form testing, transactional email testing, schema validation.

Step 7 — Launch and post-launch support

We support you through the public launch — final review of the live French site, monitoring of indexation in French search results, hreflang validation in Google Search Console — and we stay engaged for ongoing content (new pages, blog articles, product launches) through a recurring workflow with stable translation memory and predictable turnaround.

Multilingual SEO: What Actually Matters For Your French Website

Translating page bodies is the easy part. Ranking in French-language search requires a structured approach to multilingual SEO. We treat the following as part of every website translation project, not as add-ons:

• French keyword research, not English keyword translation. A literal French translation of “best CRM software” is not how Quebec users search. We research the actual Canadian French search terms — which can differ from European French terms — and translate metadata around those.
• Hreflang annotations between English and French versions, correctly implemented with en-CA, fr-CA and where relevant fr-FR for European French audiences. Misconfigured hreflang is one of the most common reasons French sites underperform in search.
• URL structure decisions — subdirectory (/fr-ca/), subdomain or ccTLD — discussed with your developers based on your domain strategy and SEO objectives.Hreflang annotations between English and French versions, correctly implemented with en-CA, fr-CA and where relevant fr-FR for European French audiences. Misconfigured hreflang is one of the most common reasons French sites underperform in search.
• Translated structured data in Schema.org markup, including Organization, LocalBusiness, Product, Article, FAQPage and BreadcrumbList where applicable.
• French-language internal linking, ensuring the French site has its own coherent link structure rather than mixed cross-language links that confuse search engines.
• Content adaptation, not just translation, where SEO-relevant: H1 and H2 structure, FAQ blocks, internal anchors and metadata are written for French search intent, not just literally translated.

The result, when these elements are handled together, is a French website that reads naturally to Quebec and francophone Canadian audiences, ranks for the right keywords in French-language search, and converts visitors into customers — not a translated mirror of the English site, but a French presence that performs on its own terms.

Bill 96 And Your French Website: What Every Business Selling In Quebec Needs To Know

If your business sells products or services to consumers in Quebec, your website is subject to Quebec’s Charter of the French Language. The 2022 reforms introduced by Bill 96 reinforced existing obligations and added enforcement teeth. The principle is that commercial websites aimed at the Quebec public must be available in French, and the French version must be at least as accessible, complete and prominent as any other-language version. This applies to product pages, descriptions, prices, terms of sale, customer service content and transactional flows. The Office québécois de la langue française monitors compliance and can require corrective action; in regulated sectors, non-compliance can also affect licences and supplier registrations. A professionally translated, complete and natively-written French website is the standard expected — not a machine-translated mirror or a partial translation of the marketing pages alone.

Certified Translation For Legal and Regulated Website Content

Most website content does not require certification. Some pages, however — terms of service, privacy policies subject to provincial regulators, regulated industry disclosures, accessibility statements, content used as evidence in litigation — benefit from being prepared by a translator with formal accreditation. For these pages we provide certified French translation by translators accredited by Canada’s recognised provincial associations — OTTIAQ, ATIO, STIBC, ATIA, CTINB, ATINE and the other bodies federated under CTTIC.

Canadian French Website Translation For Clients Across Canada and Internationally

Frenchside operates from a head office in Montreal with regional presences in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa, Edmonton, Winnipeg and the rest of Canada, and our entire workflow is digital and secure. We translate websites for Canadian businesses launching into Quebec, US and international companies entering the Canadian market, Canadian e-commerce stores expanding into francophone Europe, and Quebec-based businesses building English-language presences for North American expansion. Wherever your audience is, we deliver the French variant that fits — Canadian French for Canadian markets, European French for francophone Europe, or both in parallel for businesses operating across both.

A Scoping Brief That Gets You a Precise Quote in 30 Minutes

If you want a quote on a website translation, the fastest path is to send us the following — by email or through our quote form. The more we know upfront, the more precise the quotation, and the faster we can start.

• The URL of your current site (and any staging URL with newer content)
• The CMS or platform you use (WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, custom, etc.)
• The approximate scope — full site, marketing pages only, e-commerce catalogue, blog only, or specific sections
• Your target audience — Quebec, francophone Canada, francophone Europe, or several
• Your timeline — launch date, soft target, or open
• Your goals — Bill 96 compliance, Quebec market entry, SEO in French, multilingual presence, replatforming
• Existing French content — any prior translations, glossaries or translation memories we should leverage
• Your technical constraints — direct CMS access for our team, or delivery as structured exports to your developers

If some of these answers are still open, send what you have — we will work through the rest on a 20-minute scoping call, free and with no commitment, and come back with a precise written quote.

Frequently Asked Questions