# CITS: Multilingual Corporate WordPress Website
> Multilingual Wordpress website designed to provide essential information about the company's services
- URL: https://spoko.space/cits/
- Published: 2020-01-09
- Tags: wordpress, sass, vanilla js
---# CITS Krosno: A Multilingual WordPress Website

## Project Overview

CITS Krosno is a straightforward, multilingual website designed to provide essential information about the company's services. The site was developed on the WordPress platform while I was working at Lizard Media Software House. The focus was on creating a clean, easy-to-navigate site that could effectively serve a diverse audience by supporting multiple languages.

## Multilingual strategy

A multilingual company site is more than just dropping in a translation plugin. Several technical decisions directly affect SEO and user experience:

- **URL structure**: each language version on its own path (`/en/`, `/de/`) rather than parameters — better indexed by Google and clearer for users.
- **`hreflang` tags**: auto-generated by Polylang, telling Google which version of the page is meant for which market.
- **Language switcher**: a consistent component on every page, redirecting to the equivalent in the other language (not just the home page).
- **Content translation workflow**: the editorial team could create separate language versions of posts and pages, with a clear translation status indicator in the admin panel.

## Custom WordPress theme

Instead of using an off-the-shelf template, I built the theme from scratch to match the graphic design provided by the client. This approach has concrete business advantages:

- **Minimal code** = faster loading and better Core Web Vitals scores.
- **No unnecessary features** means a smaller attack surface and fewer updates during maintenance.
- **Full control over the layout** — pixel-perfect design implementation without the compromises imposed by ready-made themes.
- **Tailored to the client's specifics** — sections, content types, and custom fields mirror the actual structure of the company's offering rather than the generic categories of a template.

## Outcomes and ongoing management

The client received a site they can update on their own — with an intuitive admin panel matched to the multilingual structure. The lightweight theme generates clean, semantic HTML, which translates to both good performance and correct indexing in Google for every language version.

## Technologies Used

The CITS website was built on the WordPress platform with a custom theme and multilingual capabilities:

## Conclusion

The development of CITS Krosno highlights the effectiveness of a simple, yet well-executed multilingual WordPress site. It ensured that users from different linguistic backgrounds could access the necessary information easily, all while maintaining a clean and functional design.