When considering website design for a Korean American business, one of the first questions that comes up is whether to put Korean and English on the same page, or to create separate addresses for each. To get straight to the point, if you want your website to show up in search results for both languages, the addresses must be different.

Simply adding a language-switching button in the top right corner of your website isn't enough. For search engines like Google to properly understand your business and show it to the right customers, the structure needs to be set up correctly from the start.

Why shouldn't you put two languages on one page?

First, it's inconvenient for visitors. Korean customers only want to see Korean, and customers from other communities only want to see English. If two languages are mixed on one page, it can be difficult to find the necessary information and look cluttered.

More importantly, it confuses Google. Google has difficulty figuring out what the page is about and which language speakers it should show the page to. As a result, the page might not rank well in either Korean or English search results.

What about using a button to switch languages?

Many websites change only the content at the same address when you click a language switch button. While this seems convenient, it does little for search visibility. This is because Google usually only recognizes the default language that appears when the page is first accessed.

Google treats content in other languages hidden behind a button as if it doesn't exist. So, if you have an English page with a Korean translation hidden behind a button, Korean customers searching in Korean on Naver or Google won't be able to find your business.

How to make Google recognize both languages

The answer is to create a unique address (URL) for each language. For example, if your 'About Us' page address is example.com/about, the Korean page would have a separate address like example.com/kr/about.

Then, you need to connect these two pages with code (hreflang tags) to inform Google. This signals to Google, "This English page and that Korean page have the same content but are in different languages; they are a pair."

This way, Google can intelligently show the English page to people searching in English and the Korean page to people searching in Korean, without confusion.

How does Hyper Vision build websites?

We build all multilingual websites with separate address structures. Even on the Hyper Vision website, you can see that the English service page and the Korean service page have different addresses.

Of course, we also include the hreflang tags that connect the two language pages behind the scenes. For Korean content, we don't rely on translation tools. Instead, we write it directly in natural Korean, reflecting the business owner's intentions.

Key: Bilingual Websites for Search

In summary: If you want both Korean customers and customers from other communities to find your business through Google search, the addresses for your Korean and English pages must be different. And these two addresses need to be connected with code to tell Google they are a pair. A single language-switching button is not enough.

Hyper Vision's Landmark plan ($599) and above include all these technical elements as standard. It's much more important for a website to be easily found by the right customers than just to look pretty.

If you need a new website or are curious if your current website's structure is good, please feel free to ask us anytime. You can also explore other website design case studies we've created.