Should your website be in Bengali, English or both? A guide for Kolkata businesses

Walk down Gariahat or Shyambazar and most signboards carry two scripts: the shop name in Bengali, the phone number and “Since 1978” in English. Many business websites here are English only, even when a good share of the customers at the counter would rather read Bengali.

So should yours be in Bengali, English or both? For most Kolkata businesses the honest answer is English for the whole site, with Bengali on the few pages where a misunderstanding costs you a customer. Some businesses do need a full Bengali version. This guide explains which, how to build it so Google and phones handle it properly, and what it costs in effort.

Who reads and searches in Bengali, and who uses English

We haven’t found a reliable public figure for how many Kolkata searches are typed in Bengali, so treat any precise percentage with suspicion. Watch your own customers instead: which language they WhatsApp you in, and the words they use at the counter. In general, these customers often prefer Bengali:

• Older customers and their families, especially for clinics, pharmacies, diagnostic labs and sweet shops, in long-settled neighbourhoods like Behala where regulars have come for decades.
• Bengali-medium students and parents, who read fees, timings and rules more comfortably in Bengali.
• People who type on a Bengali keyboard, and so search in Bengali script: “চোখের ডাক্তার বেহালা” rather than “eye doctor Behala”.

And these mostly use English:

• Office-goers in Salt Lake Sector V and New Town, many of whom have moved to Kolkata from other states.
• Corporate clients, suppliers and visitors from outside Bengal, including tourists looking for a hotel or homestay.
• Many younger customers, who often type Bengali words in English letters: “mishti doi near me”, “kosha mangsho home delivery”.

That last group matters. A search like “mishti dokan near me” is Bengali written in English letters, and it matches an English page that uses those words naturally. Writing in your customers’ own words matters as much as which script you use. We cover that in our guide to showing up in “near me” searches.

Which pages benefit most from Bengali

Bengali earns its place where a misunderstanding costs you a visit, a sale or a patient’s wellbeing. Start with these:

• Timings and holidays. Clinic hours, Sunday timings, and which days you close during Durga Puja.
• Prices and fees. A salon price list, coaching fees, a lab’s test prices. People compare before they call, and they trust a number they can read without effort.
• How to reach you. Directions from the nearest metro station or bus stop, which lane, which floor, the landmark next door, written the way you’d explain it on the phone.
• Preparation instructions. Fasting before a blood test, what to bring on the day, how to prepare for a procedure. These lines must be understood exactly, and the doctor or owner should approve every word.
• Admission and booking rules. Documents needed, refund rules, what happens if you miss a slot.
• Your business name, shown in Bengali if that’s how it appears on your signboard, so people recognise you when they arrive.

Pages that matter less: a long “About us” history, blog posts, terms and conditions, and anything aimed at corporate clients. Our page on websites for clinics shows how this works for a practice with older patients.

Three ways to add Bengali, from simple to complete

Bengali sections on English pages are the common starting point. They help the people already reading your page. They do less for search, though. Google says it works out a page’s language from its visible content, and it suggests using one language per page rather than side-by-side translations (Managing multilingual sites (opens in a new tab)). A mostly English page with a Bengali box is likely to be treated as an English page.

If you want to appear when someone types their search in Bengali script, give the Bengali text pages of its own, and set them up as described next.

Building a bilingual site properly: URLs, switcher and tags

These are the technical basics. Your developer should handle them, but it helps to know what to ask for.

One URL per language

Google recommends a different URL for each language version, not one page that changes language using cookies or browser settings (Google Search Central (opens in a new tab)). A simple pattern is a /bn/ folder: yourclinic.in/timings in English and yourclinic.in/bn/timings in Bengali. Keep the web address itself in English letters. Bengali characters in a link often turn into a long string of % codes when it’s copied and shared on WhatsApp.

A language switcher on every page

Put a small link near the top of each page that says “বাংলা” on English pages and “English” on Bengali pages, and point it at the same page in the other language, not back to the home page. Use the language’s own name rather than a flag. Don’t switch language automatically based on the visitor’s phone settings or location: Google advises against redirects like this, because they can stop both people and Google from reaching every version.

lang and hreflang tags

• The lang attribute declares each page’s language: bn for Bengali, en for English. The W3C says to always set it on the page’s html tag, and to mark any passage in another language too, such as a Bengali block on an English page (Declaring language in HTML (opens in a new tab)). Google says it doesn’t use this to detect a page’s language, but browsers and screen readers rely on it.
• hreflang links tell Google that the English and Bengali pages are versions of each other, so it can show each searcher the right one. Each version must list itself and every other version, and if two pages don’t point to each other, Google ignores the tags. Language codes follow ISO 639-1, so Bengali is bn, and you can add an x-default for visitors whose language matches neither (Google’s guide to localised versions (opens in a new tab)).

Google says it may find alternate language versions even without these tags, but that it’s usually best to mark them clearly. Include both versions of each page in your sitemap as well.

Write it in Bengali; don’t just machine-translate it

Machine translation is a reasonable way to get a first draft. Published unchecked, it tends to produce stiff, bookish sentences, odd words for everyday things, and the occasional mistake that changes the meaning. The usual problems:

• Names get translated. A clinic called “Green Park Dental” can come back as a Bengali phrase about a green park. Business names, doctors’ names and brand names should be written in Bengali script, not translated.
• Medical and fee lines change meaning. “Nothing to eat after 10 pm” or “fees are non-refundable” must say exactly that, and someone responsible should approve them.
• Everyday words sound wrong. Customers say “appointment”, “report” and “hair spa” even when speaking Bengali. A translation that swaps every English word for a formal Bengali one reads like a government notice.

Bengali fonts, Unicode and numerals on phones

Use real Unicode text, not images or old print files

Bengali on a website should be Unicode text, the standard that gives every Bengali letter and sign its own code (Unicode’s Bengali chart (opens in a new tab)). Two shortcuts cause trouble:

• Bengali inside images. A photo of your printed rate card or a Puja poster can’t be searched, copied, enlarged neatly or read aloud by a screen reader, and Google judges a page’s language by its visible text.
• Text copied from old desktop-publishing files. Some older Bengali typing and printing software stores Bengali as English letters displayed through a special font. Paste that into a website and phones without the font show a jumble of English letters. Ask for Unicode text, or have it retyped.

Pick a font that handles joined letters cleanly

Bengali has many joined letters (juktakkhor) such as ক্ষ, ন্ত and স্ট, plus vowel signs above and below the line. A good web font draws them cleanly; a poor one breaks them apart or clips them. Google Fonts offers several free Bengali families, including Noto Sans Bengali, Hind Siliguri, Anek Bangla and Tiro Bangla (Bengali fonts on Google Fonts (opens in a new tab)).

• Test real words from your business, such as পরীক্ষা, স্টুডিও and শ্রী, on an inexpensive Android phone as well as an iPhone.
• Set Bengali slightly larger, with more line spacing than English, so vowel signs above and below the letters have room.
• Load only the font weights you use. Bengali font files are larger than English ones, and every extra weight slows the page on mobile data.
• Pair it with an English font of similar weight, so a mixed line like “Root canal: ₹4,500 থেকে” reads as one piece of text.

Numerals: pick one style and stick to it

Bengali has its own digits (০ ১ ২ ৩ ৪ ৫ ৬ ৭ ৮ ৯), while many signboards and bills here use English digits. Either can work on a Bengali page; mixing them doesn’t. The Bengali ৪ (four) looks like an English 8, so a price list that switches between the two invites misreading. Keep phone numbers in English digits, so customers can type them straight into the dialler or WhatsApp, and use one style for all prices and timings.

Bengali on your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile is often seen before your website, so decide how Bengali fits there too.

• Business name: one script only. Google’s guidelines don’t allow the same name repeated in two scripts or languages, even if your signboard shows both (guidelines for representing your business (opens in a new tab)). Choose the version customers know best. Our guide to suspended profiles explains why this rule matters.
• Description, services and posts are in your own words, so write them in the language your customers read. A Puja timings post in Bengali is easier for a Bengali-first regular to take in.
• Review replies: answer in the language the customer wrote in. A Bengali review answered in Bengali reads like a real person replying.
• Address on the website: keep the English address, exactly as it appears on your profile, in the footer of every page, including the Bengali pages. Add Bengali directions above it. That keeps your details consistent for Google while still helping Bengali readers.

Apple Maps is more flexible: Apple Business lets you add alternate names and descriptions in other languages for a location. We explain the setup in our guide to Apple Maps and Bing Places.

What it costs in time and money

Adding Bengali isn’t mainly a design cost. The work is in the words, and it carries on after launch.

• Writing or checking. Someone fluent has to write or review every Bengali line. For a few sections that’s a short job. For a full bilingual site it’s as much text again as the English site.
• Double updates, for good. Every new price, doctor, batch timing or holiday has to change in both languages. A Bengali page showing last year’s fees does more harm than having no Bengali page.
• More pages. Separate Bengali pages add to your page count. Our fixed plans have page limits (Starter covers up to 5 pages), so decide which Bengali pages you need before choosing one.

If Bengali sections on your key pages are enough, say so when you ask for your free demo homepage. A complete Bengali and English version of the site is custom work, so it gets a fixed quote after a short chat, as our custom website development page explains. Either way, you supply or approve the Bengali text. Send us a message with the pages you have in mind.