Bauskas 134

A Latvian market, two languages, one site#

Thirty-four apartments in the Bišumuiža neighbourhood of Riga. A buyer reads the site in Latvian, but some of the interest comes from outside the country - so the same site has to work in English too, without the second language feeling like an afterthought.

The challenge#

Being bilingual is not just translation. Each language needs its own address, its own SEO, its own enquiry form and its own legal text. And the developer has to be able to manage all of it without knowing where any of it technically lives.

The solution#

We built the theme from scratch, block by block: each block's assets are compiled separately, so the site stays light. Latvian is the site's root language and English lives under /en/ - which means the developer edits the language of their main market in the ordinary block editor, seeing it as it will appear.

The most important decision was about the content itself. Not one word on the site is hardcoded. Every heading, label, button and form field comes from a field, and when a field is empty it leaves no hole behind - the section simply disappears.

What changed#

• Two languages, one thing to manage - Latvian and English are two versions of one site, not two projects.
• The content really is in the client's hands - down to the enquiry form's fields and the privacy text.
• An empty field does not break the design - which is what makes it safe for the client to edit at all.