Web developer for Montreal businesses: bilingual, French-first websites built with your translator

Web developer in Montreal: what a bilingual, French-first website really means

A French-first website opens in French for most visitors, has complete French versions of every page, form, email and document, and offers English as an equal-quality alternative rather than the other way round. For a Montreal business, that is the baseline to plan around.

Many sites claim to be bilingual but aren’t in practice. Common gaps: the French home page is polished but inner pages fall back to English, form error messages appear only in English, confirmation emails arrive in English, PDFs were never translated, and the cookie banner speaks one language. Each gap is visible to customers and, depending on your situation, may matter under Quebec’s language rules.

As a web developer for Montreal businesses, our job is to make the structure airtight: every template exists in both languages, every string in the interface has a French value, and nothing can be published in one language without the other being flagged. The French words themselves come from your translator or bilingual team.

• French default for the home page and main navigation.
• Page-for-page English equivalents, linked to each other.
• Forms, error messages, emails and receipts in both languages.
• Documents and downloads available in French.
• Consent banner and privacy pages in both languages.

Can an English-speaking web developer build a French-first site for Montreal?

Yes, as long as the French is written or approved by a fluent professional. Building the structure of a bilingual site is technical work that doesn’t depend on the developer’s own French; writing the French copy does, and that is the part your translator owns.

We are honest about this split because it is the one that goes wrong most often. An English-speaking team that runs your content through a machine translator and publishes it will give you French that Quebec customers notice immediately, from awkward phrasing to vocabulary that sounds like it came from somewhere else. We don’t do that.

What we bring is the system: a copy document with side-by-side columns, string files for every button and message, character-length checks so French text (often longer than English) doesn’t break layouts, and a review pass where your translator checks the French in context on the staging site, not only in a spreadsheet.

• We write English drafts or work from your English copy.
• Your translator supplies French in a shared bilingual document.
• We build both versions and flag layout issues caused by longer French text.
• Your translator reviews French pages on staging and signs off.

If you don’t have a translator yet, ask a professional member of a Quebec translators’ association or a bilingual staff member you trust; we can work with either.

Working with your translator: the workflow step by step

Translation runs alongside the build rather than after it, which keeps launch dates realistic. Here is the rhythm we use with Montreal clients.

Supplying finished French in the copy deck is the single biggest factor in keeping a Montreal project on time. See our bilingual website development page for how we structure larger multilingual builds.

French-first page structure: URLs, language switching, forms and documents

Structure decides whether a bilingual site is easy to use and easy for search engines to understand. The main choices are URL pattern, default language, how the switcher behaves and how forms and documents follow the visitor’s language.

We also set the page’s language attribute correctly in each version, which helps screen readers pronounce French properly and supports accessibility.

What Bill 96 means for a Montreal business website

Bill 96 strengthened Quebec’s Charter of the French language, and Montreal businesses generally plan their websites so French is available and at least as complete and prominent as any other language. The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) is the body that explains and enforces these rules.

The OQLF states that the law known in French as the Loi sur la langue officielle et commune du Québec, le français brought new obligations for businesses that came into effect on June 1, 2025, including rules on displaying trademarks and business names. For public signage and commercial advertising, the OQLF describes “clear predominance” of French as French text occupying at least twice the space of other languages. Those display rules focus on signs and advertising; how they apply to your website banners, logos and ads is a question for your lawyer.

What the build does to support you:

• French versions of every page, form, email and downloadable document.
• French shown first or by default, never as a smaller or secondary option.
• Trademark or English slogans paired with French descriptive text where your lawyer advises.
• Product descriptions and checkout in French on stores selling to Quebec.
• A content rule in the admin: nothing publishes without its French version.

We build to support compliance; we don’t provide legal advice or certify anything. See the OQLF’s business guidance and our Bill 96 website requirements page, then have your lawyer confirm the details.

Law 25 on a Montreal website: privacy officer, privacy policy and tracking

Quebec’s updated private-sector privacy law, known as Law 25, changes several things visible on a website: who the privacy contact is, what the privacy policy must say, and how tracking features are set by default.

The Commission d’accès à l’information (CAI) explains that the person with the highest authority in a business is responsible for protecting personal information by default, that this role can be delegated in writing, and that the title and contact details of the person in charge must be published on the business’s website. The CAI also says that since September 2023, businesses collecting personal information by technological means must publish a privacy policy in clear, simple terms, and that technologies which identify, locate or profile a person must not be activated by default, with people informed beforehand.

What the build does:

• A privacy page in French and English showing the privacy officer’s title and contact details you provide.
• A privacy policy template laid out for your lawyer to complete in plain language.
• Analytics, ad pixels and profiling features left off until the visitor opts in, if that is the setup you and your lawyer choose.
• Forms asking only for information you need, with a short purpose statement.
• Form data routed to your own systems, not stored indefinitely in the website database.

Read the CAI’s summary of Law 25 changes and our Law 25 website compliance page. Your lawyer confirms your obligations; we build the pieces.

QST and GST on a Montreal ecommerce website

A Montreal online store normally charges GST and QST as two separate lines on taxable sales to Quebec customers. The Canada Revenue Agency lists Quebec at 5% GST with a provincial rate of 9.975%, which is the Quebec Sales Tax administered by Revenu Québec.

Sales outside Quebec change the picture: HST provinces, provinces with PST and exports each need their own settings. Shopify and WooCommerce both support Canadian taxes, but only if registrations, product categories and shipping zones are entered correctly and tested.

What we set up:

• Your GST and QST registration details entered where invoices and receipts need them.
• GST and QST shown as separate lines at checkout and on order emails, in French and English.
• Tax categories for any exempt or zero-rated products your accountant identifies.
• Shipping zones for Quebec, the rest of Canada and the countries you ship to.
• Test orders to a Montreal address, an Ontario address and a local pickup before launch.

Which products are taxable and whether you must register are decisions for your accountant. Stores start at US$750; see our Shopify developer page for Canada for platform detail.

fr-CA SEO: ranking a Montreal website in French and English searches

French and English searches in Montreal are different markets with different words, competitors and intent, so each language version needs its own keyword research and its own well-written pages, connected with hreflang tags.

Google’s documentation on localized versions explains that hreflang uses an ISO 639-1 language code with an optional ISO 3166-1 region code, such as fr-CA and en-CA, that each language version must list itself and all the others, and that if page X links to page Y, page Y must link back. Missing return links are one of the most common reasons bilingual sites show the wrong language in results.

Keyword research in French should reflect how Quebecers search, not only a translation of your English terms. We pull French query data from Search Console and keyword tools, share the list with your translator, and let them choose the natural phrasing for headings and page titles.

• Separate title tags and meta descriptions written for each language.
• hreflang pairs for fr-CA, en-CA and an x-default where useful.
• Translated URL slugs and image alt text.
• A Google Business Profile with French business details and categories.
• Local pages for Laval, Longueuil or the South Shore only where you truly serve customers.

Nobody can guarantee rankings in either language. Ongoing work starts at US$150/mo a month; our technical SEO services page explains the audit side.

Websites for Montreal retailers and restaurants

Montreal shops and restaurants need sites that are quick to update, clear on a phone and fully bilingual: menus, hours, promotions and product pages that change often, in two languages, without breaking.

For restaurants, the menu is the page that matters most. We build menus as editable content rather than image files or PDFs, so prices and dishes can change in minutes, French and English stay in step, search engines can read them and screen readers can too. Reservations or online ordering connect to the tool you already use, or to a simple ordering flow we build.

For retailers, the challenge is usually the catalogue: product names and descriptions in both languages, sizes and variants, stock that matches the shop floor, and pickup options for the neighbourhood. Seasonal campaigns such as back-to-school or the holidays need landing pages in both languages that staff can launch themselves.

• Editable bilingual menus with allergy and dietary notes.
• Hours and holiday closures updated once, shown correctly in both languages.
• Online ordering or reservations linked from every page.
• Product pages with French descriptions your translator approves.
• In-store pickup and local delivery zones for the island and suburbs.

See restaurant websites with online ordering for the full scope.

Websites for Montreal tech companies and manufacturers

Tech firms need fast marketing sites with product pages, documentation and sign-up flows; manufacturers need clear capability pages, specifications and quote forms. Both usually sell beyond Quebec, so both languages must be equally strong.

Start-ups and software companies often need a marketing site that loads instantly, explains the product in both languages, and hands off cleanly to the app’s sign-up. We build these as fast static or headless sites, with documentation hubs and changelogs that are easy to maintain. If you need the product itself built, our SaaS development page and custom web apps from US$900 cover that.

Manufacturers and industrial suppliers, including aerospace, food processing and machining shops around the island, sell to engineers and buyers who want facts fast: capabilities, tolerances, certifications you hold, materials, industries served and a way to send drawings for a quote. We build request-for-quote forms that accept file uploads and route to the right person, plus spec sheets in both languages.

• Capability and industry pages written for technical buyers.
• Downloadable spec sheets in French and English.
• Request-for-quote forms with secure file uploads.
• Case-study templates you fill in with your own projects.

More in our manufacturing company website design page.

How much does a web developer in Montreal cost?

Montreal web developer quotes vary widely, from solo freelancers to agencies with francophone copywriting teams, and bilingual scope changes the numbers more than people expect. With BtechWaleTech, French-first business sites start at US$150, stores at US$750, SEO sites at US$300 and custom web apps at US$900.

What moves the price for a Montreal site:

• Two languages. Every page, string and email exists twice; building and testing that takes real time.
• Who writes the French. Our quotes exclude translation; agencies with in-house writers include it, which partly explains their higher figures.
• Templates versus bespoke layouts. Shared templates keep costs down in both languages.
• Ecommerce. GST and QST, French product data and order emails add work.
• Documents. Bilingual PDFs and spec sheets need conversion and checking.
• Privacy and consent. Law 25 pages and a consent setup add modest work.
• Integrations. Reservations, ordering, CRM or ERP connections add build and testing time.

Ask every bidder to price the same page list, in both languages, and to state who writes the French. That single question removes most of the confusion. Our starting prices are public.

Remote team or Montreal agency: which suits your business?

Choose a Montreal agency when you need French copywriting, brand work or meetings in person. Choose a remote team like ours when you have a translator or bilingual staff, want a lower starting price and are comfortable with video calls.

The saving with us comes from lower costs in India and a small setup: no office, no sales team, no account managers. The planning, design, development, testing and handover steps don’t change. The limits are real too: no in-person meetings, calls in your morning only, invoices from India in USD, and no French writing from our side.

• Pick an agency if you need French copy created from scratch, naming or campaign creative.
• Pick a local freelancer if you want someone at your premises and the site is small.
• Pick us if the French will come from your translator and you want a well-built, well-owned site at a lower starting price.

Plenty of Montreal businesses combine these: a local translator and photographer, a remote team for the build. For the wider case, read about hiring developers in India.

Who owns the website, domain and translations?

You do, including every French and English word. The domain, hosting, code, analytics, Search Console and store accounts are registered to your business, and the bilingual copy deck is handed over with the site.

Translations are an asset you paid for, so we keep them organised: the final copy deck, the interface string files and any glossary your translator built stay with you. If you change developers or translators later, the new person starts from a complete, structured source rather than scraping text off the live site.

At handover you also get a document listing every account and who pays for it, how to edit pages in both languages, how the “no publish without French” rule works in your admin, and where backups live.

Working with a web team in India from Montreal

Montreal is on Eastern time, which gives a comfortable morning overlap. An 8:30 a.m. call in Montreal is 6:00 p.m. in India in summer and 7:00 p.m. in winter.

We don’t visit, write French copy, or give legal or tax advice. Everything else in a web project works well remotely.

Worked example: a hypothetical Saint-Laurent machine shop going bilingual

Imagine a 30-person precision machining shop in Saint-Laurent that supplies parts to aerospace and medical-device customers in Quebec and Ontario. This is an illustration, not a client story. Its current site is English-only, five pages long, with a PDF brochure and an email address for quotes.

How we would approach it as their Montreal web developer:

• Structure: French at the root, English under /en/, translated slugs, a switcher on every page.
• Pages: capabilities, equipment list, materials, industries served, quality and certifications they hold, careers, contact, each in both languages.
• Quote form: drawing uploads, quantity and deadline fields, confirmation emails in the language used, routed to estimating.
• Translator: their own translator fills the copy deck; our team builds and flags layout issues where French terms run long.
• Privacy: a bilingual privacy page with the privacy officer’s title and contact details the owner provides, and analytics set to wait for consent.
• SEO: French and English keyword lists for machining services, hreflang pairs and a Google Business Profile in French.

This fits the static site range from US$150, with about two weeks of build once French copy is ready. If they later want a customer portal for order tracking, that becomes a web app from US$900.

Checklist for hiring a web developer in Montreal

Use this before signing with any developer, local or remote.

• French is the default language and every page has a complete French version.
• The quote states who writes and who approves the French.
• Forms, emails, receipts, PDFs and the cookie banner exist in both languages.
• The privacy page will show your privacy officer’s title and contact details.
• Tracking and profiling tools stay off until consent, if that is your chosen setup.
• GST and QST settings confirmed with your accountant for any store.
• hreflang pairs and translated URLs are part of the build.
• Domain, hosting and every account are in your business’s name.
• Your lawyer reviews language and privacy points before launch.