Should your contracting website be in Spanish too? The numbers, and how to do it right

The short answer

If your service area has a real Spanish-speaking population and someone on your team can answer calls, quote and sign jobs in Spanish, a Spanish section on your website is worth building.

If nobody can take that call in Spanish yet, fix that first. A Spanish page that leads to an English-only phone line or form wastes the lead and the customer's trust.

This guide gives you the official numbers to decide, Google's rules for doing it without hurting your search results, and the order in which to translate.

The numbers: who speaks Spanish at home

All figures below come from the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), 2025 1-year estimates, table S1601, Language Spoken at Home, released on October 29, 2026. They cover people 5 years and older. They are survey estimates with margins of error, not a head count.

Nationwide

• 44,921,985 people speak Spanish at home (margin of error ±177,787). That is 13.9% of everyone 5 and older, roughly 1 in 7.
• About 6 in 10 people who speak a language other than English at home speak Spanish (44.9 million out of 74.2 million).
• About 37.2 million of the Spanish speakers are adults: 31.9 million aged 18 to 64 and 5.3 million aged 65 and over.
• 17,282,610 Spanish speakers (38.5%) speak English less than “very well” (margin of error ±132,064). The other 61.5% speak English “very well”.

The survey asks people who speak another language at home how well they speak English: very well, well, not well, or not at all. “Less than very well” is the Census Bureau's label for everyone who did not answer “very well”. For a contractor, this is the group for whom a job, a price and a warranty explained in Spanish can make the biggest difference.

Top 10 states by number of Spanish speakers

The percentage in the last column is the share of that state's Spanish speakers. Puerto Rico, which the Census table lists alongside the states, is left out. Two states outside the top 10 have higher shares than most of the list: New Mexico (24.0% of residents 5 and older) and Nevada (20.2%).

What these numbers don't tell you

• They count a language spoken at home, not customers. Plenty of bilingual homeowners hire in English. Others call the company that answers in Spanish even though their English is fine.
• They say nothing about income, homeownership or who makes the buying decision in the household.
• State totals hide big local differences. Your county is the number that matters.

Check your own county in five minutes

1. Open table S1601 on data.census.gov.
2. In the Filters panel on the left, open Geographies, then County, then your state, and select your county. You can select several.
3. Read the “Spanish” row: the total, the percent, and the column “Percent speak English less than ‘very well’”.
4. One-year figures only exist for areas with 65,000 people or more. If your county is smaller, switch the dropdown above the table from “2025: ACS 1-Year Estimates Subject Tables” to “2024: ACS 5-Year Estimates Subject Tables”.

What Google says about bilingual websites

Two Google Search Central pages cover this: Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites and Tell Google about localized versions of your page. Here is what they say, in plain English.

Give each language its own web address

Google recommends a different URL for each language version of a page. That means /roof-repair/ for English and /es/reparacion-de-techos/ for Spanish, not one page that swaps languages through a button, a cookie or a script. Google warns that when the language changes dynamically on the same URL, it might not find and crawl all your versions.

You don't need a second domain. Google lists subdirectories on the same domain (its example is example.com/de/ for German) as easy to set up and low maintenance, and says words in the page's own language are fine in URLs.

Pair the pages with hreflang tags

An hreflang tag is a line in the page's code that tells Google “this English page and this Spanish page are the same content in two languages”, so Google can show the Spanish version to Spanish searchers. The rules that trip people up:

• Both directions. Each version must list itself and every other version. If the English page points to the Spanish one but the Spanish page doesn't point back, Google ignores the tags.
• The right code. Use es (Spanish) or es-US (Spanish for the United States), and en or en-US for English. Google says codes outside the ISO standards, and it names es-419 (Latin American Spanish) as an example, are not supported. If your website tool offers “Spanish (Latin America)”, check which code it writes.
• A fallback. Add an x-default entry for visitors whose language matches none of your versions, usually your English page.

Don't auto-redirect; let people switch

Google advises against automatically sending people to a language version based on what you guess their language is, because it can stop both users and Google from seeing all your versions. It also says not to adapt content based on the visitor's IP address.

Instead, put a visible link to the other language on every page. Make it go to the matching page: the Spanish roof repair page should link to the English roof repair page, not back to the homepage.

How Google decides what language a page is in

Google uses the visible text on the page. It says it does not use the lang attribute in the code, the URL, or hreflang tags to detect the language.

So translate the whole page. Google advises against side-by-side translations (English and Spanish in the same page), and warns that translating only the menus and footer while the main content stays in one language can create a bad experience when the same content shows up more than once in search results.

Machine translation: where Google stands today

Google's spam policies don't ban machine translation. They target “scaled content abuse”: many pages generated mainly to manipulate rankings that give users little or no value, “no matter how it's created”. Among the examples, Google lists turning scraped content into many pages through automated transformations, including translation, and using AI tools to generate many pages without adding value for users.

On June 11, 2025, Google removed older advice to block automatically translated pages with robots.txt. Its documentation changelog says this aligned the documentation with the March 2024 spam policy update and was a documentation change only, with no change in how Search behaves.

Our reading for a contractor: a machine translation of your 10 real service pages, checked and corrected by a fluent speaker who knows the trade, is fine. Publishing 200 unreviewed, auto-translated city pages is what the policy describes.

Checklist to hand to whoever builds your site

1. Every Spanish page has its own URL, for example under /es/, with Spanish words in the address (/es/reparacion-de-techos/).
2. Every English and Spanish pair has hreflang tags in both directions, plus x-default. Codes are en and es (or en-US and es-US), never es-419.
3. No automatic redirect by browser language or location. Every page has a visible “Español” or “English” link to its matching page.
4. The whole page is in Spanish: menu, buttons, footer, form labels, error messages, cookie banner, thank-you page, confirmation email and text message.
5. Each Spanish page has a Spanish title tag and meta description, and the page language is set to Spanish (lang="es") as standard practice, even though Google reads the visible text.
6. Spanish pages are in the XML sitemap.
7. Leads from Spanish pages arrive tagged “Spanish” so the right person calls back.
8. Before launch, test on a phone: open each Spanish page, switch languages, submit the form, and check the thank-you page plus the email or text the customer receives.

Before you translate a word: who answers in Spanish?

A Spanish website is a promise of service in Spanish. Before you publish it or pay for Spanish ads, decide:

• Who picks up Spanish calls during business hours, and who covers when that person is on a roof or on vacation.
• What happens after hours: a voicemail greeting in both languages and a text reply in Spanish.
• Who visits the home, explains the quote and walks the customer through the contract in Spanish.
• Whether your quote, contract, change orders and invoices exist in Spanish. In some cases the law requires it (see the last section).

If you can only offer part of this, say so on the Spanish page, for example “Atendemos llamadas en español de lunes a viernes, de 8 a. m. a 5 p. m.” An honest limit beats a promise the office can't keep. Only put “Se habla español” on the website or the truck if it is true when the customer calls.

What to translate first

This order follows the customer's path from search to signed job.

1. Your top services. The 3 to 5 services that bring in most of your revenue, one page each, with what's included and what isn't.
2. Service area. The cities, counties or ZIP codes you cover, so a visitor knows within seconds that you'll come to them.
3. How quotes work. Free or paid visit, how long it takes, what the written quote includes, deposit and payment schedule.
4. Financing, if you offer it. Use the lender's own Spanish documents and disclosures where they exist rather than paraphrasing loan terms yourself.
5. Warranty. Translate it exactly as it is written in your contract. A Spanish page that promises more than the contract is a dispute waiting to happen.
6. The contact form and everything after it. Labels, error messages, the thank-you page, the automatic email or text.
7. Google Business Profile description. In your profile, choose Edit profile, then Edit next to Description. The field takes up to 750 characters, no links or HTML, and should describe your business rather than promotions or prices (Google's help page). Google's help pages don't describe a second-language version, so a practical option is one or two Spanish sentences inside it, such as “Atendemos en español. Cotizaciones por escrito en español.”
8. Your business name stays as it is. Google's guidelines don't allow repeating the business name in several languages, so “Smith Plumbing / Plomería Smith” is out.

Trade terms: say it the way your customers say it

Spanish varies from country to country. Use the words your own customers use: ask your Spanish-speaking crew and a few customers. When in doubt, the terms below are widely understood in the US and Latin America.

False friends that sneak into trade pages

• Carpet is alfombra. Carpeta means a folder.
• Mold is moho. Molde is a mold for shaping or casting something.
• Financing application is solicitud de financiamiento. Aplicación means an app, or applying a product such as paint, not a form.
• Actual cost is costo real. Costo actual means the current cost.

Common mistakes

• Machine translation left unchecked. The examples above are typical. Have every page reviewed by a fluent speaker who has explained a job to a customer in Spanish.
• A Spanish page that leads to English. An English-only form, thank-you page, automatic email or voicemail undoes the work.
• Spanish ads with nobody to answer. Paying for Spanish clicks that reach an English-only office.
• Mixed or side-by-side languages on one page.
• A language link that drops people on the homepage instead of the matching page.
• Auto-redirecting by browser language or location.
• hreflang errors: tags that point only one way, or the es-419 code.
• Spanish pages that promise more than the contract: a longer warranty, “precio fijo”, financing terms you don't actually offer.
• The business name in two languages on Google Business Profile.

Contracts and paperwork in Spanish

This is a summary, not legal advice. If you sell in Spanish, have a lawyer who handles consumer or construction contracts in your state review your contract and cancellation notice, because the scope of these rules depends on how and where you sell.

Federal: the FTC Cooling-Off Rule

The FTC's Cooling-Off Rule (16 CFR Part 429) covers sales of consumer goods or services made away from the seller's place of business, including at the buyer's home even when the buyer invited you, for $25 or more at the buyer's home ($130 or more at other locations, such as a rented hotel room or a fairground). For those sales, the copy of the contract or receipt must be in the same language, e.g., Spanish, as the one mainly used in the oral sales presentation, and the Notice of Cancellation must be in the same language as the contract.

The rule lists exceptions, for example sales completed entirely by mail or phone with no other contact, and genuine emergencies where the buyer signs a handwritten waiver. It doesn't replace state laws that give buyers the same or stronger cancellation rights.

California example: two laws with different scopes

• Home improvement sold at the home. Civil Code 1689.7. In California, a home improvement contract made somewhere other than your place of business, for $25 or more, must be written in the same language, e.g., Spanish, as the one principally used in the oral sales presentation. It must also carry the “Three-Day Right to Cancel” notice, which becomes five days for buyers 65 and older and seven days for certain disaster repairs. The section was last amended with effect from January 1, 2026.
• Contracts negotiated in Spanish. Civil Code 1632. A business that negotiates primarily in Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese or Korean must hand over a full translation before signing for the types of contracts the section lists, such as consumer credit sales, consumer loans and residential leases longer than a month. The section expressly excludes the home improvement contract itself, along with plans, specifications and the description of work and materials. For a contractor, 1632 matters mainly when you arrange pay-over-time financing or credit in Spanish. If the business doesn't comply, the customer can cancel the contract. There is an exception when the customer negotiates through their own adult interpreter who is not provided by the business.

Whether a particular financing setup falls under 1632 is a legal question for a California consumer-law attorney.

Other states

These are California examples. Look up your own state's rules on home solicitation sales and home improvement contracts on your legislature's website, and check your contractor licensing board's contract requirements. The federal rule applies in every state, alongside your state's own rules.