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The price in pounds, the review in English: what convinces someone who's not from around here
You'll know which currency, date format, trust signal, and contact method to adapt in the English version so visitors don't just understand the site, but actually trust it.
By Yodai · Published September 6, 2026 · Updated October 13, 2026
A hair salon owner builds the English version of her website. The translation is well done: it doesn't sound machine-translated, it uses the words someone from the UK or the US would actually search for. She gets a message from a client in the US who's traveling to Spain in October. The client asks about the price of a treatment. The reply says 45 €, appointment on 03/10 at 17h. The client never writes back.
It wasn't the language. The text was in correct English. It was everything else: a date that in his head is March 10, not October 3, a price in a currency he has to convert in his head, a time that doesn't say which time zone it's in, and a phone number, 600 000 000, with no +34 in front, so he has no idea if he can dial it from his US phone without it costing him a fortune. He understood the sentence. He didn't trust the website.
That's what's missing once the translation itself is done: the details that aren't words but that say, louder than any sentence, that the website was built for someone local and not for the person actually reading it. Google looks at the same thing: its guide to multi-regional, multilingual websites lists local addresses and phone numbers, along with local language and currency, among the signals of which audience a website is targeting.
Currency: when to change it and when not to
The first instinct is to show every price in pounds or dollars throughout the English version. Sometimes that's a mistake.
If what you're selling happens at a fixed location (your salon, your office, your restaurant), the client already knows they'll be paying here, in the US, once they get there. Pricing it in pounds doesn't help: it just forces them to do the math backward once they're already here. In that case, the dollar stays, and what actually helps is a small line underneath with the approximate figure in their currency: with a price of $45, something like about £35 at today's exchange rate (example figures: you calculate it using the exchange rate on the day you write it). Nothing more. No need to update it every week or build a converter.
If instead you're selling something that gets delivered wherever the client happens to be (an online course, a shipment, a consulting call over video), then you're competing with businesses that already charge in the client's own currency. Seeing a price in dollars, for someone in the UK, is a sign that this business isn't set up to sell abroad. In that case, the price you show switches to pounds or euros, even if you keep getting paid in dollars. With a payment gateway like Stripe, you can charge the client in more than 135 currencies and receive the money in whichever one you prefer (if they don't match, Stripe converts the charge into your currency, and that conversion has a cost), and its documentation adds that converting prices into the local currency can improve conversion, meaning how many visits turn into sales.
- The customer already knows they're paying here, in dollars
- Changing the number for no reason adds confusion instead of clarity
- Competes with businesses that already charge in the customer's own currency
- A price in dollars reads as a business that doesn't sell abroad
- The visible number switches to pounds or euros
- The actual charge can still run in dollars, the customer never sees that part
Which one to choose: If the client has to physically come to the US, price in dollars with a reference conversion. If the client gets the service without traveling, price in their own currency.
Units and dates: the detail that gives away the carelessness
05/03 means March 5th in Spain and May 3rd in the United States. According to the W3C, the consortium that sets web standards, the month/day/year order is the US convention, while most European countries write day/month/year. That ambiguity, repeated in every appointment confirmation or delivery date, is the cheapest way to plant a doubt that nobody is going to resolve by asking. They simply never write back.
The same thing happens with sizes, which aren't numbered the same way in every country; with weight, if the reader thinks in pounds instead of kilos; and with time, if it doesn't say which time zone it's referring to. The solution isn't memorizing conversions. It's writing in a way that makes converting anything unnecessary: the month's name instead of a number, which is exactly what the W3C recommends when a date can be read two different ways; the size with its equivalent in parentheses the first time it appears; the time with Spain time next to it if the business handles video calls or WhatsApp with people in another country.
Trust doesn't get translated, it gets rebuilt
A review translated word for word from Spanish sounds like a translated review. A short, real review that someone already left you in English, even with a little imperfection, beats a perfect paragraph that reads as made up.
The question that matters isn't whether you have reviews, but whether you have reviews where that visitor is actually looking. And not everyone looks in the same place. Trustpilot, a customer review site, has its biggest market in the UK: according to its 2025 annual report, 88% of people there recognize the brand when it's named. Spain, on the other hand, isn't among the seven top markets that same report lists. And in certain industries, like healthcare or law, the seal of a professional board or industry association matters too.
Contact: make it easy to reach out without a second thought
If the only way to get in touch on the English version is a form that promises we'll call you within 24 hours, you've already lost the person who just wanted to ask something quick before deciding. WhatsApp usually handles this better than a phone call or email, because it works the same whether it's a phone from the UK or one from Spain.
What you do need to say is the hours you're available and in which time zone. 'We answer from 9 to 6' means nothing to someone who doesn't know whether that's their 9 AM or their 3 AM. The UK government solves this in its own style guide: if a service serves people outside the UK, the hours get 'UK time' next to them. One small line, 'Spain time, GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 in summer,' keeps it from feeling like you're writing to a mailbox nobody checks. That applies to all of Spain except the Canary Islands: according to Royal Decree 236/2002, the March time change happens at 1 AM universal time, which is 2 AM in the rest of Spain and 1 AM in the Canary Islands. In the Canary Islands, then, it's one hour earlier.
- The price stays in euros if the customer comes to Spain, and switches to their currency if the service is delivered remotely
- Dates are written with the month spelled out, never in numbers, so 5/3 isn't confused with 3/5
- Trust signals vary by country: Trustpilot's biggest market is the UK, and Spain isn't among its top ones
- The phone number includes the +34 country code, and the business hours state which time zone they refer to.
Three cases to decide
Answer before opening each one. If one gives you trouble, go back to the section that explains it.
1. A personal trainer teaches video-call classes to students all over the world, and on his English site the price is still shown in euros. What should change, and why?
The price should switch to the visitor's currency, or at least show dollars as a reference, because the service is delivered remotely and competes with trainers who already charge in that currency; keeping it in euros reads as a business that isn't set up to serve customers abroad.
2. A pottery shop translates a review word for word into English that in Spanish says, "a 10, I'll repeat for sure." What should be done with it?
It gets dropped from the English version. A colloquial phrase translated word for word sounds made up; better to look for real reviews already left in English, even if there are fewer of them and they're shorter.
3. A physical therapist's English-language site lists an open slot for 04/07, and a patient from the US writes in asking if that's July or April. What went wrong, and how should it be fixed?
The mistake was writing the date in numbers, since in the US it's read as month/day, not day/month; the fix is to always spell out the month in any date a visitor from outside might see.
Sources
- Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites. Google Search Central, updated December 2025.
- Supported currencies. Stripe, accessed October 2026.
- Date formats. W3C Internationalization, published in 2003 and revised in 2016.
- Annual Report 2025. Trustpilot Group plc, 2026.
- A to Z style guide. GOV.UK, Government Digital Service of the UK government, accessed October 2026.
- Royal Decree 236/2002, of March 1, establishing daylight saving time. Official State Gazette (Spain), 2002.