Should your website be in Swahili, English, or both?

This comes up in almost every project we do in Tanzania. The assumption most people start with is wrong: it's not about which language sounds more professional, it's about which language your customer thinks in when they're about to spend money.

Start with your customer, not your preference

Ask yourself: when my best customer is talking to their friends about what they bought, what language are they using? That's your answer. If you're serving Dar es Salaam households buying groceries or household goods, Swahili isn't just appropriate — it's warmer, more trusted, more direct. If you're a B2B service dealing with corporate clients, government, or international buyers, English is expected.

The case for bilingual

Most Tanzanian businesses serve a mixed audience. A restaurant might have local walk-in customers and international tourists. A fashion brand might have Dar es Salaam customers and diaspora buyers in the UK or UAE. For these businesses, building a bilingual site — with a simple language toggle — is the right answer. It costs slightly more to write content twice, but the conversion lift from speaking to each customer in their language is worth it.

What not to do

Don't mix languages mid-sentence. Don't write in English and assume a Swahili-speaking customer will struggle through it because 'they'll manage'. Don't use Google Translate for important pages — the output is recognisable as machine translation to anyone reading it, and it reads as unprofessional in both languages.

Our default recommendation

For most of our Tanzanian clients: English as the primary language with key selling points mirrored in Swahili. Navigation and CTAs in both. Pricing in both TZS and USD (or the currency your international audience uses). This covers the widest audience without needing to maintain two full versions of every page.