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South America market guide

Sell to Brazil: Website Translation & Languages Guide

Languages, market data and the right technical SEO strategy for selling into Brazil with a WordPress site.

~216M population84% internet penetration~181.4M people onlineBRL currency

Which languages does the Brazil market expect?

Brazil's web audience is primarily served in Portuguese (Brazil). Latin America's biggest digital economy. Use Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR) specifically — European Portuguese reads as foreign. Serving these languages on real, indexable URLs is the baseline for ranking in local search results.

What URL & hreflang strategy fits Brazil?

For most sites: keep one domain, serve each language in a subdirectory, and add region-qualified hreflang where offers are country-specific. Example for Brazil: hreflang="pt-br-br" on localized pricing pages, plain hreflang="pt-br" elsewhere.

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="pt-br-br" href="https://example.com/pt-br/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/" />

Practical checklist for entering Brazil

  • Translate the market-entry set first: homepage, top products, pricing, contact and legal pages in Portuguese (Brazil).
  • Show prices in BRL where possible — language plus local currency is what makes a site feel domestic.
  • Run per-market keyword checks: never assume your English keywords translate into how locals actually search.
  • Watch Search Console impressions from this country before and after launch — that delta is your localization ROI.

City guides in Brazil

Frequently asked questions

What languages should my website support for Brazil?

Start with Portuguese (Brazil). With roughly 84% of Brazil's ~216M people online, the addressable web audience is about 181.4 million.

Do I need a local domain (.br ccTLD) for Brazil?

Usually not. Google recommends language subdirectories (yoursite.com/pt-br/) with hreflang region targeting for most businesses — they inherit your domain authority and cost nothing extra. A ccTLD makes sense only with a dedicated local team and budget.

How do I target Brazil specifically rather than the whole language?

Use region-qualified hreflang (e.g. pt-br-br) on pages with country-specific prices or offers, while keeping a generic language version as the default for other speakers of the language.

What does it cost to localize for the Brazil market?

Machine translation at wholesale API rates costs single-digit dollars per language for a typical site. The real localization budget goes to currency display, local payment methods and (for regulated industries) legal review.

Ready to launch in Brazil?

Add the market's languages to your WordPress site in minutes — with your own API key and zero word quotas.