Drupal Based Site Multi-Language Advice Needed

My website is Drupal (7) based. I would like to add spanish language content, as I am in San Diego and there is a large potential market. As I gather, there seems to be several options:
1) Install modules that create spanish based versions of the pages, with the appropriate ones loading based on the language settings of the user/page viewer
2) just create one page in spanish, to which there is a link from the homepage... titled something like "en espanol" or "espanol", containing just a summed up gist of the site (and order web form)... to which a potential spanish speaking customer would likely put a keyword that would pull that subpage in the search results.

Option 1 seems more advanced and impressive, but i have doubts about my ability to install and set it all up ok.

Any advice?

jsm4182 said:

I've done a multilanguage site in drupal 6(though I believe everything is still the same in the drupal 7 versions). I went with pretty much your first option, which I believe is the best way to handle multi language sites. The other thing those modules do which is very important is add a language switcher block, a user wouldn't need an account on the site to change the language, clicking the language switcher would take them to the Spanish version of the page they are already on and keep them on the Spanish side until the click back to English.

If you know what you're doing in drupal, its pretty easy to set up. Use the Internationalization(i18n) module.

Click to expand...

The truth is that i'm intimidated in trying to do this. I had my sight built for me. Since taking over, so to speak, i've learned how to add a few modules, configure them, add a few pages, etc. But nothing too dramatic. The idea of creating a sort of duplicate spanish language version of the sight, and figuring it all out, seems a little beyond my capabilities. I'll have to give it some thought...