Getting ready for expansion: preparing your app for a global audience

As your app gains traction, expanding to new markets is a natural next step. But to ensure a smooth expansion, it’s crucial to prepare your app to handle multiple languages, regions, and user preferences. Here are some quick, effective tips to help you get your app ready for global growth—whether you’re using FlutterFlow or developing in general.

Get user location by IP

One of the first steps in preparing for expansion is identifying where your users are coming from. You can do this by determining their location via their IP address. Knowing your users’ regions allows you to personalize their experience, display localized content, or direct them to the appropriate version of your app.

In FlutterFlow:

1. Use an API Call to an IP geolocation service (e.g., IPstack, ipinfo.io) to get the user’s location based on their IP address. (or call the API inside a custom action)
2. Store their region or country information in your database or app state, then use that data to load relevant content or direct them to the correct language version.

Tip: this technique also helps in customizing marketing campaigns and analyzing the geographic distribution of your user base.

We often use the following custom action to get the user IP address:

Future<String?> getUserIpAddress() async {
  // Add your function code here!

  try {
    final response = await http.get(Uri.parse('https://api.ipify.org'));
    if (response.statusCode == 200) {
      return response.body;
    } else {
      print('Failed to get IP address: ${response.statusCode}');
      return null;
    }
  } catch (e) {
    print('Error getting IP address: $e');
    return null;
  }
}

And then you can use that output in the following action to get the country:

Future<String?> getCountryFromIp(String? ipAddress) async {
  // Add your function code here!

  if (ipAddress == null) {
    return null;
  }

  try {
    final response =
        await http.get(Uri.parse('https://api.iplocation.net/?ip=$ipAddress'));
    if (response.statusCode == 200) {
      final data = json.decode(response.body);
      return data['country_name'];
    } else {
      print('Failed to get country information: ${response.statusCode}');
      return null;
    }
  } catch (e) {
    print('Error getting country information: $e');
    return null;
  }
}

Prepare your database to be multilingual

If you’re planning on expanding into different countries, it’s essential to set up your database to handle multiple languages. This is critical for apps that display content (text, descriptions, etc.) in different languages.

Best practice:

• Separate content by language: in your database, create separate fields for each supported language. For example, if you have a product name, create fields like product_name_en, product_name_es, and product_name_fr for English, Spanish, and French translations, respectively.
• Tag data by language: alternatively, you can create a language tag for your data, allowing you to store multiple languages within the same collection but filter by the user’s preferred language.

In FlutterFlow:

• You can set up a multilingual structure in your Firebase or Supabase database by using multiple fields or documents for each language.
• Once the user’s language is detected (based on location or preference), fetch the appropriate fields from the database and display them on the app screens.

Tip: always ensure that all translations are accurately done. Use professional services or reliable translation tools for best results (like Google translate).

Prepare screens to be multilingual

After setting up your database, it’s time to make sure your UI can handle multiple languages. This includes not only displaying content in the user’s language but also considering how different languages may affect the layout (e.g., text expansion for longer words or right-to-left languages like Arabic).

In FlutterFlow:

• Use the localization feature in FlutterFlow to create translations for each UI element (buttons, headers, descriptions, etc.). You can set conditions for displaying the correct language based on user preference or location.
• For longer text or languages with different formatting (like RTL), make sure your designs can adapt—e.g., ensure buttons and containers have enough padding and spacing to accommodate text that might be longer in another language.

Tip: when localizing screens, test your UI with different languages to ensure the layout holds up under various conditions. Pay special attention to fonts, spacing, and text alignment.

Conclusion: preparing for global growth

Expanding your app to new regions doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By making your app multilingual and location-aware, you’ll be able to provide a tailored experience for users around the world. Start by using IP geolocation to determine your users' regions, setting up a multilingual database, and adapting your screens to handle multiple languages with ease.

With these steps, your app will be well on its way to thriving in new markets. Whether you’re working in FlutterFlow or any other platform, these tips will help you make the leap into global expansion efficiently. If you ever need help with this, feel free to reach out to us here!