Your website is one of the essential elements of your digital marketing strategy. You use it to inform people about your business or brand and to convince them into becoming your customers. Building your website with WordPress comes with a lot of benefits. One of those benefits is that you can easily create a multi-language site.
Having your website translated into multiple languages is a huge business advantage. It’ll help you reach a wider audience, become more dominant in foreign markets, and improve organic traffic. All you have to do is learn how to translate your WordPress site into other languages.
WordPress doesn’t have the translation feature, so you have to use plugins or other techniques to translate your website. But, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered.
Here’s how to create a multi-language WordPress site.
1. Human Translation
The first option you need to consider is translating your site by using human translations.
The advantage of human translation over machine translation is the following:
- better quality of the translation
- no literal translations
- adaptation of the content to suit the target language
Naturally, if you don’t speak the target language yourself, you’ll have to hire a professional translator. Still, if you have the resources to do it, we highly recommend that you do.
Apart from translating the content of your website, you’ll also need to add different language options to your website. You can use the different plugins to help you out.
Polylang
Polylang is a great option for incorporating translations into your website and making it multilingual.
After installing the plugin, visit Settings and choose Languages to configure it. Within the Language settings, you’ll be able to:
- add different target languages you want to use on your website
- translate site title
- translate site description
- chose date and time format
- choose the default language
Once you finish with the settings, you’ll be able to add posts on different languages. All you have to do is:
- select a language
- create a post
- add different translations to different posts
So, the plugin doesn’t automatically translate your content and human translation is required. Still, it enables you to make the translations visible and smoothly incorporated into your website.
WPML
The WPML plugin is one of the best known, and most widely used WordPress multilingual plugins. It’s a premium plugin, which means it’s paid.
There are three options:
- Multilingual Blog, $29
- Multilingual CMS, $79
- Multilingual Agency, $159
The plugin offers full-time technical support and a 30 days money-back guarantee.
Here’s what the plugin offers and what makes it one of the best plugins for turning your site multilingual:
- over 40 languages
- adding your language variants
- translate every element of your website
- compatible with other WordPress plugins
- supports most WordPress themes
- ordinary WordPress users can be assigned as translators
- offers professional translators
- set translation deadlines
- media translation
So, the plugin is perfect for making everything ready for adding translations. Still, it doesn’t translate the content itself.
You have to translate the content or hire someone to do it for you. You can consider an online translation service such as Pick Writers.
Also, you can turn to machine translations and then paste the content to your dashboard.
But, there are plugins that offer automatic machine translations. Let’s take a look.
2. Automatic Translation
If you’re looking for an easier way to turn your website into a multilingual one, there are WordPress plugins that can help you out.
Weglot
Weglot is one of the best multilingual plugins available today.
It’s simple to use and it turns your website into a multilingual one in just a few minutes. Here’s how to use it:
- install and activate the plugin
- set the original and destinations languages
- translate
A language selection bar will be available at the corner of your website. People will be able to choose which language they prefer to read in.
Naturally, you can edit your translations to make sure everything is just the way you want it to be. You’ll be redirected to your Weglot account. You’ll be able to use a Dashboard with all your translations.
Here’s a couple of more Weglot features that might pleasantly surprise you:
- no coding needed
- delivers clean source code
- indexed by Googe
- customizable language button
Weglot is a simple plugin that can turn your site multilingual n just a few clicks. It allows you to edit the translated content and revise it all in a single dashboard.
Google Language Translator
Google Language Translator is another machine translation plugin that enables you to turn your website multilingual.
While most of the essential features are free, there’s the advanced paid version which comes with additional useful features.
The free version offers automatic translation of posts, pages, tags, widgets, etc. The paid version comes with additional great features such as:
-
- SEO indexing
- URLs translation
- manual translation correction
- translating metadata
- live chat support
This plugin can be a good addition to your digital marketing strategy, and help you expand your reach with translations.
However, be careful, since not all translations make sense and sometimes can be of poor quality.
Let’s Rewind
As you can see you have two options when it comes to turning your site multilingual.
If you have the knowledge or the resources for human translation, it’s a better option since it will provide accurate, adapted, and adjusted translations.
If you don’t speak the language and don’t have the resources for hiring translators, go for the machine translations.
There’s a plugin for each purpose, so you won’t have to go through too much trouble.
Final Thoughts
A multilingual website is inviting and welcoming to a wider audience. It helps you expand your target audience and reach out to them with confidence. It’s a valuable part of your digital marketing strategy.
Use the advice above to select the option that suits you the best. Turn your website into a multilingual one and you’ll see it was worth the effort.
Author
At a relatively young age, Donald Fomby has already amassed impressive experience as a freelance writer. Donald studied Computer Science at Texas A&M. He has a passion for technology, social media and travel.