WordPress is a globally popular and flexible content management system that supports multilingual websites. This feature is particularly important for international companies and projects that want to serve different language groups. In this blog article, we will walk you through how you can implement different language versions easily and efficiently on your WordPress website.
Why is multilingualism important?
A multilingual website helps you reach a wider audience, improves the customer experience and promotes search engine visibility in different languages. Website language options can also strengthen your brand's global image and support business expansion into new markets. Especially in Europe and Asia, multilingual websites are almost a necessity if you want to serve customers effectively in their own language and also offer your website in languages such as English.
There are several options for implementing multilinguality in WordPress. The key is to find the most appropriate way to implement language versions of your website for your situation. So it's worth taking a moment to consider, what would be the best way to implement different language versions of your site.
Use plugins designed for multilingualism
WordPress plugins offer an easy way to add language versions to your site.
WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) is a plugin designed to manage multilingual WordPress sites, supporting a wide range of language versions and providing a rich set of tools for managing translations.
Polylang is another popular option that is particularly good for smaller sites, as it offers a free version of the basic functionality.
TranslatePress allows you to make translations directly on the front-end of the page, making translation work faster and more intuitive. Particularly handy is the live preview of translated pages, which allows you to instantly see how your site looks in different languages.
The use of plugins makes sense when there are not too many differences between themes or other plugins between your different language versions. If you want to use a different themes for your language pages, or have a very different set of plugins for your main site, it may make more sense to build language versions in their own subdomains.
Another option is to use subdomains
This approach can be useful if you want to completely separate pages in different languages. It requires more technical expertise and careful SEO management. For example, different language versions can be found at en.example.com or fi.example.com, implemented in subdomains of your primary site.
In this case, WordPress’s multilingual support is less direct, so you may need help from a website developer, who can help with the installation of subdomains. This way, you can gain search engine visibility benefits, as search engines like Google can treat separate sites for different languages as separate entities.
However, it is important to remember that a multilingual website requires constant maintenance and ensuring the accuracy of translations.
SEO and multilingual content management
Hreflang tags are essential for multilingual websites. They tell search engines that certain pages are different language versions of the same content. This enables search engines to show the right language version to the right group of users. Many plugins that support multilingualism, such as WPML and Polylang, handle hreflang tags automatically.
Remember to also translate SEO elements, i.e. metadata such as titles, descriptions and keywords, as these are important for search engine optimisation.
Please note that content published in different languages is not only translations of text, but may contain different, locally optimised information. For example, if your site serves different countries, you can create content that is targeted to that particular market.
How would a language version be implemented using WordPress plugins?
Here, we'll introduce you to the implementation of two plugins and how to get started with language versions.
When choosing the right add-on, you should take into account things like what theme you're using for your website and whether you want to translate your pages manually or perhaps let the AI do the translating for you. There are sure to be options to suit every need!
Deploying the Polylang plugin and creating a language version in WordPress Classic Editor
1. Install the Polylang plugin
- Go to the WordPress admin panel and select Add-ons > Add New
- Find Polylang and click Install Now
- Once installed, activate the add-on
2. Add languages
- From the Polylang settings, you can add the languages you want. Go to Settings > Languages and select the languages you want to add
- You can specify the default language and choose which languages you want to offer on your site. At this point, you can select English as the default language, i.e. add it first in the list
3. Add a language menu
- First, create a navigation for your menu site - each different language version needs its own navigation
- In Polylang's settings, you can specify how the language navigation menu is displayed on your site. This can be a drop-down menu or alternatively links that direct users to the correct language version
4. Translate pages and posts
- Once you have added your languages, you can start translating pages and posts. Make a copy of the page and change the copy to the language you want to use first. Then make the translation and save
- You can choose a language version for each page and add translations accordingly
Implementing language versioning with the TranslatePress plugin in WordPress Block Editor
1. Install the Translate Multilingual sites - TranslatePress -plugin
- Activate the plugin after installation
- The plugin can now be found in the Settings menu
- To start translating, select the "Translate Site" tab, which opens the editor view and the translation tool
2. Select the target site from your website and translate it into the language of your choice
- Select the text to be translated by clicking on the pen icon
- If necessary, you can change the user view
3. The site visitor can switch from one language version to another via the menu at the bottom of the page
- You do not need to create a separate navigation for the language versions
