{"id":6400,"date":"2019-08-26T09:05:33","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T15:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.webii.net\/blog\/?p=6400"},"modified":"2022-02-24T10:52:16","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T16:52:16","slug":"ways-to-make-a-wordpress-site-multilingual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webii.net\/blog\/ways-to-make-a-wordpress-site-multilingual\/","title":{"rendered":"Multilingual Websites: Ways to Make a WordPress Site Multilingual"},"content":{"rendered":"

Companies are recognizing their diverse audiences and a need to reach them with personalized content. I see more companies investing in their global reach, with an effort to support multiple languages in the website content. With WordPress being a leading platform for websites, it seems fitting to explore all the ways that you can support multiple languages with WordPress. Here are some approaches for multilingual websites.<\/p>\n

Using Google Translate (Or, Maybe Not)<\/h2>\n

Unfortunately the once easy to insert Google Translate widget is no longer supported<\/a>. It was deprecated in August 2019.<\/p>\n

But Google still has a Cloud-based API solution for languages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This may open some interesting opportunities for web developers, assuming Google will still continue to grow its machine-based translations. Google seems to be structuring the usage of this API like their maps and others, with a billing profile now required. I recommend reading up on the billing requirements before delving deep.<\/p>\n

If you want to tackle this integration, it will require an experienced developer to work with the API and implement it to a site.<\/p>\n

There are some newer plugins available for WordPress such as TranslatePress<\/a> that are using this technology. This might make the job easier, but it seems to still require using your Google account. If you have a fair amount of traffic that will send calls to the API, expect a bill.<\/p>\n

Using WPML and Multi-Site Setup<\/h2>\n

A popular and leading solution, WPML<\/a> allows you to create an organized system of language sections and translated content in your WordPress. This solution is best for companies who will provide the translated content, rather than relying on a robot to auto-translate.<\/p>\n

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Map Concept Photo by Brett Zeck\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

With WPML, you can easily organize and track each language version of each Page or Post. It can also support your SEO efforts in several languages.<\/p>\n

Corporations that prefer to have professionally translated content for their employees and customers may prefer this approach. Robot-translated content might be too prone to errors or might not properly communicate the brand.<\/p>\n

WordPress also supports a multi-site setup option. This means that you can have secondary websites below your main domain that are intended for different audiences. You can create a different version of your website for each language, each with a unique URL structure (like: mysite.com\/es\/ or mysite.com\/fr\/).<\/p>\n

Creating Multilingual Websites with Custom Themes<\/h2>\n

This is an approach to using the capabilities of WordPress<\/a> and keeping different versions of content organized. It doesn\u2019t require any fancy plugins, but it does involve a little custom theming. I used this method for many years, before WPML was popularly available.<\/p>\n

The approach involves:<\/h3>\n