28 Oct How To Translate Your WordPress Website

Language is one of the most basic tools used by humans and other forms of living beings to communicate with each other. Running a WordPress blog means addressing different sections of readers and there are great chance that your blog is visited by a multi-lingual audience.

With the tag of the most used CMS in the world, the platform requires to be multi-lingual. But, there is no inherent way to make your website multilingual. The good news is that there are plenty of good plugins that can help you translate Your WordPress website.

How To Translate Your WordPress Website

WordPress by default doesn’t support Multilingual translation and that’s kind of bad thing for the WordPress users. But, with the help of the plugins, users can easily translate their WordPress website into any language they want.

WordPress Ecosystem is one of the reasons why it has become so much popular. Themes provides the right tone for the looks of the website, whereas the plugins act as the base for creating the functionality for the more advanced WordPress website.

There are many ways one can translate the websites. Let’s list them to understand some of the basics of WordPress Translation.

1. The website can be translated on the basis of each post per language. There are many plugins out there that enable you to achieve the desired result. We will go through plugins that do translation per post per language. Let’s tag this category of plugins as “per post-translation“.

2. Each translation is stored within the post and used according to the user requirement. Let’s tag the category of plugins that achieve this as “all multi-language translation on each post“.

3. The third category of translation is done using the page translation instead of post context. Let’s tag this category of plugins as “page translation plugin“.

4. There are many translation services that are available online. Many plugins utilize the external source for translation purposes. Let’s tag this category of plugins as “External translation services.”

5. A completely different approach to solving the translation is to create a multisite website that go forth and back for different languages. Effective, but have a higher headache of maintenance. Let’s tag this category of plugins as “Multisite Translation plugins.”

I will list all the plugins now and will mark each of them according to their category so that you can understand what the plugin is all about in a matter of a glance.

1. WPML

Category: Per Post-Translation

WPML is one of the most famous WordPress translation plugin. With its wide reach, many themes come with its support. And, there is no point in guessing why it’s famous. First, it is easy to use and second it requires no coding skills to translate a website.

With so much to offers, a website can be translated in a matter of minutes. The plugin is available at a starting price of only $29 and you can get all your translation needs under one roof. The advantage of paying for a service is better support and unparallel updates that are provided frequently.

2. PolyLang

Category: Per Post-Translation

PolyLang is yet another example of translation your own content. With the support of 50+ languages, there is enough room for your language to be supported by the plugin. But, by any chance that your language is not supported, then PolyLang offers an option to integrate your own language. Interesting, right?

The great thing about the plugin is that it is free and works on the same level as that of WPML. You can easily set the default language and start makes changes to the blog.

3. Bogo

Category: Per Post-Translation

Bogo is a simple multilingual plugin that focuses on extending the core WordPress theme translation capacity. It can be used on a single WordPress install and is easy to install.

The official WordPress plugin page offers detailed installation guide for the beginners. The plugin also offers a language switcher which can be used via a shortcode.

4. qTranslate

Category: all multi-language translation on each post

qTranslate is a great free translation plugin with more than 1 million active installations. It is free to download and works great for multilingual websites.

Using qTranslate is easy, install and the plugin will add multiple tabs to each of the post so that you can select the language and write the content in that particular languages. With the distinct feature of tabs, translation becomes less hectic and easy to control.

The plugin comes with support for multiple languages. The plugin also offers a simple widget that helps the readers to switch between languages faster.

5. Tranposh WordPress Translation

Category: Page Translation plugin(automated+ manual)

Transposh WordPress translation plugin is a unique way of translating the website. With the help of both automation and manual translation, users can easily translate the web pages.

This increases both the speed of translation as it adds automation to the process of translation.

6. Google Website Translator by Prisna.net

Category: External translation services.

There are many service providers that translate the content for free. Google provides their translation service, which is getting better and better with their machine learning algorithm.

Google Website Translator by Prinsa.net is a neat plugin that focuses on leveraging the google website translator for your website.

The plugin supports 70+ languages and the plugin is easy to use.

7. Multisite Language Switcher

Category: Multisite Translation plugins

With MultiSite Language Switcher plugin, multiple WordPress website can be used a multilingual website. This enables the webmaster to take control of multiple web sites and send users with redirects to the other website when there is a request for a different languages.

Currently, the plugin supports translation for pages, posts, categories, tags, custom taxonomies and custom post types.

Currently, the plugin supports more than 30 languages.

Wrap Up

Creating a multilingual website has lots of benefits and with the help of the listed plugins, you can easily catch the train of users that are from different demographics and love to read in their mother language.

Targetting a global audience is great for your business and can help you retain more users on the web site.

Love the plugins that are shared today? Comment below to tell us your favorite multilingual plugin.