Have you ever wanted to know how to create a multilingual website in WordPress? You might think that it’s hard to do, but it’s actually super easy! Maybe you created a website or thinking of creating one today and will have visitors from different countries who will view your content. If this is the case, then today’s post is exactly what you need!
Today you will see how to create a multilingual website in WordPress for FREE without having to speak or learn a language. Does this sound like a plan? If so, let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
Why Do I Need A Multilingual Website?
According to Ethnologue, there at 7,151 spoken living languages in the world. However, just 23 languages account for more than half of the world’s population. What is this important to know? Well, when people search for things online they want to receive results in their native language. Obviously if they understand the written information, then they are likely to take action and purchase your products or services.
When you people search online for products and services that you sell, you want to make sure that you make your website accessible and consumable. This is why is so important to make it available in the languages that your target visitors are likely to speak. For example, if you in Canada then likely your content should be available or convertible in English, French and Spanish.
Perhaps if your audience is from Europe, then you may want to have a multilingual WordPress website that allows them to select their preferred language. Whatever the case, you can simply adapt your website according to the needs of your website visitors.
When you create a website online and start blogging and publishing content, you will start to get page views in a jiffy. Also depending on the type of content and the demographics you are targeting you are bound to get readers who speak different languages as mentioned before. This is just something that comes with the territory.
This is the case for this very blog learnanet.com when I noticed my Google analytics and stats. Many of the visitors that make it to this blog from the search engines, Youtube and other platforms may speak or understand English, but prefer another language. To better accommodate these visitors and thus be able to serve my blog content to all, I have found a simple way to make my WordPress website multilingual.
NOTE: If you have not created your WordPress website yet, see this tutorial on how to make a WordPress website.
I decided to look deeper into my analytics to pick out the most common languages spoken by my website visitors based the countries web traffic comes from. I also noticed on my Youtube channel that many of people that watch my videos speak other languages as well. These viewers often come to my website after watching a video. This is another reason that helped me to see the need to learn how to make a website in multiple languages.
As a result I looked for simple way to have my pages & posts translated into those very targeted languages. The result? A better user experience!
I imagine that this is also why you googled looking for an easy way how to create a multilingual WordPress website. To help you learn how to do this, I know that most people love to watch videos versus reading. So I put together a simple video tutorial below that shows how using a FREE multilingual WordPress plugin called Google Language Translator.
As you could see clearly in this video tutorial that is really easy to build a multilingual website design by adding additional languages for your visitors to select from. I really like that once your visitor clicks the widget and selects their preferred language, it will automatically translate your posts or page within a few seconds.
As your readers continue to navigate your WordPress website, this Google Language Translator plugin will continue to work seamlessly in the background without any further effort on your part. You just have to set it up once and you are done!!
Things To Remember About Using A Free Multilingual WordPress Plugin
After learning how to create a multilingual website in WordPress, you are now ready to better serve your visitors. However, there are a few things that you should keep in mind when using ANY FREE multilingual WordPress plugin.
When you log into the dashboard of your WordPress website, you will notice that there are different language translator plugins that will help you to have a multilingual website design.
The Google Language Translator mentioned in our video above is just one of many available and the one that I prefer to use. However, you should remember that these translations are NOT rendered by a human.
Being that this is the case, we can’t expect perfection. But what I will say is that if you are looking for a simple FREE way to build a multilingual website in WordPress, then this is the best way to go.
Also, some may ask does having a website translated cause duplicate content? No, it does not according to Google.
This video below by Matt Cutt shows the truth about translation and duplicate content in Google’s eyes.
Hopefully after watching this brief video you understand how using a FREE multilingual WordPress plugin like Google language translator or ANY translator doesn’t affect your SEO rankings.
By using plugins like this you are not publishing the same content in that targeted language, rather simply providing a quick translation of the content in that language for your reader while on your website. This in turn will make your content more accessible for users.
Conclusion
Hopefully after reading this post you have learned some of the benefits of multilingual websites. Remember that if people can’t read your content, it’s unlikely that they will stay on your website. And if that is the case, then they will not buy your products or services.
I hope that you guys found this post today very helpful. This topic is one that comes up a lot for many bloggers, entrepreneurs and even eCommerce store owners. Basically if you have a website or thinking of creating a website very soon, then making your website multilingual just makes sense especially if you will have global visitors.
Did you find the video tutorial and info helpful? When you look at your website analytics, where do most of your web traffic come from? Which languages will you add to your website multilingual? Let me know your thoughts below please.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Is the Google Language Translator for websites free?
Yes, there is a paid and 100% FREE version for users. The paid version does offer some more advanced features for users depending on goals and reach. There are 4 paid packages that they offer: Custom, Startup, Business, and Enterprise.
There is a 15 day FREE Trial on paid plans. You can cancel paid subscription at anytime. However, if you simply would like to use the free version all you have to do is install the plugin from the WordPress directory on your site’s dashboard. Once installed, you canused immediately after selecting the languages you want your website to be translated into for users.
Is Google Language Translator SEO compatible?
Although the FREE version of the plugin does have some great features, unfortunately it doesn’t have any SEO benefits or advantages for users. So if you are looking for more control to help manage multilingual SEO rankings, then the PAID version has better features for this. The paid version is search engine friendly for urls, increases web traffic & adsense revenue, allows sub-directory and sub-domain url structures, has user dashboard with analytics, add hreflang tags for translated alternatives and much more!
Does It Work For Websites with SSL/HTTPS?
Yes it works great for both the FREE and PAID versions of Google Language Translator for websites! They even support Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates which are provided for free with most web hosting providers online. Once activated, it will simply provide an accurate machine generated translation in the targeted language for your website. As visitors navigate your website pages and articles, the content will automatically be translated into their language.
What questions do you have using the Google Language Translator plugin for websites? Drop them below please.