Through the wonder of technology, we can connect with people around the globe at any point in time. As a result, many businesses want to expand to an international audience, and offer services to people from all over the world. Creating a multilingual website is important if you want to connect with people who don’t speak the same language as you.

Think about your business. Is there an international audience that would benefit from learning about your products and services in their own language? If so, WordPress plugins make it simple and easy to add languages to your website.  Here are my top four WordPress Multi-Language Plugins.

WordPress Multi-Language Plugins

1. Polylang
by WP SYNTEX

polylang

With Polylang, you can use as many languages as you want for your site. Your website visitor can use the language switcher in the widget area or in the navigation menu to view your site in the language they want. This plugin is very popular because of its simplicity and flexibility. Learn more about Polylang here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/polylang/

2. The WordPress Multilingual Plugin
by WPML.org

wpml

This paid plugin offers many impressive features. Here’s how it works. You create a post or page in each language that you want. Then, this plugin will link translated versions together, indicating one post/page is the translation of another. The WordPress Multilingual Plugin comes with 40 languages, and lets you add your own language variants. You can also use the automatic translation feature to translate everything in WordPress quickly. Check out the WordPress Multilingual Plugin here: https://wpml.org/

WordPress Translation Plugins

1. Google Language Translator
by Translate AI Multilingual Solutions

google language translator

Google Language Translator allows you to run Google Translate right on your website so visitors can see the machine-translated version of the site in any of the languages that Google supports. This is probably the quickest way to make your site multi-lingual. Find out more about this plugin on this page: https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-language-translator/

 

2. This one looks promising but we have not tested it

Translate Multilingual sites – TranslatePress

Changing the Language on Your WordPress Dashboard

Many years ago, WordPress introduced an easy way to switch your back-end language. Today, WordPress is available in 57 different languages.

Here’s a screenshot of the admin panel in Italian. To change the language in your dashboard, go to Settings —> General. Then, about midway down on the page, you should see Site Language. 

wp admin panel in italian

If your native language is not English or if you’d prefer to work in a different language, it’s easy to select the language of your choice from the drop-down. 

wp admin language selection

Wrap-Up

Doing business around the world has never been easier. It’s all at our fingertips and with the click of a button. That presents an opportunity for many businesses to expand their reach and grow their business internationally.

Do you want to create a multilingual website to connect with more people around the globe? Will your product or service benefit people, no matter what language people speak?

Since I teach my classes in English, my students need to be proficient in English.  So, I do not have multiple languages on my website. However, one of my students has a bed and breakfast. She wants to attract visitors from all over the world, so it makes sense to offer her website content in multiple languages.

There are numerous WordPress plugins to help you with this task. The four above are just a few of my top tools. Do some research on your own to find the one that you like. Of course, be sure to evaluate any plugin before you install it to ensure that it’s what you need.

(This article first appeared on this blog Feb 2015)

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