How to create a multilingual WordPress site

[su_dropcap style=”light”]T[/su_dropcap]he time of the awakening, you need a website. This site must be more multilingual. You will not fail to notice that a multilingual site is especially the prerogative of the big websites, and you wish with all your heart that it does not cost you the eyes of the head of the head. High hearts, you can create the site of your dreams. How is this possible? Thanks to WordPress, it is possible to design exactly the website that your business needs quickly, simply and at a modest cost. We will discover in this guide how to benefit from a Multilingual WordPress site.

Why WordPress?

WordPress is an open, open source web content management system that allows you to easily publish a hosted site where you want it. WordPress has quickly made a name for itself in the world of website design. As early as 2007, WordPress’ builds were solid enough to serve as a basis for ambitious and diverse web projects. This did not fade with time, quite the opposite. WordPress has literally imposed itself in the world to represent alone more than 25% of the global web. Needless to say, if several tens of millions of websites trust WordPress this is because it makes real every promise, both in terms of simplicity and flexibility. With WordPress, it is possible to design all types of websites that you could think of. Better, there may even be a plugin to do it.

If we had to list some of the positives to convince you this would be:

  • A WordPress site requires a modest investment. Thousands of developers provide plugins and themes for WordPress. This provides functionality and professional design at a cost close to zero.
  • Scaling up with WordPress: Security and Performance. WordPress’ overall performance, bug-free performance, and lightning-fast security issues make WordPress a trusted platform. safe.
  • WordPress: the best for SEO . There is no need to say, WordPress is a real little bomb in terms of SEO. The whole system has been designed to allow robots to index your entire site without any difficulty. There are also plugins that push the experience to a high level.
  • WordPress can do anything, even eCommerce. To say that it’s possible to do all types of sites is one thing, to prove it is another. WordPress has grown from a CMS cut for blogs to a CMS that is becoming a lion’s share of the eCommerce world. Thanks to the power of its plugin system, it is possible to install WooCommerce which is the eCommerce WordPress plugin to benefit from a site increase of all the features of an eCommerce site, in addition to your WordPress.
  • Host your site where you want it. Freedom is also about being able to host your site wherever you want. If you want to host it either, that is possible. But that it is also possible to find specialized hosts on its CMS is crucial. WordPress allows you to both self-hosting, or find a large list of providers specialized in this sector.

What kind of website with WordPress?

Need more reasons to upgrade to WordPress? So I’ll give you a quick list of all types of websites that can be done with WordPress. By possible, I mean that there are all themes and plugins to achieve this without having to do any development on your side. Not bad when you remember that not ten years ago this field was reserved for experts. Now it is possible for everyone to take control of their website, thank you WordPress.

  • eCommerce site : Propel an eCommerce site thanks to the famous WooCommerce plugin. More than 75% of the new eCommerce sites in the world are made with WordPress. Just that.
  • Business site : Perfect for the site of your company, WordPress makes it possible to put on this foot this type of site in a few clicks.
  • Directory site : Need to publish an online directory? This requires both a particular design and functions. That’s good, WordPress masters both without worries.
  • Booking site: Slightly different from the eCommerce site, the booking site is particularly aimed at the world of hotels, restaurants, in the field of tourism see the medical field. Still a large fringe of website that WordPress knows how to take care of.
  • Online Learning Site: Online learning is one of the parts of the web that will continue to grow in the coming years. If we rely solely on the professional training that is experiencing a real boom, this is a lucrative market available to us. You know what ? WordPress is already a big part of the cake of online training by offering the plugins and themes perfect for that.
  • Content Site : WordPress is so great, it can so much, that we would tend to forget as it is a powerful tool to upload a simple content site. The internet base after all. If WordPress is currently propelling a quarter of the world’s web, it is as efficient on complex sites as easy to use on simpler sites.

It goes without saying that we did not list everything that could be done with WordPress. Just taking the eCommerce part leaves you thinking because it is possible to have sites with radically different features, even if all would be eCommerce sites. This list having for sole interest to become aware of the quantity of possibility that offers WordPress.

How to make WordPress multilingual?

Knowing if the multilingual should be part of the core of WordPress is a debate that comes up often. Those who do not want it advocate that the system must remain as simple and versatile as possible. Needless to say, it is this view of things that is gaining now. And why ? WordPress knows how to overcome all its shortcomings thanks to its fabulous plugin system. Adding a small or very large functionality to WordPress is as easy as clicking with your computer mouse. The addition of multilingual WordPress is no exception to the rule thanks to the plugin WPML . It’s not the 500,000 WordPress sites using WPML that will say the opposite. And you know what ? We swear by WPML when it comes to multilingual on a WordPress site, whether for client projects or internal projects. WPML is the only multilingual WordPress plugin to offer a simply stunning number of features.

Adding multilingual features to WordPress is clearly part of complex plugins from a WordPress point of view as this plugin has to handle a lot of things at the same time. Make the choice of a plugin like WPML to trust the experience gained since 2009 in the field of multilingual WordPress.
You know what ? WPML will also allow you to set up a Multilingual WooCommerce site.

My site, what will it look like?

From experience, we will touch a point that will delight more than one. These are WordPress themes. If the plugins have clearly helped WordPress to position itself from a functional point of view, I think that one of the reasons for its very wide use is also based on a base of WordPress themes that put the eye. There is no saying, when we go around the themes for WordPress, we are immediately struck by the quality of what is proposed. This at a reasonable rate.

That’s not all. In addition to accessing tens of thousands of professional themes for your WordPress site, you can also use the direct services of a web designer. Thanks to certain themes, it is possible to design sites with very different visual renderings. This makes it possible to have a site with a unique design, for an unbeatable price in the sector.

To come back to the fact that your WordPress site will be multilingual, this is not just a detail when choosing or designing your WordPress theme. It must be compatible with your multilingual plugin for WordPress. It is up to the designer of the WordPress theme to make it compatible with one or the other multilingual plugins for WordPress. WPML is the multilingual plugin for WordPress that is supported by more than 75% of all the themes and plugins available on the market. Not everyone else can say the same. Of course, WPML supports the biggest plugins like WooCommerce Multilingual , multilingual ACF , Multilingual BuddyPress or Easy Digital Download multilingue .

Small detail not to be overlooked from a graphics point of view: the language selector. This is a feature and an expectation in the overall graphics of the site. To allow you to use WPML on any theme, even those not integrating language selector, you will be able to use that of WPML and in addition to customize if the need arises.

How to translate my WordPress site?

Translating your website can follow different approach. The automated approach and the human approach.

There are many services that allow us to translate content on the fly. Google Translate is undoubtedly its most famous emissary. If the translation provided by this type of service was more approximate, it tends to evolve positively over time. It always happens to this type of machine translation service to make gross mistakes, but it must be recognized that this tends to be reduced. In addition, the quality of the translation can be largely sufficient if the text is for example to support an image. The text will be secondary, the need for a high quality translation is less felt.

But hey, I challenge you not to recognize a text translated by a machine as soon as it is a little supported, or a little long. If your approach of multilingual site is done in a commercial frame or exchange of information, then one should not dream, only a human translation will live up to your expectations, and those of the Net surfers who will speak the language in question .

Be careful, having a multilingual site is of a different dimension than having a site that speaks only one language. It requires the services of someone who can understand and translate your content into the target language. But if your admin interface does not allow him to do his job easily, then this task will be so cumbersome that it will repel more than one. WPML knows that translation work is first and foremost done by people. Access to an administration interface dedicated to the management of translations is therefore an essential point. WPML comes with a space where your translator will find all content, classified by content already translated, waiting or being translated. This whatever the type of content. Even your own CPTs will be managed by the system built into WPML. Of course, WPML add a new user status, the statu translator. Thus, it will be possible for the translator to access only its translation interface without being able to touch all the rest of the site and contents. What to add an appreciable layer of security.

Conclusion

WordPress has spread all over the world and it must be said that the multilingual is missing. Thanks to its advanced plugin management system, a plugin like WPML will allow you to have a multilingual WordPress site of high quality.