Make your website accessible in multiple languages!
When your audience or user base is scattered over the globe or if you are aiming for that, translating the content of your website into the languages of users' countries is essential. Sure, English can suffice in many countries, but that would still be a waste of huge potential since there are large markets where English is not a commonly-used language.
Moreover, if you're running an e-commerce website, you will find that customers can sometimes trust online shops that display products in their local language even if the store is based abroad over those available only in a foreign language. When someone is about to pay money somewhere, they need to be absolutely positive that they got the details right. That's why managing the translation can be a crucial part of running an international website. In this article, we are going to look at 10 plugins that can handle this job for you.
WPML
- https://wpml.org/
- Price: Multilingual Blog ($29) – Multilingual CMS ($79) – Multilingual CMS Lifetime ($195)
WPML is one the most popular and trusted translation plugin out there, and it's compatible with most of the top plugins.
Of course, WPML is the most popular and one of the most powerful WordPress translation plugins. That's because it probably has a solution for every situation that might include multiple languages. By following a few extremely easy installation steps, you can turn your website into a multilingual platform and reach audiences the world over. The plugin itself comes with 40 languages fully ready for use. If you want to add any particular language variants (certain dialects, for instance), you can do so using the plugin's language editor. If you are to do so yourself, you do not need to deal with PO or MO files as usual. The translation can be made from inside the admin panel using the plugin's string translation interface. You also have the option to use the help of a professional translation service that WPML can connect you with. The plugin tries to provide such services within an affordable price range. That, too, is done through the admin panel.
Users can even be made into translators themselves as long as they are registered to WordPress. You can make assign translation jobs to your website's users and they would only gain access to the specific pieces of content that you as an editor would assign them. WPML enables you to translate almost any theme or plugin through your own admin panel. Also, in the case of e-commerce websites, there is an extension to the plugin called WooCommerce Multilingual that helps you translate your online store into any language. That way you can localize your shop, potentially grabbing the attention of more international customers. On top of all of this, WPML provides customer support throughout most of the week.
Polylang
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/polylang/
- Price: Basic (Free) – Polylang Pro (€ 99)
With Polylang you can translate every part of your website with a high level of accuracy.
Polylang is another widely popular plugin. There are more than 300,000 websites using it. The good thing about Polylang is that its translations can be as comprehensive as you want them. After writing the content in a certain page on your website, you can customize categories and tags for each section of it, and by using these tags, you can decide which parts are to be included in the translation. There is no type of content that Polylang does not cover. That includes posts, media, menus, widgets, and RSS feeds. You can add a widget to work as a language switcher, or else the translations can be accessed via the language codes in the URL. Another solution would be to assign each language its own separate domain or subdomain.
The plugin also provides both professional and automatic translation services. You first need to install its Lingotek Translation add-on. What Lingotek does is create a translation management system for your website. This system proves you with services like translation memory and semi-automated translation processes. That means that using Lingotek, you will get to either outsource the translation work to a professional service or to have it undergo computerized translation. Of course, you can do the translation yourself as well.
MultilingualPress
- https://multilingualpress.org/
- Price: $199/year
MultilingualPress not only helps you with translation with ultimate adequacy, it also helps you rank higher on search engines through its SEO features.
Multilingual Press is extremely WordPress-friendly. That makes its features compatible with any WordPress theme, function, or content type. Posts, widgets, taxonomies, custom posts, portfolios, products, events, and testimonials can all be translated via MultilingualPress. The sources of translation are many. First of all, the plugin itself comes with built-in support for 174 languages. On top of that, you can add your own translations, or perhaps even your own made-up language. When you translate anything using MultilingualPress, you do not need to do anything on the backend. The job can be done in full through the plugin's frontend visual editor without even having to switch between your different language sites.
The plugin does not mess with your permalinks, and generally, MultilingualPress is very powerful on the SEO front. In case you are going to use multiple domains, MultilingualPress ensures that you use top-level domains. For SEO purposes, the plugin inserts the hreflang attribute which is used by Google in order to have the right language URL appear in the right search results. Inside your website, you can drag-and-drop navigation links inside your WP menu. Another available option is automatically redirecting your users to the language that matches their browser settings.
Multilanguage by BestWebSoft
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/multilanguage/
- Price: Basic (Free) – Pro Annual ($32) – Pro Lifetime ($320)
This plugin makes it easy for your users to switch between languages without any confusion.
This plugin provides a fairly impressive level of practicality, giving more functionality to the content that is translated using it. Translations can be manual, naturally, but you can also use any of the 80+ languages that come with the plugin. Any inaccuracies can easily be edited through the admin dashboard. You can also add the languages you want, and set your website's default language. The plugin covers pages, posts, categories, menus, and Open Graph meta tags. Unlike with many other plugins, the languages that the content is translated to can be used in searching on the website.
Switching between languages is generally very easy here. You can give your users several language switcher layout options. There are drop-down lists or flag icons, language lists, and Google Auto Translate. The plugin adds the hreflang links for each language and can hide the link slug for your website's default language. The pro version of the plugin has extra features in this area. For example, it can change the position of the language slug in the URLs as well as add short language slugs. That version also enables you to create separate navigation menus for each language.
Google Website Translator
With more than 100 languages, this plugin can turn your website into an international platform.
Surely in an area like translation, there have to be plugins that utilize Google's enormous machine translation system. This plugin is among the best that do so for several reasons. Using this plugin, you can translate your content into more than 100 languages supported by Google Translate. The translations can appear in both inline and tabbed modes. There are three styles for the former mode and four for the latter. The good thing is, the plugin has little to no effect on your website's loading speed. It does not load any external CSS or JavaScript files like is the case with most of the other translation plugins.
Also, all of your translation settings are stored in a single record unlike with most plugins. In terms of accessibility to Google's features, the plugin is not by any means restrictive. It provides the full set of tools that Google offers and applies them to your website's content.
WPGlobus
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpglobus/
- Price: Free
WPGlobus is a complete multilingual ecosystem that you can use to internationalize your whole online business without much of a hassle.
WPGlobus is more a family of plugins than a single plugin. The extra features mostly come with add-ons, though. Through this plugin, you can translate content manually or by choosing from its professional translation services directory. It allows the translation of posts, categories, tags, widgets, and menus. That can be in several languages without any limitations. Switching between languages can occur through the frontend using either a menu or a widget. There is a premium add-on that enables you to create separate menus for each language. Even the admin dashboard can be translated. WPGlobus also provides several language-related SEO features. One of the plugin's premium add-ons makes you capable of assigning different focus keywords for each language in the Yoast SEO settings.
Some of the add-ons can be pretty useful, and some of them are even free. There is a free add-on, for example, that enables you to display different feature images for each language on the same post. Another one lets you translate the themes that were built using WPBakery's Builder. If you're running an e-commerce business, you should know that one of the premium add-ons integrates WooCommerce with WPGlobus. Another one lets you accept multiple currencies, which means that you can fully localize your online store as if you were present in each of the targeted countries.
Weglot
- https://wordpress.org/plugins/weglot/
- Price: Basic (Free) – Starter (€ 9.90/month) – Business (€ 19/month) – Pro (€ 49/month) – Enterprise (€ 199/month) – Corporate (€799/month)
Weglot's interface will make your translation work extremely convenient and efficient.
Here is another plugin that works primarily by Google's standards and using its tools, although it is a bit more limited than Google Website Translator in certain respects. For instance, this plugin only supports 60+ languages. However, with this plugin, you do not need to concern yourself with the translation at all. All you need to do is handle the content, and upon installing this plugin, that content will be translated in real-time as the user visits a page. You can add a language switch button anywhere on the website, and that button is customizable. If you do not want Google's machine translation, the plugin can connect you with professional translation services.
Since Google favors links that are customized separately for each language in the case of multilingual websites, that is exactly what the plugin provides. This alone can matter a lot in terms of SEO performance. Finally, if you are currently using WPML or Polylang, you can easily migrate from either of them to Weglot and retain your configurations from the first plugin. The pricing of Weglot depends in the main part on word count. If your website has 2000 words or less, you can get the plugin for free. If you pass that limit, you need to buy one of the premium packages based on your website's word count. For example, the Starter package can translate up to 10,000 words, the Business package up to 50,000 words, the Pro up to 200,000, and so on up until the Corporate package which can cover up to 5 million words.
GTranslate
- https://gtranslate.io/?xyz=3049
- Price: Basic (Free) – Custom ($5.99/month) – Startup ($14.99/month) – Business ($24.99/month) – Enterprise($34.99/month)
Using more than one translation framework, GTranslate can help you translate your website, raise its search engine rankings, and accurately monitor its traffic.
Before getting into its features, it is worth noting that this plugin has been downloaded over 3 million times! It deserves them all, though. The plugin's performance is quite satisfying and its features are comprehensive. GTranslate operates primarily by machine translation, and upon installing the plugin, your website would be translated immediately. The bigger part of the plugin's database depends on Google and Bing's translation tools. After it finishes translating your content, you can then edit it manually using the plugin's inline editor.
GTranslate's main appeal, though, is in its SEO capabilities. The plugin is completely SEO-ready. For starters, it enables you to have each language hosted on a separate domain. The links to your website are also translated, which I already mentioned is a recommended procedure for SEO purposes. Any pages translated using GTranslate are indexed on search engines, and thus would be made to appear to users searching in their native languages if you have them included. This feature can truly benefit your e-commerce website. Last but not least, through this plugin's analytics, you can monitor the traffic separately for each language through your dashboard.
What About Traffic & Conversions?
Plugins are great when they solve specific problems in an elegant way. They can make your website work better, engage your audience, and build your brand.
A plugin won't autogenerate traffic or guarantee conversions though. It won't magically turn your website into a thriving, cash-generating online business
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