How to Create a Multilingual WordPress Site with WPML

Creating a multilingual WordPress site can be a game-changer for your online presence. It allows you to reach a wider audience and connect with people from around the world.

This is why we have translated our WordPress websites into lots of different languages, such as Japanese, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

WordPress is great for making websites in any language. However, it doesn’t come with built-in features for having multiple languages on the same site.

That’s where WPML comes in handy. It’s a powerful plugin that makes adding multiple languages to your WordPress site easy.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to use WPML to transform your WordPress site into a multilingual powerhouse.

Why Create a Multilingual WordPress Site Using WPML?

WordPress can be used in any language you prefer. Plus, popular WordPress themes and plugins are translation-ready.

These factors make it easy for anyone to start a WordPress site in their own language.

However, by default, WordPress can support only one language at a time. So, what if you wanted to use multiple languages on a site to attract a much wider audience?

Governments, international businesses, online stores, and educational institutes often need to offer their websites in multiple languages. While machine translations like Google Translate can be tempting, they are often not good enough for professional use.

Another option is to install WordPress in subdomains for each language. However, this is a lot of hassle, as you will have to manage updates and backup all those installations.

WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) solves this problem by allowing your website to use the same WordPress installation to create content in many different languages.

This plugin offers an easy-to-use interface for managing translations. They also add language-switching options for your users.

With that in mind, in the following sections, we’ll show you how you can create a multilingual WordPress website with WPML in minutes. Here’s an overview of all the topics we’ll cover:

Ready? Let’s get started.

Creating a Multilingual WordPress Site with WPML

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WPML (WordPress Multi-language) plugin. If you need help, you can see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘WPML’ in your WordPress menu.

Clicking on it for the first time will take you to the plugin’s settings wizard.

WPML will automatically detect your WordPress site’s language. But you can change it here now if you want.

Below that, you can select other languages you want to use on your website. You can always add more languages later if needed.

After that, let’s click the ‘Continue’ button for the next step.

You’ll then choose the URL format for different languages.

You can choose a directory structure, set up separate domains or subdomains for each language, or add language as a parameter.

The first option, directory structure, is more SEO-friendly and recommended for most websites.

You can also opt for subdomains or separate domains, but Google may consider those separate websites. If this is your intended purpose, then you can choose this option.

After choosing the URL format, let’s click the ‘Continue’ button.

The plugin will now ask you to enter your ‘Site key.’ You can get this key under your account on the WPML website.

On the next screen, you’ll choose how you would like to manage translations on your website.

You can choose to translate everything on your website or translate some content. We recommend using ‘Some content’ as this gives you more control over translations.

The next option is to choose who will translate your website.

You can add translations yourself, add individual translators or a translation manager, or choose a professional translation service. No matter which one you choose, you can always change how you manage translations on your website.

On the next screen, you’ll give permission to share plugins and theme information to get faster support.

After that, WPML will ask your permission to install other supporting plugins. You can click on the ‘Skip’ link for now and install those plugins later if needed.

That’s all! You have successfully set up WPML to create and manage your multilingual website.

Next, you’ll need to add the actual translated content to your website.

Adding Multilingual Content into WordPress with WPML

WPML makes it really easy to translate every area of your WordPress blog into multiple languages.

You will be able to easily translate your WordPress posts, pages, tags, categories, and themes into as many languages as you like.

Adding Multilingual Posts and Pages

To get started, simply click on the posts menu to view your existing posts. You should immediately notice the languages columns next to your post titles.

WPML assumes that your existing content is in your site’s primary language.

It will show the ‘Add’ buttons for each language next to your posts. You can click on the button under a language to translate a post.

Other than that, you can manage translations by editing a post. On the post’s editor, you will notice the new ‘Language’ meta box for managing translations.

You can manage translations by visiting the WPML » Translation Management page, too.

From here, you can view your content pieces, assign them to translators, and work on translations.

Another way is to add users as translators regardless of what role they have on your WordPress site.

You can even add subscribers as translators.

Instead of editing posts, these translators can add translations directly in WordPress.

Adding Translations for Categories and Tags

If you want to translate categories and tags or any other custom taxonomies that you may be using, WPML got you covered.

To get started, you’ll want to visit WPML » Taxonomy Translation and load the custom taxonomies you want to translate.

For example, here, we selected categories from the dropdown menu. Then, WPML displayed all categories from our demo site:

Simply click on the ‘+’ add button next to the taxonomy term to add the translation.

Translating Navigation Menus

WordPress comes with a robust navigation menu system. The good news is that WPML allows you to translate it just like you would translate posts or taxonomies.

Let’s visit Appearance » Menus from your WordPress dashboard. If you have more than one menu, then select the one you want to translate.

In the right-hand column, you will see your menu with links to translate into other languages enabled on your site.

Clicking on a language will create a new menu for that language.

You will then need to manually add the same menu items, such as page links, posts, and categories, from your primary language menu to ensure consistency across all language versions of your website.

If you have your posts and pages in navigation menus, then you will first need to translate them. After that, you can add them from the tabs on the left in the edit menu screens.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Menu’ button to keep your progress.

Translating Themes, Plugins, & Other Text with WPML

WPML Multilingual CMS allows you to choose between official translations of themes and plugins or use its own string translator.

To get started, you’ll want to go to WPML » Themes and plugins localization.

By default, you will see the option to automatically load the theme’s .mo file using load_textdomain. You can check this option to download theme translation files.

Please note that this works only with themes downloaded from the WordPress.org theme directory.

We recommend using WPML’s String Translation module to translate your theme and plugins for your own site properly.

In addition, WPML allows you to translate custom fields, widgets, and other translatable strings generated by WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a WordPress multilingual site with WPML. You may also want to see our guide on how to use English WordPress admin on a multilingual site or our expert picks of the best right-to-left (RTL) WordPress themes.

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