Post by XZXCXC on Nov 4, 2024 1:16:43 GMT -5
The connection between a brand and its customers is fundamental to the success and survival of any company.
How can we convey the right message to our customers, even when they belong to markets outside our local environment?
With a multilingual website: the best way to establish good communication with your target audience is to speak in their language.
If your website is based on WordPress and you want to translate it into other languages, be sure to check out this article.
Translating WordPress into different languages can increase the wordpress web design agency effectiveness of your marketing in international markets, although the process can be more or less complex depending on several factors.
In this article, we will provide you with the complete guide to WordPress translation in a clear and structured manner. Stay with us as we tell you all about it!
Effective impact across all markets
Why translate WordPress
Translating your WordPress website is one of the most valuable investments you can make for your business, as it will enable you to reach a wider audience, improve customer experience, increase trust and loyalty towards your brand, as well as take advantage of new business opportunities and increase your company's profitability.
Advantages of translating WordPress
There’s no doubt that translating WordPress is much more important than you might think, so here are some reasons why you should consider it if you haven’t already:
International reach : If your WordPress site is only in one language, you are limiting its reach to a single group of people who speak that language. By translating your site, you can reach a much wider audience and attract visitors from more countries and cultures.
Improve user experience : Offering your website in different languages improves the user experience by making it more accessible and understandable to those who don’t know the original language. Visitors will feel more comfortable and confident on a website that “speaks” in their native language.
Improved SEO : When a potential customer searches for a product or service on the internet, they type keywords in their language into the search engine. Translating your website into more languages
helps optimize your pages for search engines in different languages, which will undoubtedly improve your international ranking and attract more quality traffic to your website. In other words, more users from more markets will reach you. This is why it is essential to have a good international SEO strategy .
Now that you know the reasons why you should translate your WordPress website, here’s how to get started.
Translating WordPress: Where to Start
It is possible to translate WordPress through plugins, manually, or through other solutions.
The manual method requires advanced technical knowledge, as it involves working deep into the website’s programming codes and there is a risk of changing them inappropriately. Fortunately, there are many translation plugins available that make the process much easier and safer.
These plugins fully or partially automate the translation of texts and tags on the website itself, and are usually integrated or linked to advanced translation tools that facilitate internal consistency between pages, posts and other sections of the website.
If you want to know more, we recommend you read our article “5 best plugins to translate WordPress ”.
In addition to plugins, you can also translate a WordPress website using the theme's language file . Every WordPress theme includes a language file that contains theme-specific text and tags. To translate these texts, you need to manually modify the language file and replace the original texts with the corresponding translations.
This process is more complicated than using a translation plugin, but it can be a viable option for smaller sites or those who want more control over each step of the translation process.
What to consider when translating WordPress?
When translating WordPress, we need to keep in mind that this process is divided into three main phases:
Make your WordPress multilingual , that is, adapt it to display multiple languages, either with a translation plugin or with an integrated translation module.
Translate your WordPress theme , i.e. translate the entire theme into the desired language. Please note that even if your theme comes with the built-in translation module, it may be poorly translated, so you will need to check the translations.
Translate your website content , i.e. transfer everything you currently have on your website from one language to another.
And while these steps cover the entire WordPress translation process, here’s a breakdown of some of the most important factors you shouldn’t forget:
Content : Make sure you have a complete and up-to-date copy of all your website content before you begin translation.
Professional translation : Consider hiring a professional translator to ensure the quality and accuracy of the translation.
Remember that the translation process is more than just taking a word from one language to another. A bad translation can be very damaging to your business. We recommend that you read our article “Everything you need to know about website translation”.