As the world becomes a global marketplace, it is increasingly beneficial to make your website multilingual. You can now reach millions of people worldwide with your content and products, significantly improving their lives. This approach helps you connect with diverse users and allows your business to grow by serving a broader community.
Multilingual doesn’t mean you have to know every language and hire experts to interpret the contents of your website. That’s where translation plugins come in. These plugins help you translate your website into multiple languages, including French, Italian, German, Chinese, and more.
Choosing the right plugin for the job is the key here, as it can determine the success of your translation efforts. Read on to learn more about how to choose and explore some of the best options available in the market.
Key Features to Consider in a Translation Plugin
When choosing a translation plugin, what are some essential things to consider? Let’s explore five critical things to look for:
Translation Method
All translation plugins use unique translation methods, and this is another exceptional factor to consider. For example, GTranslate uses Google Translate, an automatic translation engine. It handles all translation tasks through Google, simplifying the translation process. However, that can have its drawbacks, like unclear or confusing translations.
Other plugins also support manual translation, enabling you to add nuanced and meaningful translation into the content. However, this may be time-consuming if you produce content at scale.
Content Management
A translation plugin should be flexible, enabling you to manage translated content seamlessly. Many translation plugins come with editors that allow you to change and correct any inaccuracies in a translated text. For example, TranlatePress can translate content directly in the front end, saving you energy and time.
Other plugins also offer similar features, enabling you or a team member to enhance automated translations with nuance and correctness.
SEO Friendliness
Multilingual SEO is a critical feature to consider in your plugin. This feature gives your website stellar search engine performance regardless of its translation. This way, your websites enjoy high rankings across different search engines and global locations.
User Interface
Is your chosen translator plugin easy to use? Many translator plugins come with intuitive interfaces ideal for beginners and non-technical users. Some offer cloud-based functionality and abstract the heavy translation tasks to their servers, keeping things simple on your websites.
If you’re an advanced user, opt for a plugin that gives you ultimate control over the translation process. That also includes the translation interface and back-end for other posts, pages, taxonomies, and custom post types.
Scalability
A multilingual plugin should give you ultimate scalability capabilities, enabling your website to scale into multiple languages. A scalable plugin works across projects to deliver translated content at scale to all your users.
Top WordPress Translation Plugin Options
Here are some top translation plugins to consider for your WordPress website:
WordPress Multilingual Plugin (WPML)
WPML is the industry standard and one of the most popular paid translation plugins in the WordPress market. It comes preloaded with support for over 65 languages and enables you to load custom variants, like Mexican Spanish, and Canadian French. It’s an easy-to-use solution with many useful features and tools that make your translation tasks seamless.
As a hybrid plugin, WPML supports both manual and automatic translation. You can use integrated services like Google Translate and DeepL for faster translation. You or hired translators take over where better context or nuance is needed.
WPML is a comprehensive solution, offering multilingual content translation for posts, pages, taxonomies, and custom post types. Additionally, it can also translate media like images and captions.
This plugin is SEO friendly, supporting Yoast SEO and Rank Math to maintain search engine visibility regardless of language. It also integrates with WooCommerce, enabling you to translate products, product reviews, and checkout processes.
Because of its rich and comprehensive suite of features, WPML is ideal for large-scale, complex websites and e-commerce stores. Government, corporate, large business, and agency websites that require high-quality, accurate, and consistent translations would benefit the most from WPML.
TranslatePress
TranslatePress is another top premium translation plugin for WordPress. Unlike WPML which supports complex workflows, TranslatePress uses a more user-friendly and intuitive approach. It enables you to translate your website directly from the front end using a user-friendly interface. You keep your translations forever, even after your license expires.
This plugin supports hundreds of different languages. You can also add custom languages, including most RTL options like Arabic and Hebrew.
Support for manual and automatic translation makes TranslatePress an easy plugin to use. Much like WPML, you can auto-translate text using DeepL, Google Translate, and Microsoft Translator. Additionally, you can translate text directly for accuracy or combine the power of both options and TranslatePress AI on larger websites.
TranslatePress is compatible with many WordPress themes and plugins, including WooCommerce, WP Forms, Yoast, and plenty more. Additionally, it comes with customizable language switchers for menus, posts, pages, and custom post types.
Because of its user-friendly, front-focused translation capabilities, TranslatePress is ideal for beginners, non-technical, and intermediate users. However, it can also support enterprise use in medium and large business websites.
Weglot
Although its features mirror TranslatePress and WPML, Weglot is a cloud-based solution. That makes Weglot a simple but fast translation solution for instant multilingual functionality. Furthermore, Weglot handles language detection and SEO, keeping you competitive on search engines.
Weglot uses automatic language translation, translating your entire site automatically on installation. It leverages DeepL and Google Translate, supporting over 100 languages. Although Weglot automates translation, it leaves room for you to manage your translations. You can edit them yourself or collaborate with team members for better results.
It seamlessly integrates with most WordPress themes and plugins, including WooCommerce. Moreover, it supports automatic language detection and a customizable language switcher for users.
Because Weglot is cloud-based, it can scale fast across your projects. It also handles all translations in Weglot’s servers, ensuring your site’s performance remains optimal.
Weglot is ideal for beginners because it abstracts all its activities to the cloud. It’s also a top solution for medium and large-scale businesses looking to expand to new markets and agencies that manage multiple client websites.
Polylang
Polylang is another top WordPress translation plugin for users creating multilingual websites. Unlike Weglot, WPML, and TranlslatePress, Polylang focuses more on manual language translation. Polylang is best for users who prioritize control and customization with a complete understanding of their chosen language.
As is, Polylang natively supports 50 languages. But you can add more languages as you need. It also translates posts, pages, and custom post types, giving you complete control of the process.
It also supports multilingual SEO, enabling you to optimize your site for search engines. Furthermore, it supports Yoast, AIO SEO, and other SEO plugins. Polylang is also fully compatible with WooCommerce and many WordPress themes.
Additionally, Polylang locks in translations into your website. This way, you lose no translation even if you disable Polylang.
Polylang is ideal for proficient translators and native language users. It works for small and medium enterprises, content websites, and freelancers. Although Polylang also features a premium plugin, it’s available for free.
GTranslate
GTranslate uses Google’s cloud-based automatic translations for your WordPress website. It’s a quick and easy solution for users who prefer automatic translations without manual input from hired translators. GTranslate prioritizes speed and efficiency over precision and manual content translations.
Because of its lightweight nature, GTranslate enables your website to perform faster. It also supports rapid scaling for your regional business. It supports multiple languages, including most RTL variations.
With its premium plan, you also enjoy a cloud-based editor that enables you to review and edit content with your team members. It also translates URLs, meta tags, and hreflang tags, ensuring that search engines properly index your translated content.
It also comes with a language switcher and automatic language detection.
GTranslate is ideal for beginners, freelancers, and non-technical users. It also works for small businesses and e-commerce websites that want to offer a multilingual shopping experience for their users.
Choosing the Right Plugin for Your Needs
When choosing a WordPress translation plugin, ensure it has all the features and capabilities needed for your use case. To ensure you have the right plugin for your blog or website, here are some critical features to consider:
Pricing and Licensing
Always choose a translation plugin that falls within your budgetary restrictions. If you’re running a simple blog, you don’t have to purchase a premium plugin where a free option is sufficient. However, once your business scales, you may prefer a premium plugin with more features, support, and updates.
Project Size
If you’re running a freelancer, blogger, or small business website, opt for a simple, user-friendly option like GTranslate. However, a dynamic and scalable solution like WPML or Weglot may be ideal for an agency running multiple websites. It supports hybrid translation methods and multiple users.
Supported Languages
Opt for a plugin that supports all the languages you need. This way, you can reach millions of users and customers worldwide. For instance, choose a plugin that supports French, German, Italian, and Spanish to reach many European users.
Additionally, check if your chosen plugin supports Right-to-Left (RTL) languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Farsi. Plugins that support RTL languages can enable you to increase the scope of your business in many Arabic and Asian countries.
Content Volume and Complexity
Content volume and complexity are crucial to consider. Ensure you choose a plugin that can handle massive workflows if you’re a large enterprise or an agency. If you’re a freelancer or small business, choose a plugin that meets your immediate content needs.
Performance and Speed
Ideally, choose a cloud-based translator plugin for the fastest performance and speed. Moreover, auto-translator plugins also perform better than manual options.
Conclusion
Content translation can give your website a global feel, reaching out to people of many races and languages. Your products and content can reach more people and improve their lives. With a proper translation plugin, you can turn your website into a powerful tool that touches millions of lives worldwide.
If you’re interested in expanding your content further, check out how the WP RSS Aggregator plugin can help you gather and present multilingual feeds on your blog.
