How To Translate Your Website Into Multiple Languages

How To Translate Your Website Into Multiple Languages
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Are you ready to build an international audience, cater to those around the globe, and push your small online business ahead of the competition?

No matter what industry your small business falls under, one thing is true: 75% of people prefer to buy products in their native language and a whopping 60% of consumers rarely or never buy from English-only websites. In other words, if you want to succeed on a global stage, you’re going to need to translate your website.

In this post, we’re going to share with you the benefits of translating your website into multiple languages and show you how to do this in the simplest way using Weglot.

Why translate your website into multiple languages?

Translating your website – especially when you use a solution such as Weglot – is incredibly easy to do.

Here are the top reasons you should make your small business website available in different languages:

  • You’ll reach a larger audience that goes beyond your local market
  • Localization builds trust in those that don’t speak your native language
  • Your search rankings will skyrocket when you make your site available to more people and in more diverse search results
  • Conversion rates will jump as people prefer to make online purchase in their native language
  • Adapting to meet the needs of a global audience strengthens your brand
  • You’ll push ahead of competition that doesn’t translate site content for their customers

Expanding your business globally is one of the best ways to grow your small business. Plus, it differentiates your brand from the competition, boosts SEO, and of course, makes the purchasing process more enjoyable for your biggest asset – your customers.

What is Weglot?

Weglot is a full-featured translation solution that helps people turn their small business websites multilingual in minutes. It’s compatible with all content management systems (yes, even beyond WordPress) and gives you an easy and convenient place to translate all your site’s content with no hassle.

Here are some of the features we love about Weglot:

  • Super simple to use
  • Ideal for businesses of all sizes, especially smaller brochure style websites
  • Built-in statistics displaying number of translated pages and most viewed translated pages
  • Manual translation of content to fix automated translation errors is possible
  • Automatic content detection and content translation
  • Over 100+ languages to choose from
  • In context editor for direct content translation and preview
  • Access to vetted, professional translators within account for times you need help
  • Optimized multilingual translations
  • Automatic site visitor redirection based on user browser language
  • Top notch customer support to help you with your multilingual site

Lastly, Weglot offers a free plan so you can test drive website translations without investing any money. This means you can get an idea whether Weglot is the translation solution for you or not without having any worries.

How to use Weglot to translate your website

Using Weglot to translate your website into multiple languages only takes a few simple steps.

Step 1: Account setup and project creation

The first thing you’ll want to do is create a Weglot account. This is easily done from the official Weglot website and requires only an email, even if you want to give the premium version a try.

Once you’ve confirmed your email, you’ll be able to log into your Weglot account. From there, you’ll be asked to provide a Project Name and choose a Website Technology.

Create a weglot project

The great thing about Weglot is that it works on multiple small business platforms. While we love WordPress, this translation solution also works for platforms such as Drupal, BigCommerce, Shopify, and Squarespace, and more.

Find out more about Weglot integrations here.

Keep in mind, you’ll have to choose a platform before translating your site’s content. In this example, we’ll use WordPress. However, if you use another platform, check out Weglot’s setup guides and find out how to get started for your small business.

Step 2: Install and activate the Weglot plugin

The next thing you’ll want to do is install and activate the Weglot plugin on your website. To do this, go to Plugins > Add New in the WordPress dashboard. Search for “Weglot” and click Install Now then Activate.

Install and activate weglot translation plugin

Next, get the API Key from your Weglot account to configure the plugin and get it working.

Weglot api key

In addition, choose the current language of your website and the languages you want to translate your website into.

Weglot plugin configuration

Click Save Changes.

Step 3: Check the language switcher on the front end of your website

Once you configure the Weglot plugin, you’ll see a success message and an invitation to check out the language switcher that will now appear on your website.

Weglot success message

Click Go to my front page and check it out. This is what it will look like:

Weglot language switcher on frontend of site

Step 4: Customize the Weglot language switcher

The neat thing about Weglot is that it can be used as a nearly set-it-and-forget-it plugin. However, if you want to add a little customization to your language switcher you can.

In Weglot, you can customize things like:

  • Whether the button is a drop down
  • If you want the flag to display in the button
  • The type of flag that appears in the switcher rectangle mat (matte), rectangle shiny, square, circle
  • Whether you want the name of the languages to display
  • The language switcher’s position on your website
  • Custom CSS

In addition, you can configure things like whether to redirect users based on their browser language, translate emails, allow users to search in the language they use, and lastly, enable only your admin users to see the translations.

Step 5: Manage your translations

Part of what makes Weglot so great is that it’s an all-in-one translation solution. Because of this, you can manage your site translations right from your Weglot account. After all, as great as automatic translators are, there are bound to be some mistakes. Luckily, you can manually edit all your translations right from your Weglot account.

To do this, start by logging into your Weglot account. Here you’ll see which plan you’re on, how many translated words you’ve used so far, and the number of page views. If you’re using the free trial of Weglot, you can also easily upgrade from the front page of your Weglot account.

Weglot account homepage

To manually check and edit translations click Translations > Manually reviewed words. Here, you’ll see every word on your website that’s been translated. If you notice something that’s incorrect, just manually input the correct translation.

Manually edit translations

If you’d rather edit on the front end of your website, click Translations > Visual Editor and then Start editing.

Visual translation editor in weglot

From there, click on the text you’d like to change, then the blue edit icon, and make your manual changes in the boxes.

Visual editor translation box

When you’re done, click OK.

Lastly, Weglot lets you control which parts of your website are actually translated. Under Translation exclusions, you can exclude certain pages or parts of a webpage from translation, which is helpful because Weglot automatically translates all your site’s content right.

To exclude something from translation, just click Add Rule and enter the URL you want to exclude.

Weglot translation exclusions

To exclude sections of a page, use the other option labeled Excluded Blocks.

Conclusion

And there you have it! You now know how to translate your website into multiple languages no matter which content management system you use.

Reaching more customers is something all small businesses owners want to do. It just so happens that translating your site’s content into languages your site visitors prefer is one of the best ways to expand your reach, convert more customers, and generate more revenue.

So, give Weglot a try and start translating your site’s content right away. Once people realize they can switch your website’s content into their native language, you’ll see your business booming in no time.

Related Reading: 4 Best WordPress Translation Plugins To Create A Multilingual Site.


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