Genx Notes

WPML

Written by

Genx

in Glossary

WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) is a popular plugin for WordPress that allows you to easily create and manage a multilingual website. It enables you to translate your content, themes, plugins, and other website elements into multiple languages, making your site accessible to a global audience.

Key Features of WPML:

  1. Content Translation: WPML lets you translate posts, pages, custom post types, tags, categories, menus, and more.
  2. Theme and Plugin Localization: It allows you to translate themes and plugins, ensuring that all parts of your website are in the desired language.
  3. Automatic Translation: WPML integrates with machine translation services, allowing you to use automatic translations as a starting point, which can then be manually edited.
  4. Multiple Language Switchers: You can add language switchers in various parts of your website, such as the navigation, footer, or sidebar, to allow users to switch between languages easily.
  5. SEO-Friendly: WPML helps you maintain an SEO-friendly structure for each language by creating unique URLs or subdomains for translated versions. It also allows you to set meta information (like meta titles and descriptions) for each language.
  6. WooCommerce Compatibility: WPML is fully compatible with WooCommerce, enabling you to create multilingual eCommerce stores.
  7. Support for RTL Languages: WPML supports right-to-left (RTL) languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, ensuring proper formatting and layout for these languages.

WPML Editions:

  • Multilingual Blog: The basic version, suitable for blogs and websites that need content translation but no advanced features like WooCommerce support.
  • Multilingual CMS: The full-featured version that includes support for custom fields, taxonomy translation, eCommerce, and more advanced features.
  • Multilingual Agency: Designed for agencies managing multiple websites, with all the features of the CMS version and additional perks.

How WPML Works:

  1. Install and Activate: You install and activate the WPML plugin on your WordPress site.
  2. Set Languages: Choose the primary language of your website and add any additional languages you want to support.
  3. Translate Content: You can manually translate content or use WPML’s automatic translation services to speed up the process.
  4. Language Switchers: Add language switchers to allow visitors to select their preferred language.
  5. Manage Translations: WPML provides an interface to manage all your translations in one place, making it easy to track what has been translated and what hasn’t.

WPML vs. Other Multilingual Plugins:

  • Polylang: A free alternative to WPML, but WPML offers more features and is considered more robust, especially for complex websites.
  • Weglot: Weglot is another strong competitor, but it is a SaaS product with a different pricing model and automatic translation focus, whereas WPML is self-hosted and gives more control over manual translations.

Use Cases:

  • Businesses: Companies that want to reach global markets by offering their website in multiple languages.
  • Blogs: Bloggers who want to cater to a multilingual audience.
  • eCommerce Stores: Online stores using WooCommerce that need to sell products in multiple languages.

Conclusion:

WPML is a powerful and versatile tool for creating and managing multilingual WordPress websites. It’s particularly useful for businesses, bloggers, and eCommerce stores that want to expand their reach to a global audience without the need for multiple, separate websites.

For more information, you can visit the official WPML website.

More posts