WPML – Going multilingual with WordPress

Getting started

“WPML (WordPress Multilingual) makes it easy to build multilingual sites and run them. It’s powerful enough for corporate sites, yet simple for blogs.” – WPML

I have been running and setting up multilingual websites for more than 12 years. WordPress and related integrations have gladly come a long way to make our life’s a lot easier.

For basic content WPML is almost plug & play, but I do see more and more sites / customers struggling with more complex setups. WPML is one of the most popular multilingual plugins and is used on x00.000 of websites.

Just so you know, WPML is a commercial solution!

Settings for almost everything

The amount of settings has increased a lot over the years and offers possible solutions for almost any content / plugin setup.

But for more complex setups, I would suggest to hire a professional to look over the settings or study the plugin documentation carefully.

Especially with a lot of content, it can quickly increase problems and the need to revisit specific content over and over again.

How to translate

WPML lets you translate any text that comes from themes / theme frameworks (DIVI, Elemetor, Gutenberg …), plugins, menus, slugs, SEO and additionally supported integrations (Gravity Forms, ACF, WooCommerce …).

You can translate content internally for yourself, using translation management to translate with an internal team of translators or get help from external translators / translation services.

The latest version also offers AI translations, which allows you to get a decent start for most of your content.

In addition to the above, WPML String Translation allows you to translate texts that are not in posts, pages and taxonomy. This includes the site’s tagline, general texts in admin screens, widget titles and many other areas.

Is it worth its money

Well, I am a bit biased. I have not looked much at other solutions for the past 5 years, as it offers all I really need.

I have used it on projects from 2 to 15 languages and it scales nicely. At least with proper hosting attached!

Anything can be tweaked through the API, Hooks and custom integrations. I have build additional WPML tools for my customers, to streamline some of the repeating / boring tasks.

Their support is responsive and the forum already provides a huge amount of answers to most of the questions that might come up.

If you develop / maintain multiple customer websites with multilingual content, the investment is quickly
amortized. I do offer WPML to my maintenance package customers, maybe something to consider ;)

Its an essential solution in my WP toolbox.

WPML 4.5

WPML 4.5 is on its way and will include a “Translate Everything” feature, among other fixes and enhancements.

Translate Everything allows you to translate all of your site’s content automatically as you create it. You can then review the translations on the front-end before publishing.

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WPML / Documentation