Multilingual WordPress websites: when you need one and how to set it up right

If you work with customers from abroad or with tourists, a website in their language makes a big difference. But a multilingual site only makes sense if someone actually maintains it.

When you need one

• you sell or export to other countries,
• you offer tourism services or accommodation,
• you are looking for partners and distributors abroad.

How it is set up

For WordPress we use proven multilingual plugins. Each language gets its own URLs (for example /en/ and /de/), its own menu and its own SEO titles, and special tags tell search engines which page is a translation of which.

Codema tip Start with one foreign language and only the most important pages. Five well-translated pages beat an entire site with machine translation.

Machine translation

Machine translation is a good start, but someone who knows the language must review it, especially headlines, offers and prices. A poor translation looks unprofessional and undermines trust.

A multilingual store

For an online store you also translate products, categories, attributes and email notifications, and if needed add other currencies and shipping rules for abroad.

Maintenance

Every new article, product or promotion has to be published in all languages. Agree in advance who does this, otherwise the foreign versions quickly go stale.