How to make a WordPress site multilingual?
In this conference organized by the WordPress Barcelona community, I tried to answer this question by explaining the 7 most common mistakes and 4 concepts to keep in mind when localizing a website.
I've talked about localizing a WordPress site, sure, but also about strategy, workflows, technologies, misjudgments, and... artificial intelligence.
The 7 mistakes to avoid when translating WordPress
The seven most common mistakes we have encountered in the dozens of web localization projects (not just WordPress sites) we have tackled over the years are these:
- Not knowing the target market thoroughly.
- Aiming too high.
- Ignoring the localization process.
- Underestimating the impact of localization on business.
- Not having an open communication channel with the localization team.
- Abusing AI.
- Not testing enough.
These are not abstract theories. These are mistakes we have seen happen (and sometimes made ourselves) in real project management.
The 4 key concepts for successfully translating a site
For successful web localization, in addition to the 7 mistakes to avoid, there are also 4 key concepts to keep in mind:
- Localization comes at the end (when time, budget and patience are over).
- Every website is a world of its own.
- Strategy and tools depend on the structure and technology of the original site.
- AI and proxies help, but they are not the solution to everything.
📄 View the full presentation (in Spanish) here
In the meeting, held at the fascinating venue of Barcelona’s Canòdrom, a “digital and democratic innovation athenaeum,” we saw what it really means to translate a site: not only interface and user-created content, but also plugins, comments, metadata, external files, and any embedded strings in the code.
In the open discussion that followed up, I was asked some very interesting questions, including the best way to translate internal links, or how to deal with the internationalization of a news site. Participants explained what tools they routinely use and what their experience is with web localization. All without hiding the truth: localizing a WordPress site is often tedious work and full of pitfalls. Doing it in the right way makes the difference between selling or not selling abroad.
Do you have a WordPress site and want to translate it? Start with these mistakes. Avoiding them will save you time, money and headaches. And contact us for a no-obligation quote.
