How to translate a WordPress website

List the languages you actually intend to maintain, then decide whether translated pages should use language subdirectories such as /fr/, separate domains, or manually linked pages. Keep the structure consistent across the whole site.

Translate the pages visitors need first: the home page, navigation, contact details, legal pages, products and checkout. Do not publish a language switcher for a language that contains mostly empty pages.

For a small brochure site, you can create a separate page or post for each language, copy the original content, translate it, and link the versions with ordinary menu links or buttons. WordPress documentation also points to multilingual plugins for switching between translated versions.

This route is fine for a handful of static pages, but you must maintain duplicate menus, forms, metadata, images and internal links yourself. It also becomes easy for the switcher to point to the wrong page, for one language to fall behind, or for search engines to miss the relationship between versions.

For a full multilingual site, install a translation plugin or commission a custom multilingual build. A plugin is not optional if you want translation storage, language-aware URLs, a proper switcher and translated content from themes, page builders or WooCommerce without building those systems yourself.

With TranslatePress Business, open Settings → TranslatePress, confirm the default language, add the translation languages, and choose the language URL settings. The documented settings include the default language, translation languages, language slugs and whether a translated language is active for visitors.

Open the front end in the translation editor and work through the site page by page. Translate headings, paragraphs, buttons, menus, forms, footer text, widgets, pop-ups, product details and text supplied by plugins. Check logged-out and logged-in views because user-specific content may display different strings.

Automatic translation can provide a first draft, but review names, measurements, legal wording, calls to action and text inside images. If you change the original wording later, the existing translation may need to be translated again because the source string has changed.

Translate page titles, meta descriptions, social sharing text, image text or alternate images, URL slugs and important internal links. Confirm that each language has a readable URL and that your SEO plugin exposes the translated versions correctly.

For an online shop, translate product names, descriptions, attributes, variation labels, cart and checkout text, transactional emails and any shipping or payment messages. Do not assume that translating the product page also translates every WooCommerce string.

Place the switcher where visitors will see it on desktop and mobile, normally in the main menu or header. With TranslatePress, the switcher can be added as a menu item, a block, a shortcode or a floating control. Choose language names, flags or both, and make sure it links to the equivalent page rather than only changing the home-page language.

Before launch, test every language from a private browser window. Check navigation, search, forms, redirects, images, responsive layouts, right-to-left languages if relevant, WooCommerce checkout and language-specific URLs. Clear caches after changing translations, and check again on the live site.