Considering we're all on the world wide web, it makes sense to provide your website in multiple languages to reach more site visitors. The wide umbrella of website accessibility also includes language-switching, ensuring you can effectively communicate with more of your website visitors and helping you increase the impact of your organization.
Planning your translation implementation
So if you're considering adding translated content to your site, what's the best approach? To start, ask these questions:
1) Do you currently have translations on your site? This will determine if the infrastructure is already developed and you only need to translate content or if your site will require additional plugin installation and configuration.
2) Will you need any human translations? Human or manual translations can ensure accuracy; however, hired translators can also be expensive and time-consuming.
3) Do you have any concerns about translation accuracy? Automatic translation services have improved immensely in the last decade and can provide better context - but mistakes can still be made. Manual translations will ensure the highest accuracy; alternatively, you could do a manual review of automatic translations.
4) Are you translating ALL content, or just key / top traffic content? This is mostly a cost consideration - if your budget is limited whether using automatic or manual translation, translating your most-visited content can be the most cost-effective way to still widen your audience without needing to translate every last word on your site.
With the answers to those questions, Cornershop Creative is here to help you plan the next steps in adding translations to your site.
Translation plugins
Here are a few translation tools and plugins for WordPress sites:
- TranslatePress - Cornershop's preferred translation plugin. (Cornershop clients are welcome to use our agency license for free!)
- Wordpress Multilingual (WPML)
- WeGlot
Costs
Contact support@cornershopcreative.com to get an estimate started for setting up a translation project for your site. (Cornershop does not offer translation services; only the translation infrastructure.)
Automatic machine translations usually require a subscription to Google Translate API or DeepL.
API limits in TranslatePress are based on “calls” to the API for translations. This does not mean that every time you view translated content, there’s an API call. Instead, it means that any time a page or portion of content needs to be automatically translated for the first time, there’s an API call.
Depending on the plans that you're using, your volume of content, and the frequency of the API calls, this isn't always a big cause for concern, but it is good to keep an eye on your “usual” API use so you'll notice if your translation counts spike in a surprising way.
Recommended reading
As you explore adding translated content to your site, here is some recommended reading from our preferred plugin, TranslatePress:
Generate Google Translate API Key
How to Translate a Web Link in WP
Top Translation Plugins Compared