So, you’ve decided to translate your site. Sounds like your baby is growing. I’m happy for you!
This means you’ll be needing a multi-language WordPress plugin. And we’ve got the right recommendation for you.
The Weglot multilingual WordPress plugin is arguably a great choice regardless of your needs. What’s more, it takes mere minutes to install and set up. This means you’ll be able to get back to business, while your customers can use your site in their chosen language. No translator needed. No extraordinary translation budget needed. And you’ll have your website translated in a matter of minutes. How cool is that?
This post will show you how to translate your Colibri theme with Weglot, in just a few steps. Before that, let’s show you how to install the Weglot plugin itself.
If you’re using another WordPress theme, legend has it, Weglot will do a good job as well.
How to Translate Your Colibri Website with Weglot
Step 1: Install Weglot
For the uninitiated, installing Weglot is no different than other WordPress plugins. To begin, log into your WordPress dashboard, and head to the Plugins > Add New page:
Next, type “Weglot” into the search bar. The page will refresh and you’ll see the Weglot plugin entry ready to work with:
Here, click Install Now, wait for WordPress to do its thing, then click Activate. When that’s done, you’ll see a new Weglot tab in your WordPress Dashboard.
Step 2: Add languages
Here you’ll need to add your API key. To get access to your API key you’ll need to create a Weglot account.
Copy and paste your API key from the Weglot Dashboard into the Weglot tab in WordPress. Before you save your changes, check out the Original language and Destination language fields. This is where you set up your core translation languages. Here’s how they break down:
- Original language: The current language of your website.
- Destination language: The language you’d like to translate your content into.
Here, you should obviously choose the right languages for your site and requirement. However, once you’re done and save your changes, check out your site’s front end. You’ll notice that your translations have been automatically applied. The next step is to customize them further.
3. Customize the Weglot Language Switcher
If you browse the front end of your site, you’ll notice that your site can be translated into other languages through the Language Switcher tool:
However, if you don’t like the default layout, you’re able to customize it to your liking. To do so, head to the Weglot admin panel within WordPress, and check out the extra options that are now available. First, is the Language button design section:
This lets you choose a number of options, such as how the flags are displayed, whether you want to use a drop-down menu, and much more. If you have coding knowledge, you’re also able to use CSS to style your switcher to your exact requirements.
Next, the Language button position section does what it says on the tin: It lets you position the switcher in a few different ways:
Once you’ve made your changes and saved them, check out the front end of your site to see how they look. From there, you can look to manage your translations, and make further changes.
Your Next Steps After Translating Your Colibri Theme With Weglot
Once your translations are up and running, you’ll want to explore how to manage and improve upon them. You can do this from your Weglot Dashboard, specifically the Translations screen:
Weglot uses a layer of machine translation, which automatically detects and translates the content on your site. From there, it displays your site under language subdirectories. If you’re happy with the machine translations, you’re good to go!
However, if you click the language flags on the Translations screen, you’ll be brought to a deeper results screen that lets you manually adjust any translations made:
You’re also able to manage your translations using the Visual Editor:
This gives you a number of options to translate your content, directly on the page. It’s great for seeing exactly how your content will look once it’s been translated.
Finally, you’ll also want to make sure your images are translated correctly, and your metadata is also in keeping with the languages you’ve chosen. This makes sure you’re covered from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) standpoint – vital for climbing the search rankings in your chosen language.
In Conclusion
On the whole, creating a website and translating it should be as simple as possible. Using a theme such as Colibri and a multi-language WordPress plugin such as Weglot is an ideal match.
Implementing both, you could have a site up and running and fully translated within hours, rather than weeks. What’s more, you stand to get more traffic and a greater user base as a result.
Are you interested in what Weglot can offer your site? If so, check out their 10-day free trial!
Now, if you liked this article, and you want to learn more about how to design a WordPress website, make sure to subscribe to Colibri’s Youtube channel and follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
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Alina is a digital marketer with a passion for web design. When she's not strategizing she's doing photography, listening to podcasts on history and psychology, and playing with her 2 dogs and cat.
