Polylang is a great WordPress language plugin for building multilingual websites. Today, companies providing services in various languages need multilingual websites in order to reach foreign language-speaking users in sectors such as (tourism, real estate, real estate, hotel management, car rental, visa tracking). WordPress Polylang plugin is a free language translation plugin that you can choose to create websites with multiple language options .
In our article, we will explain how to configure a multilingual site with the Polylang plugin, how to use Polylang and how to make the best settings.
WordPress Polylang Installation
To install the WordPress Polylang language translation plugin, go to the Admin Panel > Plugins > Add new menu on the left and search for the plugin in the plugin store.
Then install the plugin and click the activate button. Polylang installation is that simple. You can also visit the Polylang plugin page on the WordPress site to download the plugin.
Polylang Usage and Settings
After completing the Polylang installation, click on the Languages section from the left Administration panel > Languages plugin menu.
Add Language Settings
Polylang comes with over 90 language options built in. The first is to choose the languages you want to add to your website.
Select the main language of your site from the Choose a language section. Ours, this is Turkish. Then click the “Add new language” button to save. Similarly, you can add as many languages as you want. After adding the languages you want, select the language order from the “Order” section. When you add multiple languages, Polylang will show a notification to set the default language for existing posts, pages, categories or tags.
Default Language Selection
After adding additional languages for your website, you need to set a default language for your site. The language of your existing content should be set as the default language.
To set a default language, hover over the star symbol from the language list and click. A dollar sign “⭐️” in front of a language means that language is the default language. In this example, we set the “English” language by default.
Language Change Settings
A must-have tool on multilingual websites are language switch menus. It loads the page of the relevant language, enabling users to easily switch to their preferred language. Follow the steps below to activate the Polylang language switching feature.
Adding a Language Option (Menus)
From the WordPress admin panel go to > Appearance > Menus.
Add the “ Languages ” feature to your main menu by clicking the “ Add to Menu ” button from the Add menu items section .
Then, from the menu structure section, we can set the properties of the “Languages” menu that we have added.
Display as a dropdown: Sets the language change menu as the dropdown menu. You can choose according to the structure of your theme.
Displays language names: Displays language names . You can mark this section.
Displays flags: Displays languages as flags. You can mark this section.
Hides the current language: Hides the information of the current language, only shows additional languages. You can activate this feature as it would be unreasonable to click on the current language again while in the current language.
Finally, click the “Save menu” button and the language change feature is now active for you.
Note: If you cannot see the “Language switcher” section in the add menu items menu, tick the relevant field in the “Screen preferences” section.
Adding a Language Option (Widgets)
You can use the Polylang language changer menu by adding it to the main menu or different menus of your website, or you can use the language switcher by adding it to the components of your website.
From the WordPress admin panel go to > Appearance > Widgets.
You can add the “Language switcher” feature from the existing Sidebar (Widgets) area by dragging it to the desired section of your website. In the example above, you see the language change menu added to the sidebar area. Tick the relevant properties according to your needs and then click the save button.
Theme Translations
After adding a new language to the Polylang languages menu, another step you need to do is to translate the components of your current theme according to the newly added language. Follow the steps below to translate the components of your theme and WordPress plugins.
In WordPress admin panel go to > Languages > Strings translations menu.
In this area, you can translate the website title, description and other theme parts. After translating all sections, click the “Save Changes” button.
Polylang URL Structure
One of the most important advantages of the Polylang language plugin is that the SEO compatible URL structure settings are completely free. You can set the URL structure of your pages and posts from this section.
If you don’t know much about SEO friendly URL structures, you can check the permalinks section in the article below.
Translation of Page, Category and Article Pages
To create foreign language translations of your current page or articles, go to the menu page of your page or articles. You will see your current posts and articles listed here. Click on the plus “+” sign under the flag of the language you want to translate in this section.
Enter the translation text for the language you selected. You can create your website’s existing pages, categories, tags similarly for different languages.
If you have completed all these steps, your WordPress Polylang language translation plugin is now ready to use. If you are considering using a different plugin other than Polylang, you can check out the introduction article for popular language translation plugins below.
We have come to the end of our article on Adding a WordPress language option with Polylang. If you have any questions about the plugin, you can let us know by commenting.
