We continue in our journey within the universe of the much praised WPML plugin, the WordPress translator. Now that you know what you can expect from this complete tool, we will show you how to handle it, from its installation to its configuration, which you’ll find to be very simple and intuitive. Let’s get to work!
Taking into account that it is a paid plug-in, the first thing you must do is buy it. You can do this on the main page.
From here, the purchase process is not complicated. You must choose the version and enter your country of residence so that the system can apply the corresponding VAT. When you complete the payment process, you can download the core of WPML, among other things.
Once you’ve downloaded, installed and activated the WPML plug-in, it will automatically be added to your sidebar, within the WordPress desktop.
2. Setting up the WPML Plug-in
After installing WPML, which you will see is fairly simple, you must set it up; involving just one more step. If you’re a newcomer, you will see a message asking you how you want to continue.
In our case, you should select “No thanks, I will set it up myself”. Now we can access the set-up, which we hope will be very simple thanks to the plug-in itself and this post. Let’s go!
The first thing you must do, without a doubt, is set-up the languages. Accessing WPML > Languages, when setting it up for the first time, you need to choose the language of the existing content, then add the languages that you want to translate your website in to. When choosing the languages, don’t worry, you can return to this set-up whenever you want and remove or add languages.
The next step to follow is to set-up the URL format of the languages you’re going to add to your new multilingual site. With the WPML plug-in, you have three options:
In our case, we choose the first option, although we must specify that, in order for this format type to work correctly, the permanent link structure of the website must be different from the one that comes by default. For this to be the case, you must access Settings > Permanent links and choose any of the remaining options (except the pre-determined option). In our case, we will choose “Name of the post” as it is the most practical and clear.
Next, we are faced with the options to select languages. This is what the user must use to change the language. WPML includes a widget that will add this language selector button to your website, which you can add as a widget or manually.
Setting up the language selector will allow us to modify its position and appearance. Among the infinite possibilities that it gives us, you can choose whether it will be a horizontal menu, drop-down menu or a list, whether it will have flags or the names of the languages, the colours of the widget, etc. You can also go even further by generating a custom selector for your theme.
The most used, and what we recommend, is placing it on the menu and in the footer so that it’s always visible, with the country’s flag and its corresponding language.
In the same section (WPML > Languages), we can set up other aspects of this plug-in:
If this is all new to you, you won’t want to miss what we’ve got on offer:
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