Globalization has made trade that much more complicated. Of course, you can benefit from an enormous potential customer pool. However, communicating your messages with them can be tricky. That’s why most brands operate strictly domestically. Global brands are usually corporations that have entire divisions dedicated to presenting their products to a specific national audience. As you can guess, that’s not something a family, small, or even mid-sized business can afford.
So, if you want to go global with your product or service, you can do the next best thing – create a multilingual website with one of WordPress’s best plugins for translating your website into various languages – WPML.
Now, HostArmada and WPML have joined forces so you can build the ultimate global online home for your brand. You will get all the benefits from HostArmada, with the opportunity to seamlessly integrate WPML onto your WordPress website. So, let’s show you step-by-step how to implement WPML on your website.
What Is WPML
Before we get to the how, let’s discuss the what. WPML is a powerful WordPress plugin. It allows you to create and manage multilingual WordPress websites seamlessly. Its power is hidden in the ability to translate astonishingly accurate blog posts, pages, custom post types, taxonomies, menus, and even themes and plugins.
We’ve tested many such tools over the years, and we can honestly say that WPML is the most cost-efficient. The plugin has some outstanding features:
- Multiple Language Support: Supports over 40 languages and allows you to add custom languages.
- String Translation: Helps translate theme and plugin texts that are not part of regular posts or pages.
- SEO-Friendly: Works with Yoast SEO and other SEO plugins to ensure proper multilingual SEO optimization.
- E-commerce Support: Compatible with WooCommerce for multilingual e-commerce stores.
- Automatic Translation: Uses services like Google Translate, DeepL, and Microsoft Translator for AI-powered translations.
- Translation Management: Offers tools to assign translation tasks to different users or professional translation services.
To top it all off, WPML offers rich documentation and outstanding support. Unsurprisingly, over 1 million users already have this multi-language tool installed on their websites. Today, WPML helps users translate their content in over 65 languages.
Finally, we must also address the pricing. It’s not only among the most affordable options on the market, but it also has transparent pricing. This allows you to plan ahead if your brand is going to scale.
For example, if you get Polylang, which offers far fewer features than WPML, for 1 website, you will pay the same price. However, you will pay 50% more for five websites with Polylang.
Indeed, WPML was designed with scalability in mind. That’s why they use not one, not two, but 70 integrated translation services for their plugin.
Why Use WPML
The answer is simple. It’s the best plugin for multi-language websites. But why do you need such a plugin at all? Well, there are quite a few reasons.
Reach A Wider Audience
You will attract more visitors by offering your website content in multiple languages. This will enlarge your audience in size, demographics, and culture, so you must be much more careful about what you say.
Communicate Better With Non-Native Speakers
More importantly, you will communicate better with people speaking a different language than your own. Moreover, many who don’t speak your website’s native language freely will feel much more comfortable receiving your message in their own language.
Increase Engagement
Ultimately, this will increase engagement on your website. The more people stay on your website, the higher the chance they will take some action. Whether it’s subscribing to your newsletter, reading a few blogs, or just browsing your products, it’s all part of the customer journey.
As a result, you will receive higher conversion rates, lower bounce rates, and better customer relationships.
Enhance SEO
People usually search for solutions in their local language. For example, if a Spanish person is looking for power to clean his driveway, they won’t be searching for it in English. So, if you’re selling power washers globally, the only way to reach this audience is in their own language. That’s hardly a surprise, as the typed keywords will be in Spanish. Of course, WPML won’t get you to Google’s first page alone. Still it’s a crucial tool if you want to get there.
Get A Competitive Edge
You will always stand out from the bunch if you speak the customer’s language. Most websites prefer to stick to one language. For small brands with global reach, that’s usually English.
However, this significantly reduces their outreach in non-English speaking countries. Naturally, communicating in the customer’s native language will give you a huge competitive advantage over other global stores that use only English.
Get International Recognition
A multilingual website puts you in the same league as the big brands in your industry. It’s a sign of professionalism and global presence. Along with higher
Who is WPML for
WPML is for everyone who wants to go global and talk with local audiences in their native language. While anyone from freelancers to Fortune 500 companies can use the plugin, these are the websites that will benefit the most.
- Businesses Expanding Globally – Companies looking to enter new markets will benefit from a multilingual site and being able to communicate their messages in the native language.
- Bloggers and Content Creators – Niche blogs can face serious challenges if focusing only on domestic audiences. Thus, communicating on a global scale can increase not only their audience, but their advertisers and sponsors as well.
- E-commerce stores – This one is pretty self-explanatory. You can seamlessly integrate WPML into your WooCommerce. This makes it the perfect tool for translating your listings and product information into the native language of every country you operate in.
- Agencies and Web Developers – Whether you own a marketing, SEO, or web development agency, using WPML will give you a significant advantage over other international agencies that only use English in their communication.
- SaaS Websites – SaaS products are, by definition, international. Their domain is the internet, yet their users come from various locations, demographics, and backgrounds. Thus, with WPML, you can communicate much better and straightforwardly.
- Nonprofit and Educational Institutions – Speaking in the local language allows nonprofits and educational institutions to spread information much more efficiently.
- Travel and Hospitality Businesses – Your primary target is people from other countries. Thus, speaking their language will give you a huge boost over your competitors. Moreover it will allow you to generate more quality leads.
WPML is a powerful tool for anyone who needs to reach a broader, more diverse audience by breaking down language barriers. Whether you’re managing a blog, a business, or an e-commerce platform, it’s a flexible and scalable solution for multilingual websites.
How to install WordPress and setup WPMP on a sub-domain with HostArmada
HostAramda provides an easy method of setting up WordPress, which is the main prerequisite for actually setting up WPML and using multiple languages. Please follow this article to the end to get an excellent idea of how to set up everything you need!
Step 1: The first step of the process would be to add the sub-domain/domain you decided to use for the secondary website that will be translated. To do that, please open your cPanel service and type in “Domains” in the top right corner so you can locate the functionality. Once it is displayed, please click on it.
Step 2: The next step of the process is adding the domain/sub-domain after clicking on the “Create a New Domain” button. If the domain has already been pointed to your HostArmada nameservers, it will become active immediately, and you can open it in your browser to check if it is working.
IMPORTANT: Please note that you should configure the domain/sub-domain to share the root directory with the domain for your main website, as they need to point to the same root directory.
Step 3: To start the WPML plugin setup, please navigate to your WordPress admin area. You can do that in a couple of ways. If you are not sure how, please follow our tutorial on the matter. After you have logged in, please hover over the “Plugins” menu on the left side of the admin area and then click on the “Add New Plugin” option.
Step 4: By this time, you should have already purchased and downloaded the WPML plugin from their official website. To install it, please click on the “Upload Plugin” button. Doing that will expand the menu, allowing you to select the archive of the “OTGS plugin installer” plugin. After uploading it, please click on the “Install” button to start the installation process.
Step 5: Upon clicking on the “Install” button, the page will reload after a few settings, notifying you that the plugin has been installed. Finally, you can click on the “Activate Plugin” button to activate the plugin for your website.
Step 6: After activating the plugin, point your attention to the left-side menu. Please locate the “OTGS Installer” option there and click on it.
Step 7: You will notice a table section in the middle with many plugin options. To install the actual WPML plugin, please select the first choice at the top of the table, then navigate to the bottom, select the “Active after download” checkbox, and click the “Download” button.
Step 8: After a brief loading time, the plugin will be installed and activated on your website. To access the setup page, please click on the “WPML” option on the left side menu.
Step 9: After going through the plugin setup, which will allow you to select your language along with other settings that are unique to every website, it is time to configure how your secondary language site will be accessed. For this tutorial, we will be using a sub-domain, which in our case will be “es.hostarmadatutorials.com.” To begin the configuration, please select the “Languages” option underneath the WPML plugin on the left side menu.
Step 10: Clicking on the “Languages” options will redirect you to the settings, allowing you to set up the language URL format. To choose a sub-domain or a completely different domain, please use the radio button to select the “A different domain per language” and enter the desired domain/sub-domain. Lastly, please tick the “Auto sign-in and sign-out users from all domains” checkbox and click on the “Save” button at the bottom right corner.
That’s it! You should be able to start using the new sub-domain/domain name immediately!
Only one thing left to do
Setting up the WPML plugin is quite straightforward. However, to make the most of it, you still need WordPress and, more importantly, efficient, powerful, reliable, and fast hosting for your website. Since you will be going global, you will need a network of servers closer to your audience, no matter what corner of the map they hail from.
In short, you need HostArmada. We are the perfect supplement to WPML and vice versa. Together, we will ensure your users have the best experience every time. WPML will take care of the communication while we work our magic in the background. Our extensive network of servers all across the globe will ensure no matter where your users are, your website will be lightning-fast, unwaveringly secure, and uncompromisingly reliable.
So, check out our plans, choose the one that fits you best, start our partnership, and use this article to enhance your outreach, performance, and sales with WPML.
The post Building A Multilingual Website With HostArmada And WPML appeared first on HostArmada Blog.
