How to Create a Multilingual Website on WordPress: Beginner's Guide

Imagine that you have made a good website on WordPress – everything works, pages open quickly, you like the design. But… the website is only in Russian, and clients from abroad do not understand anything.

What to do? Create a multilingual website! And you know what? It is not as difficult as it seems.

In this article, I will tell you in simple terms how to create a multilingual website on WordPress in 2025 without programmers, complex code or unnecessary nerves.

Step 1: Install WordPress

It all starts with the foundation. WordPress is a free platform for creating websites. You install it once — and the “skeleton” for the website is ready.

What you need to do:

• Go to wordpress.org and download the latest version.

• Upload files to your hosting (most hostings do this automatically).

• Go through the settings: come up with a site name, login, password.

That's it - the site is ready. Let's move on.

Step 2: Choose a theme – the look of your website

Choosing a theme is like renovating an apartment: you want it to be beautiful, comfortable, and “your own way.” WordPress has a bunch of themes: both free and paid.

Here are a few proven ones:

• Astra — very light, works quickly.

• OceanWP — convenient for online stores and large sites.

• Hello Elementor — if you plan to work through Elementor (this is a convenient editor for pages).

Choose a theme that supports multilingualism (in 2025, most modern themes already support this).

Step 3. Plugins – additional “features” for the site

Plugins are like additional tools. They are not necessary, but very convenient.

Install at least the following:

• Yoast SEO або Rank Math — will help make your site visible in Google.

• WPForms або Contact Form 7 — so that people can write to you.

• Elementor — convenient page editor.

• MonsterInsights — will show how many people visit your site.

This is the basis. Next we will establish the main thing - translation.

Step 4. Install the plugin for website translation

To make a website "speak" different languages, you need a special plugin. In 2025, there are many options - here is a comparison table:

I've seen people use WPML or TranslatePress most often, and I'll show you an example with WPML.

Step 5. How to Install and Configure WPML

Installation:

1. Go to Plugins → Add new .

2. In the search, type WPML.

3. Install, activate.

4. Register on wpml.org, take the license key.

Yes, WPML is paid – but it is really worth the money if you are planning a serious website.

Setting:

• Select the default language of the site (for example, Russian).

• Add additional languages (English, Polish, German).

• Turn on the language switcher (flags or drop-down list).

• Specify how the URLs will look (for example: site.com/en/ ).

Step 6. Add page translations

Now you can translate pages. WPML adds little flags next to each page – click, add translation.

For example:

• About Us Page → create an About us version.

• Blog → add translations for each post (if needed).

• Contacts → translate field and button names.

You can translate it yourself or use automatic translation (WPML now even supports AI translators, in particular DeepL and Google Translate).

Step 7. Menu for each language

To avoid confusion among users, you need to create a separate menu for each language.

In WordPress, this is easy to do:

1. Go to Appearance → Menu .

2. Select the menu language.

3. Add the corresponding pages.

4. Link to the desired zone (main menu, footer, etc.).

Step 8. Translate the content

In 2025, WordPress plugins are already very advanced.

• Translate manually – yourself or with the help of a freelancer.

• Automatically – Google Translate or DeepL translate quickly, but it’s better to correct it a little.

• Order a professional translation – WPML has partners or look for specialists on freelance exchanges.

Important: translate not only the text, but also the headings, buttons, images (their captions) – everything should be logical and understandable to everyone who comes to your site.

Step 9. SEO for a multilingual site

To make sure your site is seen in Google not only by Ukrainians, but also by Germans, Poles, and Americans, do SEO for each language.

Here are some tips:

• Use different URLs for each language ( /en/ , /pl/ etc.).

• Separate titles and meta descriptions for each language version.

• Sitemap – a must (Yoast, Rank Math plugins).

• Hreflang tags – they tell Google which language to show.

• Keywords – don’t forget to add them, but adapt them for each language.

This will allow you to attract traffic from all over the world.

What's new in 2025?

• TranslatePress now has built-in AI translation with the ability to automatically adapt context.

• WPML has added a new AI Translation panel - it works faster and the translation is more accurate.

• Sites with content adapted to each language are ranked higher – Google loves localization.

• RTL support (Arabic and Hebrew) is now automatic - themes and plugins take this into account.

• More and more websites are using local servers for language optimization of loading speed.

Conclusion

Making a multilingual website on WordPress is not scary. It's easy. Seriously.

You only need:

• install WordPress;

• add a theme and basic plugins;

• install a language plugin (WPML, TranslatePress or Polylang);

• translate pages, menus, buttons and images;

• don't forget about SEO.

This way, your website will be understandable to both Ukrainians and foreigners. And it doesn’t matter whether you sell handmade goods, consult clients or run a blog – multilingualism will open a new door for you.

And when everything is ready – think about advertising your website on the Internet so that as many people as possible learn about you.