Wordpress Language Switcher Plugin Guide 101

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These days, it is crucial for websites to allow users to switch to their preferred or native language(s). When it comes to WordPress, a language switcher plugin is used for the task, and for those who are wondering what it is, they have come to the right place. Read on to find out crucial information about language switcher plugins for WordPress.

Language switcher: what is it?

A language selector is a clickable selector, which lets one’s website visitors switch between two or more languages (that the developer offers, of course) and select the one they wish to navigate the site with, generally their home country’s language.

It is intensely helpful for global websites and gives users a much better user experience on the website.

The plugins

Here are a few good WordPress language switcher plugins, which developers
can use to let visitors display the website in their preferred languages. The best feature about these options is that they are easy to use.

TranslatePress: TranslatePress is a visual translation plugin with a user-friendly front-end translation customizer and ...
... the feature to translate the entire site’s content. Amid numerous multilingual features and customization choices provides three types of language changes to show on the website and customize to the user’s requirements.

WPML: Next is the WPML plugin, which is a back-end translator for multilingual websites, which is compatible with every theme or plugin, which uses a WordPress application programming interface. WPML offers four fully customizable language switcher widgets.

Polylang: Polylang is another famous multilingual solution for WordPress websites, which smoothly links with the platform. It offers a back-end translation interface and also provides various display options and customization functionalities for the switcher.

Weglot: Weglot is a SaaS language switcher for small multilingual sites, which stores translations on their servers, as opposed to the other options like TranslatePress, WPML, and Polylang, which keep the translations on the said websites.

Adding a language switcher to a WordPress website

Use the steps given here to easily install and activate a language switcher on any WordPress website. Here the example is TranslatePress, but please note that WordPress developers can use these steps for any plugin.

Install the plugin: The first step before using anything is to install it. The same goes for the WordPress language switcher. Here’s how to install TranslatePress.

● Go to plugins>add new in the WordPress dashboard.
● Type “TranslatePress” in the search bar and click install on the first plugin displayed.
● Activate the plugin after installation.
Add languages: Next step is to add languages. Here’s how to do it.
● Go to settings>TranslatePress, and find the all languages section in the general tab.
● Open the dropdown and select the desired language.
● Click the add button.
● Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all preferred languages.

Choose the language switcher type: When applying TranslatePress, three methods display the language switcher. The developer can use them all simultaneously, or a combination of 2 or 1 type will also work. These language switchers include:
● Shortcode.
● Menu Item.
● Floating Language Selector.

And here’s how to select these.
● Navigate to settings>TranslatePress>general tab.
● The developers will see the three options after scrolling down for some time, which they can deactivate or activate by checking or unchecking the checkboxes next to them.
● One can display full language names, flags, language codes, or a combination on their website with any of the three options.

Switch the language: After the core setup is done, one can explore these customization options available.
● Add a custom language.
● Add a developer flag instead of the default one.
● Show the opposite flag to the selected language.

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