Website translation

A Complete Guide: How To Automatically Translate ANY Website

A Complete Guide: How To Automatically Translate ANY Website
Elizabeth Pokorny
Written by
Elizabeth Pokorny
Elizabeth Pokorny
Written by
Elizabeth Pokorny
Reviewed
Elizabeth Pokorny
Reviewed by
Updated on
October 23, 2024

Although translation takes lots of time and effort, it reaps significant benefits. For instance, a translated website is far more likely to appeal to visitors who prefer to read sites in their native tongue. This is true for about 72% of internet users! 

The key takeaway: Enabling your global audience to read your website in their mother tongue is imperative for a top-notch user experience. 

Not only that, but localization also drives organic traffic from search engines. A whopping 50% of queries on Google are in languages other than English!

But if ‘going global’ sounds daunting, never fear; even small businesses can localize their websites efficiently and within budget. One such way to create a multilingual website is to us automated translation. 

Website translation tools such as Weglot, which use the speed of AI translation and translation management to give you your preferred translation quality, meaning you can scale fast. 

Let’s explore this in more detail.

translate your website with weglot

The Best Tool For Automatic Translation

As we just mentioned, Weglot is a website translator tool that seamlessly integrates with all content management systems and eCommerce platforms, such as WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, and Webflow.

Weglot’s automatic translation features detect and translate all your website’s content, including dynamic content. It then organizes them by page and translates your web copy into the desired languages.

weglot translations list

Weglot uses a mix of machine learning translations, giving you the best combination of Google Translate, DeepL, and Microsoft’s translation services. These technologies have different strengths, so Weglot chooses the most appropriate based on your language pairs.

Not only that, but the overall translation process is complemented by the ability to collaborate with human translators. You can add your own linguists and teammates, edit the translations yourself, or order professional translators directly from your Weglot Dashboard.

try weglot's interactive product tour

Weglot also handles the localization of image tags and meta tags to ensure your website is fully optimized for local cultures and search engines. 

Now that we’ve covered the basics, here’s how to install Weglot on your website.

How To Get Your Website Automatically Translated Using Weglot

The guide below outlines how to translate your WordPress site, but, a similar process applies to most website platforms the Weglot add-on integrates with.

Install Weglot to Automatically Translate Your Website

To get started, head to your WordPress dashboard and then search for Weglot in WordPress’s plugin directory. Install and activate Weglot. Start your 10-day free trial to get an activation email. From there, you’ll get access to your API code, which you’ll need in a second.

add the weglot wordpress translation plugin

Choose the Languages You Want Your Site Automatically Translated Into

Click on the Weglot tab inside of your WordPress dashboard. From here, paste your unique API key, and choose your original language and your target languages.

weglot api key wordpress

Weglot offers over 100 languages your website can be automatically translated into, including Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese, German, and Arabic.

…and many more

Once you’ve chosen your languages, you can customize your website’s translation button. When you’re happy with the button, hit save. Now, Weglot will translate your site into your desired languages within seconds.

language switcher options wordpress

That’s right, the auto-translation is that quick! 

From your website, you can switch between languages. You’ll also notice that your website now sits under language-specific subdirectories, this is a key multilingual SEO aspect that will help you appear on international search engines.

Use the Language Switcher to Toggle Between Automatically Translated Dialects

Weglot places a language switcher on your site. This consists of a button you and your visitors can use to switch between the different languages available on your site. Users simply click on their preferred language to see your site in their native language.

Website creators have plenty of control over where the language switcher is displayed. You can opt to have it as part of your top menu navigation, edited into website blocks, or installed as a widget on your side or footer bar. You can also add descriptions, modify the CSS, and upload your own flag logos for a fully customized look.

Pick the Right Plan to Have Your Website Automatically Translated

Weglot offers several different paid plans, based on the number of words on your website and the number of languages you require. 

To get a better feel for which Weglot plan best suits your needs, discover Weglot’s free word count tool. 

If you’re worried you’ll overreach your word count, you can go into your Weglot settings and exclude certain areas from being translated. 

Here are Weglot’s paid plans:

The Starter Plan for €150 a year allows you to translate your website into one other language (up to 10,000 words). You also get access to pro translators and visitor language redirection. Please note: these features also come with each of the plans to follow.

The Business Plan enables you to translate your site into three languages (up to 50,000 words). This package is €290 a year.

The Pro Plan for €790 a year allows you to translate your website into five languages (up to 200,000 words). It also permits you to add two team members, and you can view translated page views statistics to better understand which subdomains your visitors explore.

For €2,990 a year, the Advanced Plan permits you to translate your website into ten languages (up to 1,000,000 words). You can also export and import your translations as CSV or CLIFF files.

Optimize Your Automatically Translated Dialects

Once your website is automatically translated, you may find that some sentences would sound better rephrased. You can control the quality of your translations by using Weglot’s post-editing options, whereby you can manually edit translations, add teammates, or use professional translators to get high-quality translations at scale. 

With Weglot’s paid plans, you get access to pro translators directly inside your dashboard to help you optimize your automatically translated texts. A trusted translator can edit and override automatic translations. Once a human has reviewed a machine translation, the dashboard will indicate this as ‘human-reviewed.’

Your Weglot Dashboard also includes a search bar that allows you to search for translations. This makes it easy to keep translations consistent across your website. You can also determine translation exceptions so that specific words never get translated in a particular way. This is useful for brand names and nouns that require non-literal translation. Alternatively, you can use the search-and-replace function to edit specific words across your website. You can also benefit from translation memory and only translate key terms and phrases once. 

Weglot’s Visual Editor allows you to see your translations in the context of your website. Plus, it also enables you to view the translation’s appearance inside your site’s structure, which comes in handy for ensuring text doesn’t overflow into undesirable areas. 

weglot visual editor

Why Is Weglot the Best Tool To Automatically Translate Your Website?

Of course, there are several Weglot alternatives on the market. However, many of these options fall short in a number of areas. 

  • Many translation plugins require a developer to help implement them on your site. Weglot is no-code, no matter what CMS you have. 
  • They sometimes use machine translation that doesn’t produce the most accurate results. Also, many of Weglot’s competitors offer limited customization regarding editing translations
  • Few alternatives allow you to work with professional translators, as Weglot does. This is the best way to ensure your website sounds natural and professional in all localizations. 
  • Other website translators also don’t offer a visual editor where you can double-check that translations appear aesthetically pleasing or just edit translations knowing exactly where they appear on your website. 

With Weglot, you get the best of both worlds. Neural machine translation auto-translates your site within seconds. Plus, the post-editing dashboard and the option for human collaboration provide full control over your translation quality.

And best of all, Weglot integrates with all major website builders and eCommerce platforms. This solution translates every aspect of your store or blog with ease – including widgets, product descriptions, and buttons across all web pages.

Get Your Website Automatically Translated With Weglot

With a tool as quick and straightforward to use as Weglot, there’s no reason not to localize your content to extend your reach. Whether you’re running a blog with a cross-cultural audience or selling your products abroad, Weglot makes it easy to engage with visitors in their native tongue. 

With a couple of clicks, Weglot translates your website content instantly, improving your translation workflow and centralizing your translation management. 

Not only that, but Weglot displays the content of your website under language subdomains or subdirectories, taking care of an otherwise highly technical part of a translation project in just minutes. 

Take a look at Weglot for yourself with our 10-day free trial, or take a product tour (without signing up).

Discover weglot

Ready to display your website in multiple languages?

Try Weglot on your website for free (no credit card required).

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