How to Perform Multilingual SEO on Your WordPress Website

Appealing to a global audience starts with having a website that supports multiple languages, both for content and search. Learn how to do multilingual SEO (search engine optimization) on your WordPress site and make sure it's visible to users around the world.

Simply translating your website is not enough. Multilingual SEO is needed to ensure that people from all over the world can find and understand your site. In addition to translation, multilingual SEO includes structuring your URLs, targeting the right keywords, and translating metadata.

What is Multilingual SEO?

Multilingual SEO is the optimization of your website for multiple languages. This optimization ensures that search engines can find and rank each language version of your website.

When your website supports multilingual SEO, people from different countries can discover it in search results and interact with it without the interference of language barriers.

Step 1: Decide which languages to add

Before you start translating your website, decide which languages you want to add. This simple step can enhance the user experience and expand the reach of your website.

If your website is up and running, research where most of your visitors come from. Then, translate your site into the major languages of those regions.

Using Wordpress Plugins WPMLYou can translate your website into 65 MultiplePre-configured languages. If you want to add custom or country-specific languages (e.g. Mexican Spanish), WPML can accommodate you as well.

1. Purchase and download WPML plug-ins

1. Buy WPML: First, visitWPML official websiteand purchase a WPML package that suits your needs.
2. Download plug-ins: After the purchase is complete, log in to your WPML account and go to the "Downloads" page to download the core plugin (WPML Multilingual CMS) and any other plugins you need (e.g. String Translation, Translation Management, etc.).

2. Installation of the WPML plug-in

1. Log in to the WordPress backend: Log in to the backend of your WordPress site using an administrator account.
2. Upload Plugin::
   • In the left menu, select "plug-in (software component)" -> "Installation of new plug-ins".
   • Click on "Upload Plugin"Button.
   • Click "Choose File", select the ZIP file of the WPML plugin you just downloaded, and then click "Install Now".
3. Activation Plugin: After the installation is complete, click "Enabling Plug-ins" button activates the WPML plugin.

Step 2: Use Dedicated URLs for Each Language

Google Internet company suggestionEach language uses a different URL. separate URLs help search engines scan and categorize your content. This way, search engines can index each language version correctly, ensuring that users are able to access the correct language version of your website.

There are three main ways you can structure your URLs:

1. subdirectories: Extensions of the main domain, such as the French version of the yoursite.com/fr/. This clean and user-friendly approach keeps all languages under one domain.
2. subdomain: A prefix of the main domain name, e.g. fr.yoursite.comThe search engines treat each language version slightly differently using this structure. Using this structure, search engines treat each language version slightly differently. It is worth considering if you want to differentiate between language versions, e.g. to target content or design for a specific region.
3. Different domain names: Each language has a completely separate domain name, for example yoursite.fr. While this approach requires more administration (each domain needs to be purchased and managed separately), it provides the clearest division of languages.

With WPML, it is possible to choose the format of the language URL so that it best matches the goals and target audience of your website.

Step 3: Translate all website elements

Every part of a website plays a role in communicating with its audience, from what they see in search results to themeta-descriptionto the URL they clicked on.

Think about it:

• Your title and meta description provide a snapshot of the page content in multilingual search results.
• Descriptive and user-friendly URLs enable intuitive navigation.
• Page content enables you to communicate effectively with your audience.
• A consistent user experience is maintained when internal and external links point to the corresponding translated pages.

Using WPML, it is easy to translate every element of your website and select the translator. For the perfect combination of speed and affordability, choose automatic translation. Alternatively, control can be given to a professional translation service or a trusted translator.

Whichever option you choose, WPML ensures that all language versions of your content work seamlessly together to provide a smooth user experience.

Step 4: Help Google find translated versions of your website

Google and other search engines need clear flags to find the different language versions of your website. Without these signs, your content may be overlooked or incorrectly indexed.

Your site's HTML markup needs to use the hreflang attribute to help search engines easily find, index, and serve your translated content.

WPML takes care of this for you automatically. No matter how large or complex your site is, WPML will organize your hreflang attributes and ensure that search engines can find them easily.

Below is an example of a link tag that uses the hreflang attribute in the Spanish-language version of the Starbucks homepage:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href=""https://www.starbucks.es/" >

In this case, the language is "es"(Español code), the alternative version is located at https://www.starbucks.es/ URL.

Adding hreflang attributes to your site is not complicated, but it can quickly become confusing - especially if your site is large or you want to offer multiple languages. If you're using WPML, don't worry about this as it will be handled automatically.

Step 5: Let the user switch languages

While search engines play an important role in directing users to the correct language version, theA good user experience puts the control back in their hands.

When a language switcher is added, visitors to the site canChoose their preferred language version of the websiteThe

While it may be tempting, it's best to avoid automatic location-based redirects, as they can be more disruptive than helpful. In today's connected world, browsing websites from Italy doesn't necessarily mean you speak Italian.

WPML's language switcher makes it easy for users to achieve this autonomy. The language switcher can be added to different areas of the website, for exampleMenu, above or below post content, footer or widgets. It is also possible to customize the appearance of the language switcher to match the style of your site.

Step 6: Build Backlinks to Translated Pages

Enhancing the multilingual SEO of your content is inextricably linked to backlink building. By acquiring links pointing to multilingual content, you can expand its visibility in search results.

To do this, consider writing guest posts, collaborating with relevant websites, or attending events in your target area.

As your multilingual website grows with WPML, actively promote and acquire backlinks to translated pages to maximize SEO benefits.

WPML is compatible with the top WordPress SEO plugins.

WordPress is SEO-friendly by design, but you can use one of the WordPress SEO plugins to help you further improve your site for search engines.

Yoast SEO respond in singing RankMath One of the best and most popular SEO plugins for WordPress, WPML is fully compatible with both plugins. Simply install WPML SEO, which is a free add-on plugin that comes with WPML.

WPML SEO automatically creates hreflang tags, allows you to translate global SEO text, lets you localize breadcrumbs, and more.

Creating Multilingual Websites with WPML

Creating a multilingual website is more than just translation. It involves a series of well-thought-out steps:

1. Determining the right language
2. Building your website for search engines
3. Ensure that translations are comprehensive
4. Guide Google to the content of the website
5. Enabling user access to language versions
6. Global Connections Through Backlinks

Summary.

Multilingual SEO involves not only translation, but also building specialized URLs, targeting the right keywords and translating metadata. With the WPML plugin, you can easily manage multilingual content, set up proper URL structures, translate all site elements, and help search engines find your multilingual versions. Make sure to add a language switcher and build backlinks to translated pages to improve user experience and search engine rankings.