How to Make Your WordPress Multilingual | TranslatePress + SiteGround Guide

WordPress multilingual sites are no longer a luxury—they’re a necessity for reaching a global audience. Over 76% of internet users prefer browsing in their native language, yet most websites only cater to one. If your site isn’t multilingual, you’re missing out on traffic, engagement, and potential customers worldwide. A multilingual website removes language barriers, improves user experience, and boosts SEO rankings, helping you reach and convert international visitors more effectively.

If you’re a SiteGround user, adding multiple languages to your site is easier than ever. Thanks to SiteGround Central, you can install TranslatePress—one of the most powerful and user-friendly WordPress translation plugins—in just a few clicks. Whether you’re building a new site or expanding an existing one, TranslatePress lets you manage translations effortlessly, without needing separate websites or coding skills.

This guide will show you why a WordPress multilingual site matters, how to set it up step by step with TranslatePress, and how to troubleshoot common issues to ensure a seamless experience.

Let’s get started!

What Is a Multilingual WordPress Website?

A multilingual WordPress website offers its content in two or more languages, allowing visitors to switch between them seamlessly.

By default, WordPress does not support multiple languages, meaning you need a third-party plugin to enable translations.

That’s where TranslatePress comes in—it allows you to easily translate your entire website, including posts, pages, menus, widgets, and even third-party plugins, using a visual editor. Meaning, that you can create a multilingual WordPress site without using professional translation services.

With TranslatePress, you don’t need coding skills or multiple sites for different languages. Everything happens within a single WordPress installation, making it efficient and aligned with the best search engine optimization practices.

Why You Should Make Your WordPress Site Multilingual (Key Benefits)

Reaching people in different languages is one of the smartest moves you can make to grow your website and business. Whether you run a store, a service business, or a blog, a multilingual site helps you connect with international visitors and turn them into customers.

Relying on Google Translate alone won’t cut it—automatic tools often miss the mark, making your content sound off or unprofessional. Instead, WordPress translation plugins, like TranslatePress, let you create a multilingual site and manage translations yourself.

You can translate posts, pages, and even product descriptions into multiple languages, keeping your message clear, natural, and optimized for search engines.

If you’re wondering why you should make your website multilingual, here are four key benefits:

1. Reach International Visitors & Grow Your Website

The internet is not just for English speakers. As stated previously, more than 76% of internet users opt for browsing in their native language. If your site only speaks to one audience, you’re missing out on visitors and sales.

Offering different languages can help you reach new markets, build trust with international customers, and grow your business beyond borders.

A multilingual WordPress site helps you expand your global reach.

2. Improve User Experience & Engagement

Nobody likes struggling to understand a website. When visitors can’t read your content, they leave—fast. A site in their language makes it easier to navigate, understand your offers, and take action.

Translated posts and pages keep users engaged longer, lower your bounce rate, and increase the chances they’ll buy, subscribe, or reach out.

That is how a multilingual WordPress site providing content in the visitor’s native language boosts user experience and engagement.

3. Improve SEO & Rank Higher in Multiple Languages

Search engines like Google prioritize localized content. They favor content that matches a user’s language and location. When you offer translations in different languages, you create more opportunities to rank in local search results.

Multilingual posts with translated SEO metadata help search engines understand your content. They can then serve it to the right audience, driving more organic traffic from global markets.

A multilingual WordPress site helps you rank for more keywords in translated languages, and drive global traffic. Moreover, thanks to translated hreflang tags, meta descriptions, and SEO-ready URLs, localization increases your domain authority.

Gain Competitive Advantage

If your competitors only offer one language, they’re limiting their reach and leaving the door open for you. Going for a multilingual WordPress setup gives you an edge, showing customers you value their language and culture.

A localized experience builds credibility, makes your brand look professional, and positions you as the better choice in global markets.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Make WordPress Multilingual with TranslatePress

Setting up a multilingual WordPress site might sound complicated, but TranslatePress makes it simple—even if you’re not a developer. Unlike some approaches that require separate sites for each language, TranslatePress keeps everything in one place. This allows you to manage all your translations from a single dashboard.

The free version lets you add a second language to your default language, while the translation editor gives you full control over content. If you want to speed things up, TranslatePress supports Google Translate and other machine translation tools, helping you automate the process.

Still, combining machine translation with manual fine-tuning often works best to ensure the text sounds natural in your audience’s native language.. Even if you prefer doing it yourself or leaning on online translation services, TranslatePress gives you the tools to get the job done.

Installing and Activating TranslatePress via SiteGround Central

If you’re a SiteGround user already, TranslatePress is available directly in the SiteGround Central plugin. This plugin is pre-installed so you can use it upon installing your WordPress site, or whenever you choose. This means you don’t have to manually search and install it.

You can add the TranslatePress plugin while setting up a new WordPress site or install it on an existing WordPress site. Below, we’ll go through the steps for each situation.

How to get started if you’re setting up a new WordPress site:

1. Log into your SiteGround User Area and go to the Websites section
   

   

2. Then click the New Website button to begin the WordPress installation.
   

   

3. On the next page, choose whether you are installing WordPress on a new domain, using an existing one, or a temporary domain.
   

   

4. Select Start New Website and then WordPress.
   

   

5. Set up username and password and allow the system to complete the installation.
6. When all is set, click the Log In Admin button to access your new WordPress Dashboard.
   

   

7. When you log in to your WordPress Dashboard, click Start Now to begin setting up your site with SiteGround Central.
   

   

8. Then follow the steps provided by SiteGround Central.

9. Add the Multilingual WordPress plugin from the list.
   

   

10. When you complete all the steps, SiteGround Central will finish the setup, so allow it some time.
11. Then the TranslatePress plugin will be active in your dashboard. You can manage the language plugin from your Dashboard by clicking the Manage button under Translate Your Website.
    

    

If your WordPress site is already growing and you want to make it available in more than one language, keep reading to learn how.

Activate the TranslatePress Free Plugin With a Fully Operational WordPress

As your business grows, you may start noticing a surge in foreign visitors through Google Analytics or other traffic monitoring tools. You might see high engagement from non-English speaking countries. This indicates that your products, services, or content are drawing global interest.

When this happens, it’s the perfect time to make your WordPress site multilingual. Even if your website is already fully operational, upgrading to a multilingual WordPress website is easier than you think.

With multilingual plugins like TranslatePress, you can seamlessly introduce multiple languages to your existing site without disrupting your current setup.

Here’s how to activate a multilingual WordPress step by step:

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins > Add New.
2. Search for the TranslatePress plugin name and click Install Now next to TranslatePress.
   

   

3. Once the installation is complete, click the Activate button.
   

   

Now that you have this popular WordPress multilingual plugin installed and active, you are one step closer to a multilingual WordPress site.

Configuring TranslatePress Settings

Once TranslatePress is activated, it’s time to set up your languages:

1. Go to Settings > TranslatePress in your WordPress dashboard or click the Manage button under Translate Your Site in your Dashboard.
   

   

2. Select your default language (the primary language of your website).
3. Choose the preferred language from the dropdown menu.
   

   

4. The free version of the plugin allows you to enable two language translations. So to enable the second language translation, click the Add button on the right side of the drop-down menu.
   

   

5. If you want more translated versions of your site and support for other languages, you may consider upgrading to the premium version of TranslatePress.
   

   

6. After adding your target languages, scroll down to the button and click Save Changes.
   

   

7. (Optional) Enable automatic translation from the Automatic translation tab, using Google Translate TranslatePress AI, or DeepL with the premium version. Note that DeepL and TranslatePress AI are available only with TranslatePress Premium.
   

   

Once your languages are set up and you’ve saved your changes, your site will be ready for translation. If you’ve enabled automatic translation, TranslatePress will begin the translation process.

But machine translation isn’t always perfect—it often misses context or delivers awkward phrasing. That’s why manual translation is key to ensuring your content is accurate, natural, and truly resonates with your audience.

Next, let’s walk through how to manually translate your site’s content using TranslatePress’s visual editor.

Translating Content Manually

One of TranslatePress’s biggest advantages is its visual translation editor. That feature allows you to translate content directly on the page.

Manually translating your content gives you full control over the quality and accuracy of your multilingual WordPress site’s text. While automatic translation services can be helpful, they often miss cultural nuances or specific industry terms.

With this translation plugin’s visual editor, you can see your website as your visitors do and translate everything directly on the page. That’s how you can ensure quality translations, making your message clear and professional in every language.

1. Navigate to the page or post you want to translate. Edit the page/post you want to translate by clicking the Edit button.
   

   

2. Click the Translate Page button in the WordPress admin bar.
   

   

3. Hover over any text you want to translate and enter the translation in the sidebar.
   

   

4. Click Save—your translated content is now live!

Adding a Customizable Language Switcher

A language switcher lets your visitors easily choose their preferred language, helping them navigate your site without confusion. If someone lands on your website and can’t quickly find their language, they’ll likely leave and look elsewhere. That’s lost traffic and potential business.

Adding a clear, easy-to-spot switcher ensures users from different countries can browse comfortably. This keeps them on your site longer and boosts your chances of converting visitors into customers.

With this translation plugin, you can place a language switcher wherever it works best for your audience. For instance, in your navigation menu, as a floating button, or inside your footer.

You can also customize its appearance to fit your site’s design, so it feels natural and professional, not like an afterthought. Getting this right improves your user experience (UX) and sends positive engagement signals to Google, helping your multilingual content rank better.

Here’s how to add a floating language switcher:

1. Go to Settings > TranslatePress > General Settings.
2. Scroll to Language Switcher and choose its placement:

• Floating widget (bottom corner of the screen).
• WordPress Menu item (add to navigation).
• Shortcode (place it anywhere on the site).
  

  

3. Click Save Changes and test the switcher.

Optimizing for Multilingual SEO

Optimizing your multilingual site for SEO ensures search engines index and rank each language version correctly. That’ll help you reach more international visitors. Without proper SEO settings, your translations might not appear in Google searches, limiting your global visibility.

With TranslatePress, you can enable SEO-friendly URLs (e.g., /es/ for Spanish), set up hreflang tags to tell search engines which language to show users and generate multilingual sitemaps for better indexing.

If you use Yoast SEO or Rank Math, make sure they’re configured for multilingual SEO support. These steps increase organic traffic, improve search rankings across multiple regions, and help your translated content compete effectively online.

To maximize your SEO benefits, follow these best practices:

• Enable SEO-friendly URLs – TranslatePress allows language-specific URLs (e.g., /fr/ for French).
• Use hreflang tags – This tells Google which language to show for different audiences.
• Implement SEO metadata – Properly translating meta titles and descriptions for each language version improves search rankings and click-through rates (CTR) in local search results.
• Generate multilingual sitemaps – If using Yoast SEO, enable the TranslatePress integration.

With your multilingual site set up and optimized for SEO, visitors can now browse in their preferred language, improving engagement and search rankings. But, like any new setup, you might run into a few issues. So, in the section below, we’ll go over some common challenges and how to fix them.

Common Issues & Troubleshooting

Even with a solid multilingual setup, you might run into issues that affect user experience and SEO. You might notice some content remains untranslated, the language switcher isn’t showing up, your translated pages aren’t ranking on Google, or your site feels slower after adding languages.

These issues are common, but they have simple fixes. Let’s go through each one and how to resolve it.

Missing or Incomplete Translations

Sometimes, you’ll notice bits of text on your site stay in the original language, even after you’ve translated your pages. This usually happens because those texts come from your theme or a plugin, and they’re treated as dynamic strings.

Search engines see untranslated content as incomplete, which can hurt your user experience and SEO. To fix it, go to Settings > TranslatePress > Advanced and turn on “Fix missing dynamic content.”

Language Switcher Not Displaying Correctly

If your language switcher isn’t showing up or looks broken, it’s usually just a placement issue. Visitors need a clear way to switch languages, and if they can’t find it, they’ll likely leave your site—hurting engagement and SEO performance.

To fix it, go to Settings > TranslatePress > General and make sure the switcher is enabled. Then, add it to your menu, footer, or as a floating widget—wherever it’s most visible and natural for your users. Testing different placements can help you find what works best for your audience and design.

SEO and Indexing Problems

If your translated pages aren’t showing up on Google, it’s often because hreflang tags are missing or wrong. These tags tell Google which language version to display, and without them, your multilingual content may not get indexed properly.

To fix it, open Google Search Console and use the URL Inspection Tool to check your hreflang setup. TranslatePress adds these tags automatically, but review your settings to make sure everything’s correct. Getting hreflang right helps Google serve your pages to the right audience, boosting your global search visibility.

Performance Issues on Multilingual Sites

If your site feels slower after adding translations, it’s likely because loading content in multiple languages can increase page size and server load. Site speed matters—a slow site frustrates visitors and hurts your SEO rankings, especially for Google’s Core Web Vitals.

To fix this, enable caching. If you’re hosting with SiteGround, you are covered. The SiteGround Speed Optimizer plugin is built for speed and works perfectly with TranslatePress. It caches your multilingual pages, reducing load times and keeping your site fast, no matter how many languages you offer.

Ready to Go Multilingual? Here’s Your Next Step!

Taking your WordPress site multilingual is one of the smartest ways to grow your audience and business globally. With TranslatePress and SiteGround, it’s simple—whether you’re building a new site or expanding an existing one.

Your next step:

1. Install TranslatePress via SiteGround Central.
2. Set your default and additional languages.
3. Translate key content manually or with machine translation.
4. Add a visible language switcher.
5. Check SEO settings (hreflang tags, URLs).

Start today—reach more people in their language and unlock your site’s global potential.