Common Mistakes When Building a Multilingual WordPress Site

You have to think globally if you have opened a company and want to do its internationalization. Once you have got a lot of success in the business in your country, it is the time to do the expansion of your trade in different countries. Your website’s translation is necessary so that you can get customers in those countries also.

Mere translation is not sufficient but you will require more for your multilingual website and so your website should be designed and developed according to that.

Customs and cultures that are totally different are required to be adjusted by the designers for a multilingual website.

Now I am going to describe common mistakes that occur when building a multilingual WordPress site.

1. Translation by machine – Translation of the text is a big issue that is encountered by developers and designers. Normally translation in 45 languages is expected by the clients. But if in such a situation Google Translate is used by the designer then it is not good. Translation cannot be evaluated by the designers. They cannot identify if it is perfect or not. Nothing can be done if there is a requirement of culture-awareness and some sensitive information needs to be translated.

A real person must be hired for doing translation. He should have a lot of experience in translation. His translation will be appropriate and accurate because he is a trained person. There are 2 countries having 2 different cultures and the gap between these has to be filled by him.

2. If there is a misplacement of the options of language – For changing the language a button will be searched by the person that belongs to a different country and has visited your website. He can leave instantly if he does not find that button. A language picker should be placed by you on the right spot in the process of designing so that this can be avoided. Flags or language have to be used by you and for that you need to consider the icons. Near the language’s name a flag must be added if a variant is highlighted by you during the usage of the language name. The language button can be put at many places. Web page’s general organization and writing direction will tell you if it is good to use 2 buttons or 1 button is sufficient.

If you want that the user just after entering your site should find the button easily then you should put it on the upper right corner if the languages are LTR. Also, you have to put it on the upper left corner if the languages are RTL. A drop-down menu should be used for enlisting the languages if your site has a lot of these available.

3. There is no awareness about the culture –There are 2 different countries having different kinds of people and developing a connection between these people belonging to different countries is the job of the mediator or translator. Customs of one country can be learnt by the people of another country if there is a meeting of the cultures of these countries. If it is the case of designing then according to the target culture’s needs the design elements have to be adapted?

It will be very good to respect the other country’s customs. For example, western people like it to have the images of ladies on their garments but it does not happen in the east. It will be good if the design is adjusted accordingly so that we can pay respect to the customs of people of the target country.

4. Organization of content – When considering web design an important element for your multilingual website is content organization. Your writing system serves as the basis for this.

For the countries where RTL languages are used the links and menus will be adjusted accordingly for the website. These countries may be Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran or Israel. So, in the western website’s mirror image the menu should be placed in the top left corner.

If you are interested in getting CMS, integration of templates, WordPress website design and web development services after customization then it will be very good to take the help from WordPress development company.