WordPress localization: The complete guide (and a suggested workflow with WPML)

What’s covered

• What is WordPress localization?
• WordPress localization methods
• Top WordPress localization plugins
• Step-by-step guide
• Best practices
• Tracking performance
• Conclusion
• Ready to go global

With WordPress powering over 43% of all websites globally, creating multilingual WordPress sites has become essential for businesses targeting international markets. WordPress localization enables you to adapt your website’s content, functionality, and user experience for different languages and regions, opening doors to new audiences and revenue opportunities.

This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know about WordPress localization, from basic concepts to a hands-on example with WPML.

WordPress localization is the process of adapting your WordPress website to make it accessible and relevant for users in different languages and regions. Unlike simple translation, localization involves comprehensive adaptation of:

• Content translation: Converting text, images, and multimedia content
• Cultural adaptation: Adjusting colors, imagery, and messaging for local preferences
• Technical considerations: Handling right-to-left languages, date formats, currencies
• Legal compliance: Meeting local regulations and accessibility standards

The numbers speak for themselves: 72.4% of consumers prefer websites in their native language according to NAARG, and 40% won’t purchase from websites not in their language according to CSA Research’s global survey of 8,709 consumers across 29 countries. For WordPress site owners, this represents both a massive opportunity and competitive necessity.

Besides market expansion and better conversion rates, WordPress localization brings other significant benefits:

• SEO advantages: Localized content ranks better in regional search results
• Enhanced credibility: Localized content builds trust with international audiences
• Competitive edge: Many WordPress sites still operate in English only
• Future-proofing: Established multilingual infrastructure scales as your business grows

WordPress offers two main approaches to localization: native WordPress internationalization features and specialized multilingual plugins. Understanding both approaches helps you choose the right strategy for your needs.

Native WordPress localization

WordPress includes built-in internationalization (i18n) capabilities designed primarily for theme and plugin developers. This approach involves:

How it works:

• Uses gettext functions to mark translatable strings in code
• Stores translations in .po and .mo files for each language
• Requires manual creation of language-specific content for posts and pages
• Relies on WordPress’s functions to load appropriate translations

What it covers: Native WordPress localization handles interface elements like admin menus, plugin settings, theme strings, and system messages. However, it doesn’t automatically translate your actual content—posts, pages, and custom content require manual duplication and translation.

Limitations: While powerful for developers, native WordPress localization requires technical knowledge, extensive manual work for content translation, and lacks user-friendly management tools for non-technical users.

When to use native localization: Choose this approach when developing themes or plugins for distribution, when you need complete control over implementation, or when you have extensive development resources and technical expertise.

Plugin-based WordPress localization

Multilingual plugins like WPML, Polylang, and others provide comprehensive solutions that extend WordPress’s native capabilities with user-friendly interfaces and automated workflows.

How it works:

• Automatically detects and organizes translatable content
• Provides administrative interfaces for managing translations
• Creates relationships between content in different languages
• Handles technical aspects like URL structures and language switching
• Integrates with translation services and workflow management tools

What it covers: Plugin-based solutions handle everything from posts and pages to menus, widgets, custom post types, taxonomy terms, and even theme/plugin strings. They also manage technical elements like multilingual URLs, SEO optimization, and language detection.

Advantages: These plugins offer user-friendly interfaces, automated workflow management, comprehensive content coverage, professional translation integrations, and ongoing support and updates.

When to use plugin-based solutions: This is the practical choice for most WordPress site owners who need user-friendly interfaces, comprehensive content coverage, and professional translation workflows without technical complexity.

Top 4 WordPress localization plugins in 2025 compared

For most WordPress site owners, plugin-based localization is the practical choice. Several WordPress localization plugins are available, each offering different features and approaches to multilingual website management.

WPML (WordPress multilingual plugin)

€39-€199, annual renewal required to update translations

The most comprehensive and widely-used WordPress localization solution, WPML powers over 1 million multilingual websites worldwide. It offers complete translation management with extensive plugin compatibility and professional translation service integrations.

WPML provides robust translation workflows, comprehensive multilingual functionality, and excellent support for complex sites. However, it requires a paid license and can be complex for beginners. Best suited for sites requiring professional translation workflows and comprehensive multilingual features.

Polylang

Free version available, €99-€139/year for premium features

A popular free alternative available in the WordPress plugin directory, Polylang handles essential multilingual needs efficiently with minimal database overhead and developer-friendly customization options.

The free version covers basic functionality, with premium add-ons available for advanced features. Polylang is lightweight and performant but requires more technical knowledge for complex implementations. Best for budget-conscious projects with development resources.

Weglot

Free version available, €150-€6,990/year for premium features

A SaaS-based solution that automatically translates content and provides visual editing tools. Weglot requires minimal setup and offers in-context translation editing through their cloud platform.

Weglot provides quick deployment with automatic translation capabilities and user-friendly visual editing. However, it operates on a subscription model with ongoing costs. Best for users wanting rapid deployment with automatic translation features.

TranslatePress

€99-€349/year

Features a unique visual translation interface available in the WordPress plugin directory. TranslatePress allows you to edit translations directly on your website’s frontend.

This approach eliminates backend complexity and provides immediate visual context while remaining SEO-friendly. However, it’s limited in advanced workflow features compared to WPML. Best for users who prefer intuitive visual editing workflows.

Choosing the right plugin

For most WordPress localization projects, WPML provides the optimal balance of features, compatibility, and professional support. However, WPML’s built-in translation management has limitations when projects scale beyond basic needs.

Large websites with multiple translators face challenges with team coordination, manual assignment overhead, and limited quality control features. Complex projects often require advanced workflow automation, centralized project visibility, translation memory optimization, and enterprise-grade collaboration tools that basic WPML doesn’t provide.

This is where integrating WPML with dedicated localization platforms like Gridly becomes essential for maintaining efficiency and quality at scale.

While WPML handles the technical aspects perfectly, Gridly enhances the translation workflow with professional project management capabilities:

• Centralized project management: Single dashboard for all translation projects and progress tracking
• Quality assurance tools: Translation memory, terminology management, and automated quality checks
• Team collaboration: Real-time collaboration tools, contextual feedback, and communication systems
• Workflow automation: Smart content detection, automated assignment, and streamlined approval processes

This combination delivers enterprise-grade WordPress localization that scales efficiently while maintaining high quality standards. In the following example, we will guide you through the step-by-step process of WordPress localization using Gridly’s WPML plugin.

Setting up your localization environment

Before we dive into the exciting parts, let’s make sure you have everything you need:

• WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) - at least Multilingual CMS package
• Gridly WordPress plugin - free plugin
• Gridly account

Why WPML? Think of WPML as the foundation that makes your WordPress site multilingual-ready, while Gridly provides the powerful translation management system that sits on top. This combination gives you the best of both worlds: WPML’s deep WordPress integration and Gridly’s advanced translation features.

Installing the Gridly plugin

1. Go to your WordPress admin dashboard
2. Navigate to Plugins > Add New
3. Search for “Gridly WPML plugin”
4. Click Install Now

You can also download and install this plugin here.

Installing and configuring WPML

1. Install the plugin from the WPML website
2. Follow WPML’s setup wizard to configure your desired languages
3. Make sure to set your default language
4. Configure your language switcher preferences

Feeling lost? Here is the getting started guide from WPML.

Creating your first translation project

Now for the exciting part – let’s set up your first translation project with Gridly:

Step 1: Create a Profile

1. Create a new Grid in your Gridly dashboard for WordPress content
2. Locate your API key and View ID from the API quick start panel
3. In WordPress, go to Gridly Integration > Profiles
4. Click Add new Profile and enter your credentials

Step 2: Configure your translation setup

1. Navigate to WPML > Translation Management
2. Add Gridly as a translator
3. Set your language pairs
4. Your Gridly profile will appear as @Gridly@_[Your profile name]

Step 3: Start translating content

Here’s where the magic happens. To send content for translation:

1. Go to WPML > Translation Management > Dashboard
2. Select the pages or posts you want to translate
3. Choose your target languages
4. Assign the content to your Gridly translator
5. Send it to the translation basket
6. Go to the Translation Basket tab
7. For each language pair, set the Gridly translator created in the previous step as the translator
8. Click Send all items for translation

Translate WordPress content in Gridly

Content from your WordPress website will appear in Gridly like this.

Gridly also offers a wide range of powerful tools for WordPress website localization:

Translation features:

• Use Gridly’s powerful machine translation engines like Google Translate, Amazon Translate, ChatGPT-4, Algebras, or DeepL to generate fast pre-translations.
• Set up Translation Memory to reuse existing translations.
• Create glossaries to ensure translation consistency.

Collaboration features:

• Work with your translation team in real-time
• Use comments and ticketing systems for feedback
• Track progress across multiple projects simultaneously

Quality assurance:

• Automated quality checks with customizable rule sets before content publication
• Consistency validation against established glossaries

Learn how Rovio 4x their QA speed with Gridly

Syncing translations back to WordPress website

When your translations are ready:

1. Go to Gridly Integration > Jobs
2. Select the completed translation job
3. Click Get translations

Switch between languages on your WordPress site using WPML’s language switcher to explore all your newly added translations.

Successful WordPress localization doesn’t stop at content; it also requires attention to SEO, user experience, and performance considerations that impact both technical functionality and business outcomes.

SEO optimization for multilingual sites

Proper technical implementation and content strategy are crucial for multilingual SEO success. Focus on these key areas to ensure your multilingual site ranks well across all target markets:

• Use subdirectories (example.com/fr/) over subdomains for better SEO performance
• Implement proper hreflang tags to prevent duplicate content issues and ensure complete language coverage
• Research keywords in target languages rather than just translating existing ones
• Optimize for regional search engines like Baidu or Yandex when targeting specific markets

User experience and design

Creating intuitive navigation and flexible layouts ensures your multilingual site works well for all users. Pay attention to these design considerations that impact user experience across different languages:

• Place language switchers in consistent, intuitive locations with clear visual indicators
• Account for text expansion (German text can be 30% longer than English)
• Ensure proper RTL language support and font compatibility for all character sets
• Design flexible layouts that accommodate varying content lengths across languages

Performance and maintenance

Maintaining optimal performance across multiple languages requires strategic technical optimization. Implement these performance strategies to keep your multilingual site running smoothly:

• Implement language-specific caching strategies and CDN optimization for multilingual content
• Minimize database calls for language detection and optimize queries for multilingual structures
• Monitor site speed across all language versions and maintain translation quality through regular audits
• Keep translations current with source content updates and track performance metrics consistently

Tracking the right metrics helps you understand the ROI of your WordPress localization efforts and identify areas for improvement.

Key performance indicators

• Traffic and engagement metrics: Monitor organic search traffic for each language version, user engagement rates (time on site, bounce rate), and conversion rates by language.
• Technical performance: Track page load times across regions, search engine rankings in local markets, and monitor Google Search Console for hreflang errors or indexing issues across language versions.
• Business impact: Companies that invest in localization have 20-30% revenue growth according to Nimdzi. Measure revenue attribution by region, lead quality by language, and customer acquisition costs for each market.

Essential tracking tools

Use Google Analytics 4 for traffic analysis by language, Google Search Console for localized SEO performance, and connect your CRM data to track revenue attribution by region. Translation management systems provide visibility into translation progress, costs, and efficiency.

Learn more about the Translation management system in Gridly.

Regular monitoring of these metrics helps optimize your strategy, justify investment, and identify expansion opportunities.

WordPress localization has evolved from a technical challenge to a strategic business opportunity. With over 43% of websites powered by WordPress and billions of non-English internet users, multilingual sites are essential for growth.

WordPress localization extends far beyond simple translation to include cultural adaptation, technical optimization, and user experience design. While plugin-based solutions like WPML provide comprehensive functionality for most businesses, complex projects benefit significantly from enhanced workflow management through platforms like Gridly. Success requires ongoing attention to SEO optimization, performance monitoring, and maintenance across all language versions.

The path forward is straightforward: start by installing and configuring WPML for your WordPress multilingual foundation, then add Gridly for professional translation management and improved workflows. Finally, monitor performance and continuously optimize your localization strategy as your international presence grows.

WordPress localization opens doors to new markets, better conversion rates, and competitive advantages in an increasingly global digital landscape. The tools and strategies covered in this guide provide everything needed to create professional multilingual WordPress sites that engage international audiences and drive sustainable business growth.

Transform your WordPress site into a multilingual powerhouse with Gridly’s powerful localization platform. Start your journey today:

• Sign up for a Gridly account and enjoy a 14-day free trial
• Install the Gridly WPML plugin
• Refer to our detailed plugin documentation for additional guidance

Or we can just show you how with a quick demo. Start your WordPress website localization journey today with Gridly!