Step 3: 2 Ways To Change Your Website Language

#1 Change The WordPress Default Language

After building your default website in WA, you can change the language of your website in the WordPress settings. Go to...

Settings > General > Site Language

Then choose the language you want. This will change the whole WordPress language including your Dashboard.

Things to take note:

  • You will change the whole WP language
  • You can only stay in one language
  • No multi-lingual

#2 Use a Translation Plugin

The second way of changing your WordPress language is to download and activate a WordPress Translation Plugin.

Please refer to this post to find out more about WordPress Translation Plugins.

Things to take note:

  • This kind of plugins will not affect your default WordPress dashboard language.
  • It allows your users to choose the language they prefer while browsing your site.
  • It makes your website multi-lingual.

If you plan to have multiple languages on your site, use the second method and find a suitable plugin for your website.

If you just need one language, you can use the first method. It's less complicated than using a plugin.

What about writing a post? How to do keyword research and SEO for a website in other languages?

Check out next page!

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Dmorrow Premium
This is great! I see this question asked frequently here so I know it will be useful to many. Thanks.
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JerryHuang Premium Plus
@Dmorrow
Thank you!
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DBeatty Premium
Jerry, thank you for this comprehensive lesson for blogging in other languages. I noticed that the other day a new member had blogged in French. Only one person could write her a reply. I will look for that plug in for other languages.

Debra.
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JerryHuang Premium Plus
@DBeatty
Thank you Debra for reading!
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Gerlinde Premium
Thanks for that.... I have to think about using a Language Plugin...
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JerryHuang Premium Plus
@Gerlinde
You're welcome!
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WilliamBH Premium
Great Post Jerry. I have a .co.id TLD website in Indonesian (Bahasa). I did not want to use the translator because it often loses the correct sense of the Post. Also I do not speak Bahasa so it is not practical to change the default language. So I write the draft Post in English, use Google Translate into Bahasa then my wife (who is Indonesian) corrects it and we have it proof read by another Indonesia .. then Post it.

There are a few words in the default WordPress template that still appear in English on the site but in Indonesia that seems acceptable. I can get that may not be appropriate for a Mandarin site.

You said: "Also, your Permalink should always be in English regardless of your website's language. This is better for Google to understand and rank your posts/pages." Do you have any evidence for this or is it just your "thinking" .. for example Indonesians are searching in Bahasa not English so how would Google correctly rank a search if the permalink is in English? FYI the Bahasa Character set is the same as English.

Cheers, William.
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JerryHuang Premium Plus
@WilliamBH
Hey William, thanks for sharing.

I think I need to rephrase it. For example, Mandarin doesn't use English characters so there's an issue when setting the permalink. Some people will use Mandarin characters in the permalink which is not SEO friendly. (I read some articles about this.)

However, for languages that also use English characters, you can stick to your language for permalink.
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WilliamBH Premium
@JerryHuang
Ok Thanks Jerry.
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AlexEvans Premium Plus
Hi Jerry thanks for the training, found the ways to change the language very useful. Another possibility for promotion.
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JerryHuang Premium Plus
@AlexEvans
Thanks Alex :)
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