Do you have visitors to your website from non-English speaking countries? If you do, then having a free translator on your website, is a fantastic tool. I show you step by step how to add Google translate to your WordPress blog.
The set up takes a few minutes, then your visitors will have the option to translate your website content at the click of a button.
Let’s get started.
- Install the Google language translator plugin
- How to set up Google language translator
- How to display Google translator on your site
- Inserting Google translator into individual posts and pages
- See your Google translator on your site
- Adding Google translate to your site video tutorial
- Conclusion
- Frequently asked questions
Install the Google language translator plugin
To get started you need to install a plugin. You can do this from the WordPress plugin library. Or you can download the plugin from ‘Google Language Translator‘.
To install the plugin from the WordPress plugin library. Hover your mouse over ‘Plugins’ on the menu on the left of your WordPress dashboard, from the popup, select ‘Add new’.
Once you are in the WordPress plugin library, type ‘Google language translator’ into the search bar.
Once the plugin appears, click on the ‘Install now’ link.
After installation, click on the ‘Activate’ link.
Once activated, you return to the plugin library. At the top of the page, you get this message.
How to set up Google language translator
To access set up, hover your mouse over ‘Settings’ in your WordPress dashboard menu, and select ‘Google language translator’.
Now you are ready to set up this plugin.
First, make sure the box is ticked to activate the plugin. Next, select the primary language of your website. After that, select the languages you would like your website to show for your visitors.
On the right at the top, you have a preview of how this plugin will look on your website.
Under the preview, you can choose what country flag you want to be displayed for English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
The next section is for customizing the language switcher. I think the default settings are fine, if you want to change how yours look, you can make changes here.
The next section is the floating widget settings. That is the orange ‘Translate’ link you can see in the bottom left of the screen.
The last section is HTML code if you want to put the translator into your blog posts. I recommend putting the Google translator into a widget so that it appears on all your pages and posts. I will show you how to do that next.
Once you have finished with set up, don’t forget to click on ‘Save changes’ at the bottom of the page. Now your Google language translator is ready for your site.
How to display Google translator on your site
I recommend displaying Google translator in a widget on your site. To start, hover your mouse over ‘Appearance’ on the menu on your WordPress dashboard, and select ‘Widgets’.
After you select widgets, you come to this page.
On this page, drag the ‘Google Language Translator’ bar to the ‘Sidebar’.
Like this.
The default title is ‘Translate’, you can change this if you wish. If you do, don’t forget to click on the blue ‘Save’ link.
Now your Google Language Translator tool is ready, let’s see how it looks on my site.
Inserting Google translator into individual posts and pages
If you want to have the Google language translator tool display on certain blog posts, you can insert the shortcode into your post.
Go to the settings page of the plugin and scroll down to ‘Usage’ and copy the code next to ‘ For usage in pages/posts/sidebar:’
Go to your post, open a new paragraph block, and paste the code into that block.
Click on the blue ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ link, and view your post.
See your Google translator on your site
To view the translator, go to any page or post on your website and you will see it in the sidebar. There is also an orange floating widget on the bottom left of your site.
Your visitors can use the drop-down menu, select one of the flags, or click on the orange ‘Translate’ link on the bottom left of the screen to translate your post.
Once your visitor makes their selection, the page will display in that language.
This is the above page translated into Japanese.
Once the post is translated, a Google translate toolbar appears along the top of the post to confirm the translation with an option to show the original language.
That is how you add Google translate to your WordPress blog.
Adding Google translate to your site video tutorial
Conclusion
Google translate is an excellent tool for your website. It is free and easy to set up. It does have its limitations, the translations will not be correct 100%.
For more accurate translations, you need to hire a speaker of the languages you want to display to write your content for you. You can hire content translators on sites such as fiverr.com.
For more great tutorials about WordPress, check out my WordPress category.
Frequently asked questions
To add Google translate to your site, you need to install the Google language translator plugin. Installing and setting up this plugin takes just a couple of minutes.
If you install the Google language translator plugin to your site, your visitors can click on a flag or a translate button to read your content in their preferred language.
Install the Google language translate plugin.
Yes, there is. Go to the plugin library in your WordPress admin and search for ‘Google Language translator’
Comments
Do you use a translator tool on your website?
Do you have a multilingual website?
How do you translate your content?
I look forward to reading your comments.
