5 Reasons for Multilingual WordPress Websites or Online Shops
There are many reasons in favor of creating multilingual WordPress websites or online shops. Let’s assume you have a website with which you would like to – and can – address other interested parties. For example, because you are offering products that are also trendy in the USA at the moment or because you manage a blog whose topics deal in particular with Europe and its linguistic diversity. With multilingual and international websites and online shops, you can address new target groups.
In the following, we show a few general considerations that should facilitate deciding whether to have multilingual websites or online shops.
1. Multilingualism expands the target group approach
We all know that it is highly important to keep your existing customers and to win new customers.
For one, it is sufficient if customer processing is limited to their own country or even only to their region. However, this is precisely where others see their opportunity not only to make themselves known nationally and internationally, but also to open up completely new target groups.
Of course, you can not only use your German WordPress website for this. You therefore have to be clear about the relevant language areas to decide whether a monolingual or bilingual website is sufficient or whether a multilingual website is more likely to be designed.
One should bear in mind that when translating for multilingual websites or online shops, different idioms and terms are used – not to mention grammar and the like. So what still makes sense in German, for example, will not be understood at all by native speakers in a literal translation into another language.
With the help of translation services (external translation agency or translation tools) you can quickly and easily translate both individual sentences and entire pages in one go, which are readable and make sense.
2. Multilingualism improves the corporate image
Bilingual or multilingual WordPress websites or online shops have one advantage: They are more attractive to the reader! Because this is how the company exudes internationality and professionalism. You reach a broader mass of interested parties and potential customers.
Studies also show that the sooner you find a text in your native language, the greater the attention span when reading articles or looking at products
In addition, websites or online shops that are structured in more than one language appear more valuable – provided that the quality of the translations was important. All in all, you catapult your internet presence further in terms of attractiveness if it is not only multilingual, but also of high quality. What more do you want?
3. Multilingualism ensures uniformity – or not
Even if the content shows a different structure due to aiming at the respective language area and thus at various target groups – multilingual websites or online shops can still have a uniform external effect. Because the design of a website, in particular, is the same, or the shopping process in the online shop works in the same way. That can be designed uniformly for all language areas.
The CMS WordPress and WordPress online shop systems are particularly well-suited for this in combination with a multilingual solution. Because so no changes need to be done on the design, f. ex. – regardless of whether it’s a translated website or you want to add entirely new content.
But of course, international websites and online shops can and may be designed differently. For example, if you work on a larger market in one language version and only address a small niche market in another language version. Or when languages have a different reading direction, e. g., from left to right like German and from right to left like Arabic. Then these versatile contents still have an impact on the design. The multilingual websites and online shops are then no longer uniform.
4. Multilingualism for better search engine rankings
Multilingual WordPress websites or online shops offer the opportunity to appear in search engine rankings internationally. In the best case, of course, in the front ranks on the first page. For the major search engines love multilingual content because they view it as independent content and thus enable additional rankings.
Apart from that, we know Google as the world’s largest search engine with English-language input of search terms but in other countries, it differs in the respective national language or in the language-specific search terms. It is therefore particularly important here if you have a multilingual WordPress website or an international online shop that can be found using relevant search terms in your own national language.
5. Realize multilingualism optimally with plugins
Internationally oriented WordPress websites or online shops do not have to be set up manually or via external service providers. Fortunately, there are some plugins that make it possible in no time at all to turn a national, monolingual into an international, multilingual presence.
The plugins are often free and easy to use. With their help, the translation service is usually included and numerous languages are offered. In addition, some of the plugins are SEO-friendly, which of course can be used perfectly on an international level.
Anyone who owns an online shop can also set up their shop internationally thanks to compatibility with WordPress WooCommerce.
So there are many good reasons for setting up multilingual WordPress websites or online shops. But no matter which of these reasons is decisive – with the WordPress plugin MultilingualPress you have an international presence in any case!
