If your website has visitors from throughout the world, then it’s good practice to make it available in different languages. Making the site multilingual is a smart marketing strategy as it helps to increase subscribers and customers, and as a result, widen profit margins. In this article, we’ll show you how to create a multilingual Jupiter X site using the popular WPML plugin.
What is the WPML plugin and why do you need to use it?
The WPML plugin – which stands for WordPress Multilingual – is the most popular WordPress plugin that helps users to build a multilingual website. It allows you to translate the site’s content into multiple languages, and you can manage them in the same domain with a single WordPress installation. The WPML plugin is easy-to-use as it enables you to be able to quickly make your site multilingual.
WPML is a premium plugin with 3 different pricing plans:
- Multilingual Blog
- Multilingual CMS
- Multilingual Agency.
With all these pricing plans, you’ll get support and updates for a year. WPML consists of a core plugin and add-ons, which can be installed to get additional functionality. Each plan has the WPML core plugin and different combinations of add-ons.
Here are the most useful WPML add-ons in order to create a multilingual Jupiter X site:
WPML String Translation – The add-on allows to translate interface strings directly from WordPress without using .mo files. You can translate static texts and user-generated texts that are outside of posts and pages.
WPML Media Translation – This add-on helps you to create the WordPress Gallery in different languages, and it allows you to control which images will be displayed for each language.
WooCommerce Multilingual – This add-on can be used to build a multilingual e-commerce site. It allows you to translate all WooCommerce content including products, categories, variables, fields, etc.
The full list of WPML add-ons can be found on the official website, and for more info about the WPML plugin please check out the WPML review by Kasa Reviews.
Installing the WPML plugin and its components for a multilingual site
As mentioned above, WPML consists of a core plugin and add-ons. The core plugin is called WPML Multilingual CMS, and it’s always required. To make your site multilingual, you need to install the WPML core plugin and the main add-ons:
- String Translation
- Media Translation
The plugins packages can be downloaded from your WPML account’s downloads page. Important note: the WPML Multilingual Blog account type does not provide access to String Translation and Translation Management add-ons.
After downloading, all plugins can be installed via the Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin section on your site’s WP Dashboard.
You can get more detailed information on how to install the WPML plugin and its components in the WPML installation instructions.
Configuring translation settings and registering WPML in setup wizard.
After installing and activating WPML a setup wizard will help you to configure the required settings to prepare your site for multilingual content. In WPML > Setup start the configuration process following the setup wizard steps.
- In the Languages screen you can choose the website’s default language, the languages that you want to translate your website into, and create a custom language if needed.
2. In the URL Format screen select URL format for the different language versions of your site.
3. In the Register WPML screen you need to register WPML on your site by entering the key in the Site Key field. To get a site key just click on the Get a key for this site link. It takes you to your WPML account where you can specify the type of a site and generate a key.
4. In the Translation screen you have two translation modes: the Translate Everything mode to translate entire site automatically or the Translate Some mode which allows to choose which pages you want to translate.
There are three review options available when using the Translate Everything mode:
- Review the translations before publishing
- Publish translations and review them later
- Publish translations without reviewing
With the Translate Some mode you can choose what content you would like to translate, as well as choose who you want to translate it:
- Only myself (admin)
- Individual translators: Where you can form your own team of local translators
- A Professional Translation Service
- I want to set a “Translation Manager” who will choose the translators for this site
5. The Support screen: Choosing to send theme and plugins information of your site allows the WPML support team to better help the clients. Additionally, clients will get compatibility alerts related to the theme and plugins they are using on the site.
6. In the Plugins screen WPML lists recommended plugins to install on a client’s site based on the other themes/plugins running on it.
7. The last Finished screen includes information about viewing the status of the translations and instructions on where you can add language switchers to your site. Click the Finish button to complete the setup.
Automatic translation with the Translate Everything mode
The new Translate Everything mode uses automatic translation to translate site content instantly and allows you to review and edit the translations before publishing. This makes the translation process faster and more affordable. With this mode pages, posts, custom post types, custom fields, taxonomies, WooCommerce products can be translated only. Smaller texts like strings, menus, widgets, and form fields still need to be translated using String Translation. This is because there usually isn’t enough context for automatic translation to translate them effectively. It means if your plugin doesn’t include custom post types, custom fields, and taxonomies, it won’t be translated by the Translate Everything mode.
Let’s see how the Translate Everything mode works.
When configuring WPML in setup wizard, on the Translation step, select the Translate Everything option along with the preferred translation reviewing option (Review the translations before publishing, Publish translations and review them later, or Publish translations without reviewing). Also, you can change the translation mode after the site’s setup by going to WPML > Settings.
Once you have completed configuring WPML, WPML will start translating the site content in the background. The translation progress can be checked by navigating to WPML > Translation Management screen or by clicking the WPML logo in the toolbar.
If you have chosen to review your automatic translations, you will receive notifications to review the translated content on the Translation Management screen or in the toolbar. When you edit existing content or publish new content, it will be translated automatically.
Since WPML 4.5 there is a new workflow to review the automatically translated content on the site’s front-end when the Translate Everything mode is selected. Here is how it works.
Click on the notification on the Translation Management screen. This takes you to the Translations screen where you will find a list of all the content that is awaiting review.
Click on the Review button, it takes you to the translated page on your site’s front-end.
On the review page, you can publish or accept the translation if you are happy with it or edit it using WPML’s Advanced Translation Editor.
On the Advanced Translation Editor screen, you can see all the translations. Edit the translations that need improvement, then click the Complete button to publish the page.
Translating the site in the Translate Some mode : Posts and pages, taxonomies, menus and strings
By using WPML when creating a multilingual Jupiter X site, you can translate WordPress pages, posts, custom post types, categories, tags, custom fields and content created with page builders.
If you choose to use WPML’s Translate Everything mode, all content in posts, pages, taxonomies and menus will get translated automatically into your chosen secondary language(s). Strings will still need to be translated via the WPML’s String Translation module.
If you choose to use WPML’s Translate Some mode, please follow the guidance below.
Let’s take a look at the example of translating pages in Jupiter X. To start translating the pages, go to Pages > All Pages. There you’ll see the list of all your pages and the number of pages per language. You can translate pages by clicking the plus icon next to the content you want to translate.
After clicking the plus icon, you’ll then be redirected to the default WordPress editor to add a new translated content. Add the title and then click the Edit with Elementor button.
When the Elementor editor opens, translate the page content and save changes.
In the WPML plugin, you can translate taxonomies (categories, tags) in the WPML > Taxonomy translation section. Select the taxonomy to translate and add translation by clicking the plus icon next to the taxonomy you need.
To translate menus, you can use two options. The first option is navigating to the Appearance > Menus section and creating a new translated menu by clicking the plus icon for the translations.
The other way is by using the menu sync tool in WPML > WP Menus Sync which automatically synchronizes the menu’s content. For detailed information on how to translate menus in WPML please, take a look at this article.
All other texts that are not in posts, pages and taxonomies can be translated with help of the String Translation tool in WPML > String Translation. You can follow this guide about the string translation.
Site keys for production and development sites
In the setup wizard, it is now a required step to register WPML. To avoid using up all your site keys on development sites, WPML now includes 3 development site keys for each production site key. Sites using development site keys display a banner on the front-end and backend stating it’s a development site.
Here are the number of site keys included in each account type:
| Account type | № of production keys | of development keys |
| Blog | 1 | 3 |
| CMS | 2 | 9 |
| Agency | Unlimited | Unlimited |
When registering your site, click Get a key for this site link. This takes you to your WPML account where you can:
- Specify the type of site (Production/Development)
- Assign any available automatic translation credits to it
- Generate a site key. Copy and paste this site key back on your site
Automatic Translation Credits and WPML price increase
The automatic translation that WPML uses isn’t free. WPML is using automatic translation from Google, DeepL and Microsoft. New WPML accounts will receive free credits that allow translating most sites completely. If clients need more, WPML will offer additional quota, which you can buy as one-time packages or in a “pay as you go” program. As all new WPML accounts will come with enough credits to translate a small-to-medium-sized site, the price of WPML will also be increasing.
| Multilingual Blog | Multilingual CMS | Multilingual Agency | |
| First year | $39 | $99 | $199 |
| Renewals | $29 | $74 | $149 |
Wrapping up
WPML is the most popular WordPress plugin for multilingual sites and particularly useful while creating a multilingual Jupiter X site. It offers a number of useful features to translate your WordPress site into multiple languages easily. The plugin is user-friendly and simple to use. WPML has different add-ons, and you can install only the ones you actually need. WPML is a great solution for different types of multilingual websites such as eCommerce sites, blogs, social network and business sites.
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