Translate your website

You can translate your website on WordPress.com to create a multilingual site that reaches readers and customers in more languages. This guide covers three ways to build a multilingual website, plus how to translate your content quickly with AI.

A multilingual website lets you reach people beyond your main language, which can mean more readers, more customers, and better search visibility. Offering your content in more than one language removes a barrier for visitors who would otherwise leave, and it helps search engines show your pages to people searching in each language.

Relying on a visitor’s browser to translate your site automatically is not dependable. Browser translations can be inaccurate, and some parts of your site may stop working when an extension takes over. Publishing your own translated content gives visitors a better, more reliable experience.

There are three main ways to build a multilingual website on WordPress.com. Each one suits a different type of site, so pick the approach that matches your goals, budget, and how much content you need to translate:

• A separate site for each language works best for large businesses and organizations that want fully independent sites.
• Multiple languages on one site works best for blogs and small or local businesses that want a single site to manage.
• A multilingual plugin works best for stores and content-heavy sites that want a built-in language switcher.

The sections below explain how to set up each one.

A separate site for each language gives every language its own content, design, and address, which is the most flexible approach for large or multinational sites. You manage every language version from the same WordPress.com account, so you don’t have to log in to each one separately.

To set up a separate site for each language, follow these steps:

1. Create a new site, or copy an existing one.
2. Give the new site an address. Use a different domain for each language, or use a subdomain such as fr.yourgroovydomain.com to keep every language on one domain. You can also choose a free address for now.
3. Choose a plan for the new site. Each site needs its own plan. See how to choose a WordPress.com plan to compare options.
4. Translate the content on the new site once it’s ready.

You can keep a single site and publish each piece of content in more than one language. This is straightforward to manage from one dashboard and works well for blogs and small sites.

For the clearest experience, create a separate page or post for each language rather than stacking every translation on one page. To set this up, follow these steps:

1. Create a separate page or post for each language, including a homepage for each language if needed.
2. Add a link in your menu to each language version, so visitors can switch languages.
3. Link between content in the same language to keep readers on related pages.

Keep in mind that mixing languages on the same page can look cluttered and may confuse both visitors and search engines, so clear separation between languages works best.

This section of the guide applies to plugin-enabled sites with our WordPress.com Personal, Premium, Business, and Commerce plans. If your site has one of these plans, make sure to activate it. For sites on the free plan, upgrade your plan to access this feature.

A multilingual plugin adds a language switcher and manages translations for every post and page from one site, which is ideal for stores and content-heavy sites.

Each plugin has its own setup steps, so follow the plugin’s own documentation. A popular option is Polylang, which lets you create language versions of each post and page and add a language switcher to your menu. You can also browse other multilingual plugins to compare features.

You can translate a page or post quickly using the AI Assistant, which can read the content of the page you’re editing and translate it for you. This speeds up the work of creating each language version in the options above.

To translate a page with the AI Assistant, follow these steps:

1. Open the page or post you want to translate.
2. Open the AI assistant by clicking the AI icon (a four-pointed star) in the lower right corner.
3. Ask it to translate the content. For example, type “Translate this page into Spanish.”

For accuracy, review the translated text yourself before publishing.