Installing WordPress in Your Language: An Expert‘s Guide

Do you want to create a WordPress site that speaks to your readers in their own native language?

As a webmaster with over 15 years of experience, I‘ll walk you through the entire process step-by-step in this guide.

Whether you‘re looking to build a site in Spanish, French, German or any other tongue, you‘ll have WordPress talking in the language you need in no time.

The Power of a Localized Site

Let‘s first talk about why you should consider a localized WordPress site.

Here are some powerful advantages:

• Increased user engagement – Visitors strongly prefer content in their own language rather than reading through an English site. Studies show up to 75% higher user engagement when sites are localized.

• Improved SEO – Search engines like Google give better rankings to pages that are geotargeted with local languages. This helps you rank higher in local searches.

• Stronger trust and authority – Readers find sites more credible when they speak their language. This helps build a sense of goodwill and authority with your audience.

In fact, 42% of internet users say they won‘t buy from sites that aren‘t in their own language.

So localization should definitely be part of your strategy, especially if you‘re targeting readers outside of primarily English-speaking countries.

Choosing a Language During Initial Setup

The good news is WordPress makes it incredibly easy to install the platform in your desired language right from the start.

During the famous 5-minute install process, you‘ll come across a screen asking you to select your site‘s language:

WordPress will automatically detect all languages that have a full or near-full translation available. This covers over 60 of the world‘s most popular languages including:

• Spanish
• French
• German
• Russian
• Italian
• Portuguese
• Chinese
• Japanese
• Arabic

And many more.

Simply select your language of choice from the dropdown menu then continue through the installation process as normal.

Once installed, both your WordPress admin and the frontend site will be fully translated into the language you selected. It‘s that easy!

Changing Languages in WordPress Settings

What if you forgot to set the language on initial installation? Not to worry.

You can easily change the default language of your site at any time within the WordPress admin dashboard.

Here‘s how:

1. Go to Settings > General
2. Scroll down to the Site Language section
3. Select your desired language from the dropdown menu
4. Click Save Changes at the bottom

WordPress will then switch the admin area and frontend site to the new language.

Again, you have 60+ languages to choose from here based on what translation files are available.

Uploading Translation Files Manually

Now what if you want to use a language that isn‘t available in the dropdown menu?

For less common languages or those with incomplete translations, you may need to install the translation files manually.

Here‘s what to do:

1. Go to translate.wordpress.org and search for your language
2. Find your language team and click to view the page
3. Click the "Download" button to download the language pack (.zip file)
4. Unzip the file which contains the .po and .mo translation files
5. Connect to your site via FTP and upload these files to the /wp-content/languages/ folder

You should now see your language available as an option in Settings > General. Select it to activate the translation.

This process works for any language with translation files available from the WordPress community.

Preserving English in Admin

Here‘s a pro tip:

Sometimes you may want to translate the frontend of your WordPress site while keeping the admin dashboard in English.

Why do this? Well, say you have staff members who only understand English managing the site. Or developers who need to work in the backend.

You can easily separate the languages like so:

1. Have users go to Users > Profile
2. Under Personal Options, set your language to English
3. On Settings > General set the overall site language to your desired translation

Now when those users log in, they‘ll see the admin area in English while visitors still get translated frontend content.

Managing Multiple Languages with Plugins

So far we‘ve covered installing WordPress in a single language other than English.

But what about running a site with multiple languages like English, Spanish, French, etc?

While WordPress makes translation easy, creating duplicated content across multiple languages is more complex.

That‘s where translation plugins come in handy!

The two most popular choices are:

• WPML – The leading premium plugin for translating WordPress sites. Packed with helpful features. Costs $99 for a single site license.

• Polylang – A free alternative that gets the job done. Simpler interface and setup. Good for smaller multilingual sites.

Based on my experience managing dozens of multilingual sites, I generally recommend WPML for top performance, flexibility, and smoother management.

Read my complete guide to WPML for help getting set up properly.

Polylang is great for smaller sites on a budget. Check out my Polylang setup guide here.

Either plugin will handle translation features like:

• Creating translated versions of posts, pages, menus, etc
• Managing languages and translations
• Adding language switchers for visitors

This saves you the headache of manually duplicating content across locales.

Contributing Translations to WordPress

Did you know that all WordPress translations are contributed by volunteer community members?

If your language still needs work, consider pitching in to help translate WordPress!

Here‘s a quick guide to contributing:

• On translate.wordpress.org, search for your language and find the team
• Click "Join team" to become a translator
• Use the online tools to translate strings, docs, and identify portions needing localization
• Comment on the forums if you need help or to connect with other translators

No prior experience is required. And it‘s incredibly rewarding to help make WordPress accessible to more people globally.

Over 61,000 are already contributing translations. Why not lend a hand? Even translating a few strings helps.

Wrapping Up

As you can see, installing WordPress in your preferred language is quick and easy:

• Select your language during setup
• Change it later in admin settings
• Upload translation files manually as needed
• Use a translation plugin like WPML or Polylang for multilingual sites

I hope this guide has demystified the process and given you tips to get started based on real-world experience.

Let me know if you have any other questions! I‘m always happy to help fellow webmasters.

Good luck with your new localized WordPress site!