Break the language barriers – WP Tip #006
Now that you've been blogging for a while, why not share your posts with the whole world? You can quickly install a plugin that will offer your visitors an option to translate your blogposts and pages to their own language.
Google translate can convert entire webpages for you, but you need to copy and paste the link to the site and then wait for the system to translate the plugin. Instead, with a plugin, you can add a built in option into your blog that will let people use the Google translation system for your pages and blogposts.
There are several plugins out there to do this, but a popular one is Google Ajax Translation. It adds a small link to the top or bottom of your pages and articles that lets people pick from all the languages available at with Google Translation.
I recently installed Google translate to the website of the non-profit organization I work for and it was dead easy. We are now tracking usage in Google Analytics. For my personal website on WordPress I followed your tip and installed a Plugin. Thanks for the great tip!
That’s really cool that you are tracking the usage on the translation clicks with GA. I hadn’t thought about that, but it is a brilliant idea!
Can this be done on word press.com that is not personally hosted?
I believe you can translate wordpress.com blogposts. The process is a little different because you’re not allowed to install plugins there, but you can use a text/javascript widget. And it might be a little bit limited. I found this post with a little more information. http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/translation-widget
Great tip, it is easy to forget that websites are international. English may not be a visitors first language, or their proffered one. Their are many individuals who are multilingual as well and would prefer to read in a different language.
Yes, I’m testing a couple different options on my http://notagrouch.com blog. I am not 100% happy with the solutions out there, but if you’re writing something unique and valuable to everybody, I think it’s worth exploring the options to translate the work into other languages. Thanks for coming by Susan!