Creating a multilingual WooCommerce store can help you increase sales by reaching new customers in international markets, and by improving the experience for your current customers – especially those who aren’t native English speakers.
While translating a website used to be difficult, the process today is significantly simpler thanks to automatic translation. Whereas in the past you needed to hire professional translators, today you can use AI to translate your site at a fraction of the cost and time.
When should you translate your site?
Translating your website is an excellent investment in your e-commerce business. That being said, it isn’t relevant for everyone. Generally, translating your site is worth it if you meet one of the following criteria.
1. You sell (or plan to) internationally
Besides providing visitors with a localized experience, translating content also builds trust. This is especially important in international e-commerce, where most people aren’t yet familiar with your brand and use extra caution.
For instance, a study by CSA found that 75% of users prefer to buy products in their native language. This suggests that, besides helping visitors understand your content, translating your site makes them feel comfortable and more likely to make a purchase.
2. Your visitors native language isn’t English
Many countries these days are home to people from different places. Whether they move in for a vacation, temporary relocation, or permanent residence, your visitors likely originate from different countries.
While you can’t pinpoint exactly where your visitors come from, translating your content into widely spoken languages will generally cover the languages they speak.
For example, over 559 million people speak Spanish and 309 million speak French. This means that, while there’s no guarantee people visiting your site speak Spanish or French, there’s a good chance some will.
3. You sell digital products
If you sell a course, e-book, or any other digital product, translating your website is an easy way to expand into new markets with little effort. Translating your content can also improve your multilingual SEO – a technique for ranking content higher in different languages.
Essentially, since Google favors content that matches the user’s language, your pages are more likely to rank higher if you translate them.
How to translate a WooCommerce website?
1. Decide which content to translate
Usually, you don’t need to translate your entire WooCommerce website. In fact – translating all your content will increase translation costs, require extra maintenance, and likely provide little return on investment.
That being said, there are 4 types of content you should translate:
- Homepage
- Product pages
- Pricing page
- Checkout funnel
2. Choose your target languages
Your target language should match the one your audience speaks. However, as we mentioned before, countries usually host people from different origins. This means you should also consider the secondary language people speak in your target country.
For example, the chart below presents the share of people that speak the second most popular language in the United States, Canada, and Spain.
As you can see, even if you plan to remain in the US, you can still expand into the Spanish market – which, although just 13% of the population, accounts for over 40 million people!
3. Translate your website with WPML
WPML is the most popular multilingual plugin for WordPress, powering over 100,000 WooCommerce stores. It supports over 65+ languages, offers automatic translation, and is fully compatible with all ThemeHigh plugins.
Translating with WPML is easy; simply install the plugin, select which content you want to translate, and send for translation. To achieve the best results, we recommend translating with WPML AI – WPML’s most accurate automatic translation model powered by ChatGPT.
Growing Your Multilingual Store
So far, we have covered the basics of translating your WooCommerce store, but what about growing it? Fortunately, there are a few best practices you can follow to ensure your website continues attracting new customers and growing sales.
1. Translate your blog
Whether you publish guides, tutorials, or opinions, your blog is a powerful way to attract visitors – which is why many websites translate it. Similarly to how you translate your website, there’s no need to translate your entire blog.
When it comes to choosing which posts to translate, you can simply check which ones are the most popular using a tool like Google Analytics. Once you identify your top posts, you can then predict this content will likely perform well in other languages and proceed to translate it.
2. Identify new markets
If you plan to enter a new international market, now might be a good time to start translating your content and build your online presence. If international expansion isn’t something you’re planning, you can still find new audiences in your local market.
For instance, in a country like the United States, with over 340 million people, there are surely multiple audiences besides the dominant one. While these secondary audiences may not be as big as the primary one, even an audience that is only 1% of the population holds 3.4 million people!
Conclusion
In this guide we covered which WooCommerce websites could benefit from translating their content, the basic steps for getting started, and how WPML can help translate your website. To learn more about translating with WPML, check out its step-by-step guide for translating WooCommerce websites.
THANK YOU!