Multi Language WordPress Website

Multi Language

Recommended Plugin

Multi Language Plugin that works with Divi

This plugin has a free version

Polylang-Multi-Language-WordPress-Plugin

Polylang Multi Language Plugin Configurations

What this article is really about is to help you get through that glitch that I have seen mentioned in several support forums. I was nearly ready to give up on the Polylang free plugin and just buy something because I couldn’t work out why my home page had disappeared and returned instead a 404 not found error.

There is already a very good article written by Divitheme with all the steps to getting the plugin working but I just wanted to add the step that wasn’t apparent to me. First off take a look at their tutorial. I would like to reiterate their steps are so nicely out-lined in the article by Divitheme so I am in no way trying duplicate their content, just add a little bit extra which helped me along the way.

So here goes.

Install the Polylang WordPress Plugin from the WordPress repository. Activate the plugin. Then go to the plugin settings via Dashboard > Languages > Languages and choose a language from the drop-down menu. Choosing a language will automatically populate the fields below this. Select the order of the languages setting your Default language to 0. Click ‘Add new  language’ . The language will appear on the right hand side in a list with all your languages. In the example below I chose English and German. Polylang-Language-Settings

You can also click the star icon on and off to set a language to the default language. In my case and the example above I only needed 2 languages. Install the Duplicate Post Plugin and activate it. When you head over to your posts or pages, hover over the list of posts or pages in your dashboard and you will see a new option next to ‘Edit | | Trash | View | Clone | New Draft’. Choose a page you want to translate. In my case it was the home page for my one page website. I clicked ‘clone’ and had an exact copy of my home page ready for translation. Here is the important step. Go into your primary language, in my case the English home page. On the right hand side you will see the language options. Under language I have selected English.

Link your default home page with your other language home pages

Now to link the 2 pages English and German I need to select the German page to link to from inside the Default home page language in my dashboard. So go to your default language home page dashboard. Once in put your cursor in the field below ‘Translations’. It will automatically show options of other pages on the site that are in another language. Select the desired page and language. Save your settings. You will see now that your page url has changed. For example the new url will be mydomain.com/en/home with the English translation code as part of the url. See screenshot below:

Polylang-Page-Settings

If you visit the page you just linked to you will see it is also linked and the url has incorporated the additional language code.

Hide the language code from your urls

If you do not want the url’s to show your language code you can hide this under the Settings > Languages > Settings > URL modifications. In the screenshot below I have configured the settings to show the language code in the url: Polylan-url-modifications

If you get the following Polyang Plugin Errors:

The chosen static front page must be translated in all languages

You will not be able to set the default home page until you have created at least 1 additional language for your home page and configured the settings above. Namely, go into your default language home page and choose the additional language to link it to. See explanation above.

Multi Language Menu

You will now navigate to Dashboard > Appearance > Menus and begin creating your multi language menu. First Create new menu, let’s say the English Menu. Add all the English language pages to it. Also add the new item created by the Polylang plugin called ‘Language switcher ‘.

 

Set the menu as your primary English Menu.

Create another additional language menu. Add the additional language pages to this menu. Set it as the default main menu for the additional language. Remember, you can only do this once you have created your additional language pages shown in the steps above.

Here is what the menu section would look like:

multi-language-menu

 

 

 

QUICK TIPS

Thanks to the Divitheme Article for getting me here.

Thanks to Gordon Johnson from Pixabay for the lovely image

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Happy 15th Birthday WordPress

Cape Town Celebrates as WordPress turns 15

I set out on this Wintery Thursday to join the WordPress Cape Town Team and other WordPress enthusiasts to celebrate as WordPress turns 15. On the drive out to the Red and Yellow venue I was a little nervous. I didn’t know a soul there and wasn’t sure how I was just going to mingle and look like I belonged, when in fact, I knew no-one.

But that is what is amazing about WordPress. You still know deep down, or right up on the surface, that you are a part of something bigger than yourself, much bigger, the world around, and that whether or not you know anybody you still belong.

So in I walked in and found a lovely atmosphere with everyone chatting around a delicious snack table and a fabulous WordPress birthday cake waiting to be cut.

wordpress-capetown-15-years

But I knew noone and everyone was chatting in small groups.

I felt nervous.

And then I just decided I was going to introduce myself and say I didn’t know a soul. (I could always just leave and no-one would notice!) The minute I did this I found plenty of other people who were also there alone and were welcoming and happy to chat with me.

That is why people around the world get together, even when they may not know anyone, because one thing we all know is that we are part of this great WordPress community.

Thanks #WP15 and #wpcapetown and all the sponsors.

Loved the cake.

How do I build my own Website

How to begin putting together your Website….

Firstly, the most exciting part of setting up a website is to think up the domain name for your site. If your business is localised, stick to a localised domain name relevant to your country. This will ensure that your target market can see you are local. Too many local business fancy a .com domain name, and scare the locals away. Who can import a carpet cleaner to clean their carpets from overseas? Then focus on your content. Without content there is no website. Ask yourself the following questions: Who are you, How do you want to show yourself to the World, How can people get in touch with you, How can you reach out to your clients.

? Compiling Your Site..

Sketch out some rough A4 pages and focus on layout of your website, name the menu items, decide how many pages your site will need to reach your audiences. Now begin collecting your content. Also decide on the design. The best way forward is to search for sites you like that resonate with how you see your own website.From here you can take your ideas and concepts to your Graphic Designer. Be sure that your Web Designer and Graphic Designer are either a one-stop-shop or put them in touch with each other so that design specs can match the website structure.

Now it is time to decide on the platform of your website. Do you want a static website built in XHTML? This is great for fast page loads and for sites that do not need to regularly update their content. Or more commonly, you may require a CMS platform, such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and more. One any of these platforms you will be able to manage your content yourself. You can edit pages, add galleries, update, blog, socialise, monetise and more. This is the exciting part, and be sure to choose a platform that you will be comfortable with, so do some research and Google the user-friendliness of the CMS that your web-developer recommends, as this will be your baby for the lifespan of your business.

Finally, enjoy the development process, and know that a website is not a once-off purchase, but an ongoing evolving organism floating in cyberspace. The more time and energy you put into your website, the more you will reap the benefits! Good Luck.

Posting to Social Networks via your RSS Feed

Twitter Feed and Facebook ImagesThere are a number of tools out there that integrate your Social Networks such as Facebook Pages, Twitter Feeds, LinkedIn profiles to name the most popular, with your WordPress run website or blog. Testing these different tools can have many different results. Starting with Twitter Feed which I found worked wonderfully for this website, I set it up on some client’s sites and began to encounter strange glitches, such as the way Facebook picked up images from posts, or at least, could not select the correct image, so for now I have uncovered a possible solution which I will test out and post on further once results have been identified. The test is to specify the Featured image in the WordPress post so that Facebook does not confuse this with any other random images it may find on a page.

Visit again soon to find out more on other Social Networking plugins that can integrate WordPress and your Social Networks in one foul swoop!

Why a Blog?

Here’s why…

Here’s why, even the most timid of people have something to say, or share, some knowledge or information that is relevant to others, or who’s expertise may be of assistance to others. These are but a few reasons, and yet the most important one certainly as far as owning your own website is concerned, is that you are maintaining fresh content on your site. Visitors are encouraged to return to your site through filling out subscription fields, or are kept in the loop with what is new and happening in your world by news letters or posts disseminated through your site.

Search Engine Optimization is the big new and becoming old word on the internet. Here’s how you can optimize your site without calling in your web developer.

Write a blog.

Keep the content relevant to the purpose and functionality of your site.

Have fun with it!

Sometimes the responses you receive from your readers may open up a whole new world of revenue, interest and focus for you that you’d never even considered. Blogging reminds the world and you what you are about.

Here are some great blogs! They generate a lot of traffic and give out a lot of useful information, as well as being creative and interesting to read:

A List Apart

Delicious Days Wow, now this site is a cooking blog, and a forum for web developers, and offers free high end WordPress plugins to the public. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket, but for them it is paying off. This site ranks high, and comes up for all searches for contact forms with multitudes of functionalities. Haven’t Googled them yet for their recipes.

Vanielje Kitchen More cooking blogs and beautiful pros.

More of interest to follow.