WordPress English Blog Translation Plugin Recommendations
Running a blog makes you realize just how important traffic is. Having 100 visitors a day is definitely better than having just 10. If your blog is in English, your target audience will be English speakers worldwide. For that purpose, I’d like to recommend a WordPress plugin for translating English blogs.
Number of visitors by most commonly used language
Have you ever heard of the blog Lifehacker? It was originally started by an individual in the US back in 2005, but it’s now owned and operated by a large media company.
We primarily provide visitors with helpful tips and know-how across various fields such as tech, food, health, and money. How many visitors does this English blog get?
Lifehacker’s blog reportedly had an average of approximately 13 million monthly visitors in 2022, and about 6 million in 2023. Considering South Korea’s total population is 50 million, this is undeniably massive traffic.
These very aspects are precisely why we should start an English blog, wouldn’t you agree?
WordPress English Blog Translation Plugin Recommendations
Can’t we, whose native language isn’t English, still take on an English WordPress blog? To try an English WordPress blog, we can simply use a translation plugin.
In fact, you can install a wide variety of translation plugins for WordPress. Each has its own pros and cons, but I use the TranslatePress premium translation plugin.
This is not the blog you are currently viewing; I am applying and using it on my blog called New Zealand Life Handbook.
The blog above is a WordPress English blog created by installing the TranslatePress translation plugin.
WordPress English Blog Translation Plugin TranslatePress
The TranslatePress plugin I recommended for translating WordPress English blogs is a paid plugin. While there is a free version, I do not recommend it. This is because it requires converting each Korean sentence into English individually.
This approach doesn’t seem right for us, where time is as precious as gold. Then let’s take a closer look at the TranslatePress translation plugin.
TranslatePress Translation Plugin Settings
In the WordPress admin dashboard, select the TranslatePress translation plugin from the left-hand Settings menu. You will see a screen like the one above.
The section above is the General menu, where you set the default language and the language for translation. I set Korean as the default and English as the translation language.
This is the second Language Switcher section. When both Korean and English versions of a single piece of content are published, language change buttons are needed for Korean and English-speaking audiences. This is the settings menu for that section.
You can set the position and color of the language change button, and adjust its size as well. Of course, you can configure separate settings for how it appears on PC and mobile. Clicking each option allows you to preview the changes immediately.
For information on installing and pricing for the TranslatePress WordPress English blog translation plugin, please refer to the post below. The article also includes details on how to get a discount, so those considering the paid version should definitely read it.
Exploring WordPress English Blogs
The default language is set to Korean. And do you see the Taegeukgi and American flag buttons in the top right corner? I made the buttons a bit smaller. I didn’t want them to overlap with the ad section.
I navigated to the blog’s table of contents screen and selected the English button. You can see that the top menu, blog title, and brief description all change to English.
I came across a blog post. For those who were curious about what it might look like when using a translation plugin, I thought I’d share my experience.
I believe that the ability to attract interest and traffic from both Korean and English-speaking audiences with a single piece of content can be a significant advantage over other blogs. Let’s examine the ratio of countries
visiting blogs that use translation plugins versus those that don’t. Please note that this may vary depending on the blog’s topic, popularity, and traffic.
1) Blogs that do not use translation plugins
2) Blog using a translation plugin
While neither blog is attracting massive traffic yet, the locations of incoming visitors show a clear difference. The Korean-only blog receives about 80% of its traffic from Korea.
Meanwhile, the WordPress English blog, which uses the TranslatePress translation plugin, shows the following visitor distribution: Korea 37.5%, China 25.8%, New Zealand 19.1%, USA 4.3%, and other countries 13.2%.
We can see that English support has led to people from a much wider range of countries joining.
Conclusion
Today, I’ve shared my thoughts on TranslatePress, the WordPress English blog translation plugin I use, while recommending it.
While it has the drawback of being paid, I think it could be a useful translation plugin if you’re targeting English-speaking audiences. And regarding indexing requests, you might be wondering—while English blog indexing requests are automatically processed, it does take time.
Therefore, it would be best if you could submit indexing requests for both the Korean URL and the en/URL in the middle. If you’re curious, be sure to read the post below.
