Want to make your WordPress website available in more than one language without paying for a premium translation plugin?
You have two practical free options: create real translated pages with Polylang, or add quick machine translation with Google Language Translator.
The right choice depends on what you need. If translated content matters for sales pages, service pages, search traffic, support, or brand trust, use Polylang and review every translation before publishing. If you only need a fast convenience tool so visitors can read your site in another language, a Google-powered language switcher may be enough.
One important note before you start: if your site is on WordPress.com, plugin installation is currently available on paid plans. Free WordPress.com sites need an upgrade before using third-party plugins. Self-hosted WordPress sites can install plugins from the WordPress dashboard.
Which free method should you choose?
Method
Best for
Main trade-off
Polylang
Business sites, blogs, service pages, SEO-focused multilingual content, and anything that needs human-reviewed translations.
You need to create and maintain translated versions of your pages, posts, menus, and key site text.
Google Language Translator
Quick visitor translation when you do not have time or budget to translate every page manually.
Machine translation can be inaccurate, and the free setup should not be treated as a full multilingual SEO strategy.
Before you make your WordPress site multilingual
Back up your website before adding any translation plugin. A multilingual setup can affect URLs, menus, widgets, SEO metadata, and how visitors move through your site. If you can, test the plugin on a staging copy before changing your live site.
Decide how many languages you actually need before you install anything. It is better to launch one strong, reviewed translation than five rushed versions that confuse readers or damage trust.
Also decide whether the translated content should be part of your SEO strategy. If you want Google and other search engines to find translated pages, you need a setup that creates separate language URLs, translated metadata, and properly connected language versions. If you only need an on-page convenience tool, a quick translator widget is simpler.
Method 1: use Polylang for editable translated pages
Polylang is a free WordPress plugin that lets you create a multilingual site inside your WordPress admin area. You can translate posts, pages, media, categories, tags, menus, widgets, custom post types, and taxonomies, depending on how your site is built.
This is the stronger free option for most business websites because you stay in control of the copy. You can translate the page yourself, use a professional translator, or start with a draft translation and have a fluent speaker review it before publishing.
Install and activate Polylang
From your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin. Search for Polylang, then install and activate it.
If you previously tested another multilingual plugin, deactivate it before activating Polylang. Running more than one multilingual plugin at the same time can cause URL, menu, and content-display problems.
After activation, Polylang may launch a setup wizard. Follow the prompts to choose your site languages, confirm the default language, and decide how you want translations handled.
Add your site languages
Go to Languages > Languages. Add your default language first, then add each additional language you want to offer.
For example, if your site is currently in English and you want to add French, add English as the default language and French as the second language. Polylang will then let you connect the English and French versions of a page, post, category, or tag.
If your site already has published content, make sure every existing post, page, category, and tag has a language assigned. Polylang documentation notes that content without an assigned language may not display as expected.
Check your Polylang settings
Next, go to Languages > Settings. The exact settings you choose depend on your site, but these are the main ones to review.
Detect browser language: This can show the homepage in the visitor’s preferred browser language when that language exists on your site. Use it if that behaviour makes sense for your audience.
Media: Turn this on if you want to translate media titles, captions, descriptions, or alt text.
URL modifications: Choose carefully. Language URLs such as /fr/ or /es/ are clearer for visitors and better suited to multilingual SEO, but changing URL structure later can create broken links if you do not handle redirects properly.
Synchronization: Decide which details should copy between translated pages, such as featured images, categories, tags, or page parents.
If you are setting this up on an established website, be extra careful with URL settings. A new multilingual URL structure can be helpful, but it should be planned before publishing translated pages.
Translate site strings
Some text on your website is not inside a normal page or post. Your site title, tagline, widget titles, theme text, and plugin text may appear as strings.
To translate these, go to Languages > Strings translations. Review the available strings and add translations for the ones visitors will see.
This step is easy to miss, but it matters. A page can feel unfinished if the main content is translated while the sidebar, footer, buttons, or site tagline remain in the original language.
Translate your pages and posts
Open the page or post you want to translate. In the editor sidebar, find the language or translations section. You should see your available languages and a plus icon for each missing translation.
Click the plus icon beside the language you want to add. WordPress will create a new page or post for that language. Add the translated title, body copy, SEO title, meta description, images, buttons, and any other page content.
Do not publish too quickly. Preview the translated page first and check the layout, links, forms, buttons, and navigation. Text length changes between languages, so headings and buttons that look fine in English may wrap awkwardly in French, Spanish, German, or another language.
Translate categories and tags
If your blog uses categories and tags, translate those too. Go to Posts > Categories or Posts > Tags, assign each term to the correct language, and connect translated terms where needed.
This helps your translated blog archive feel complete. It also keeps visitors from landing on a translated post and then clicking into category pages that are still in the original language.
Create menus for each language
A multilingual page is not complete until visitors can move around the site in that language.
Go to Appearance > Menus if your theme uses classic menus, or use the Site Editor if you are using a block theme. Create a menu for each language and add the matching translated pages to each one.
For example, your English menu should link to English pages, and your French menu should link to French pages. Assign each menu to the correct language location.
Add a language switcher
A language switcher lets visitors move between language versions without hunting through your navigation.
Polylang can add a language switcher as a menu item, widget, or block, depending on your theme. If you do not see the language switcher option in the menu screen, check the screen options at the top of the page and enable it.
Place the switcher somewhere easy to find, such as the header, main navigation, or footer. After adding it, test it from multiple pages. If a translated version of a page does not exist, the switcher may send visitors to the homepage or may not show that language option.
Method 2: use Google Language Translator for quick machine translation
If you do not have the time or budget to translate pages manually, you can add a Google-powered translation option with a plugin such as Translate WordPress – Google Language Translator.
This method is faster than Polylang because it can translate content on the fly. It is useful for simple blogs, community sites, temporary pages, or situations where rough translation is better than no translation at all.
It is not the best choice for core business pages, product claims, legal policies, medical information, financial content, or any page where accuracy matters. Machine translation can miss nuance, tone, local phrasing, and industry terms.
Install Google Language Translator
Go to Plugins > Add New Plugin and search for Translate WordPress – Google Language Translator. Install and activate the plugin.
After activation, go to Settings > Google Language Translator. Enable the plugin, choose your original language, select the languages you want visitors to use, and adjust how the language box should appear.
Recent versions of this plugin have changed because Google’s older Website Translator Widget is being phased out. Google Search Central announced that the old Website Translator Widget will no longer be supported starting October 1, 2026. If your site already uses an older Google translator widget, update the plugin and test your language switcher before relying on it.
Add the translator to your site
Depending on your settings, you may be able to show the translator as a floating selector, menu option, widget, or shortcode.
If you use the shortcode option, copy the shortcode from the plugin settings and place it where you want the language selector to appear. The plugin documentation warns not to place the shortcode twice on the same page.
After adding the selector, open your site in a private browser window and test several pages. Check the homepage, a blog post, a service page, a contact page, and any page with forms or buttons.
Understand the free version’s limits
The biggest benefit of this method is speed. The biggest weakness is control.
With a quick Google-powered translator, you are letting software interpret your content for visitors. That can work for casual reading, but it is not the same as publishing a reviewed translation.
The free version also should not be treated as a full multilingual SEO setup. If your goal is to rank translated pages in search engines, use a multilingual plugin and publish properly translated pages with their own URLs, metadata, internal links, and navigation.
SEO and quality tips for multilingual WordPress sites
Translating the words is only part of the job. A good multilingual site also needs clear navigation, translated metadata, readable URLs, and copy that makes sense in the reader’s language.
For important pages, have a fluent speaker review the translation before publishing. This is especially important for your homepage, service pages, product pages, checkout pages, lead forms, legal pages, and any page that explains pricing, policies, or instructions.
Translate your SEO title and meta description for each language version. Do not simply copy the English metadata into every translation. Search intent can change by language and region, so rewrite each one for the reader you want to reach.
If you are improving your translated pages for search, you may also find our SEO copywriting tips helpful. The same principle applies in every language: write for real readers first, then make the page easy for search engines to understand.
Finally, check every internal link in each language. English pages should mostly link to English pages. French pages should mostly link to French pages. This keeps visitors in the language they chose and gives your multilingual site a cleaner structure.
Which free option is better?
Use Polylang if you want a proper multilingual WordPress site with real translated pages you can edit, review, optimize, and connect together.
Use Google Language Translator if you want a quick language selector and can accept machine translation limits.
For most business websites, Polylang is the better long-term choice. It takes more work upfront, but you control the content, the page structure, the navigation, and the reader experience.
For a simple site where translation is only a convenience feature, Google Language Translator is faster to launch.
Either way, test your setup before sending visitors to translated content. A multilingual site should help people understand you faster, not make them work harder to find the right page.
Gabriel Nwatarali is the founder of Tech Help Canada and has worked in SEO, copywriting, and web strategy since the early 2000s. His work has helped drive more than 10 million app downloads and 2,900% organic traffic growth for startups, agencies, and brands across North America. He writes about SEO, marketing, AI, and the decisions that shape how businesses grow online, drawing on hands-on experience building websites, content systems, and digital strategies.
