🌍 Making a Multilingual WordPress Site

At our next WordPress Sunshine Coast Meetup, we're going to dig into creating a multilingual WordPress website - what your options are, how to build, and some common issues to look out for.

Multilingual sites come up more often than you'd think, and the plugin landscape has changed a lot over the years.

We'll look at the main approaches together and talk through real-world considerations for setting one up.
Some of what we'll cover:

• The difference between multilingual and multi-regional sites — and why it matters
• The main plugin options: Google Translate, WPML, Polylang, TranslatePress, and where each makes sense
• How content translation actually works in WordPress — posts, pages, custom fields, and theme strings
• URL structures: subdirectories, subdomains, or separate domains
• Handling SEO for multilingual sites — hreflang tags and what gets missed
• Machine translation integrations and where they help (and where they fall short)
• Common mistakes and gotchas to watch out for before you start

I'm going to be walking through a real example of a recent directory style website I've built that is multilingual, showing you through how it's set up and why, and share any tips and issues that will help you build a multi-lingual website with WordPress.

As always, we'll have plenty of time for discussion, questions, and assistance with anything WordPress related at the end.

Looking forward to exploring it with you all!