One of the tasks we like to automate when building a new site or shop is translating with Weglot.
Gone are the days when you had to manually enter translations (or have them entered), reluctantly adjust a sentence on the Dutch side, or be stuck with translations that are no longer up-to-date. We think the biggest advantage of automatic translation is that your translations are always up-to-date.
Nowadays, you can have websites and shops translated automatically. And not so badly that you'll be ridiculed on social media, but quickly, well, and affordably.
Why we use Weglot
We've recently started using Weglot for automatic translations ourselves. We do this for sites and shops that we build from scratch, but also for existing clients. Especially for an extensive, dynamic site that is available in multiple languages, Weglot is really a top solution!
If you're wondering why you should even offer your site or shop in multiple languages, first read our blog about a multilingual shop or site.
What does it cost?
You can find out how much Weglot costs on this page.
As you can see, the available packages depend on the number of words, the number of translated languages, and your wishes for AI translations or professional translators. Trying out a piece of text up to 2000 words is free.
Good to know: you have to divide the number of words by the number of languages. So, if your site contains 20,000 words and you want to translate it into 3 languages, you'll need a package of 60,000 words.
1. Translate everything automatically, or not?
Weglot works pretty easily right out of the box. You install the plugin, connect the website to your Weglot account, set the correct languages, and boom: it gets to work for you.
However, if you don't do anything after that, everything will be translated. And you might not want that.
You can exclude certain pages/URLs and blocks as follows: https://burostaal.nl/kennisbank/weglot-urls-uitsluiten/.
To not translate certain parts: If, for example, you don't want to translate your knowledge base, you can choose the option contain = knowledge base. All URLs that contain 'knowledge base' will then not be translated.
Excluding blogs is often chosen because blogs and knowledge base articles often contain a huge number of words, and with this type of software you pay per number of words, among other things. Since blogs and articles are supportive of the sales process and findability, it's not a disaster to skip this part.
2. Exclude specific words
You will want to exclude certain words from the translation. For example, your company name, company names and brands of others in your shop, product names, certain terms and abbreviations, payment methods and other common terms that are important for the ordering process.
Depending on the quality of the translation, you should always check these kinds of terms for correctness, just like buttons and contact forms.
Do you have words that should never be translated or should be translated in a specific way?
You can set rules like this: https://burostaal.nl/kennisbank/weglot-vertaalregels/.
3. Remove inactive translations
If you ask Weglot to translate everything, it really translates everything and also saves these translations.
Suppose you delete or change a message, agenda item, blog or page, the original translations will also be saved.
If you know this, you also understand that your translations in Weglot can quickly become polluted. Fortunately, they have come up with something for this.
You can remove inactive items as follows: https://burostaal.nl/kennisbank/weglot-inactieve-vertalingen-verwijderen/
If you are almost at your limit in terms of translated words, it is advisable to check your inactive items. You might just save yourself an upgrade!
4. Variables like your thank you page
If you have a webshop, all thank you pages are automatically translated as well.
The template for this is always the same, but because it contains different content each time, it is seen as new information. That eats into your available words, of course.
Certain parts of these types of pages are always the same. You can create variables for those parts. This saves a lot on the number of translated words.
Here's how to set up variables: https://burostaal.nl/kennisbank/weglot-variabelen-toevoegen/
Is this something for you, or do you have any questions?
All in all, you can use Weglot fairly easily and affordably to take a lot of work off your hands. If you want to exclude certain things, you can, but you have to set that up properly first.
Furthermore, it's a piece of cake and your entire shop or site is completely translated in no time (sometimes within a few minutes). And you have another group of potential customers.
Weglot can be used for WordPress sites (but also for Shopify, for example).
Do you have any questions, wishes, or are you stuck? We'd love to see if we can help you!
If you have a support package with us, we can settle it with that, if desired.
Good luck! Bon chance! Viel Gluck! Buena suerte!
