A report has stated that about 56% of the users spend more time on websites that speak in their language than they do in English. Increased traffic and cost effectiveness are not the only reasons why business owners opt in for a multilingual website. Multilingual website has a huge business advantage and it helps to save an incredible amount of money and time and deliver a better experience to the audiences.
Why should you translate your site and what happens if you don’t do it?
There are various reasons to translate your site into different languages as it helps to increase the sales, site traffic, and also attain a competitive edge. Websites that are looking to expand their business in different markets can start their translation efforts in any language and based on your site or your business, it is important to translate the pages and make a decision on how to handle those pages that are not translated
Here is a checklist that will help you get ready for your multilingual Drupal website:
Built in language support:
Drupal is a very stable CMS and it supports a wide array of modules, but Drupal 7 is not created with multilingual in mind. Creating a multilingual site is a time intensive process for the developers and to address this issue, the community rebuilt the language support. Drupal 8 was created with language support and it is a great platform with multilingual capabilities out of the box and it can easily expand while maintaining the translatability of the data.
Understand your website:
The first step towards multilingual site is to understand the needs of your site and for this you need to take a look at your nodes, fields, customizations and modules so that you have a clear idea of the scope and size of the multilingual site that you want to create. Unless you know your site thoroughly you will not be able to start your multilingual readiness. So, consider a look at your theme, module or content.
Also Read: The Journey of Drupal from 1.0 To Drupal 8
Think about your website content:
Drupal 8 comes with a lot of multilingual features and if you want to create a multilingual site, then figure out the nodes on your site and familiarize with how and where they can be used. Find out the different content types you have and create a note of diverse custom fields. If you have more types of content, then your site will be a complex one and your translation will also be complex. It is also important to know the number of languages you will currently use for the site, so that the entire translation process doesn’t become a barrier down the road.
Examine the trouble spots:
There are some additional areas that may become trouble spots while creating Drupal multilingual website. Though such trouble spots may not affect large portions of your site, but it is good to have an idea of where you might face some issues. You can take some moment to inspect the following areas like the blocks, URL Aliases, Mini panels, Groups, Views and etc. Drupal 8 developers working with contributed or custom modules need to know how to create the best integration possible. It is by preparing a little upfront preparation that you will be ready to make the switch to multilingual.
Consider the modules:
Drupal developers should find out the number of modules that are installed on your website. The fewer modules installed, the better it is. When it comes to such contributed modules, you have to understand them thoroughly. Too many modules can lead to complex functionalities and also interfere with the website translation. Limit your modules so that you have only those that you use and it is best to have a few for your site.
