How to create a multilingual website

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To create a multilingual website, you’ll need to install a plugin. In this guide, we’ll show you how to install, set up, and use the Polylang plugin.
Start by logging in to your WordPress admin panel at Your_Domain/wp-admin/ or through your account dashboard.

Go to «Plugins» / «Add New Plugin».

Search for «polylang» in the search bar, then click the «Install Now» button next to it in the results.

After the installation is finished, click «Activate» to enable the plugin.

After activating the plugin, you’ll be taken to the setup wizard.
In the first step, select the languages you want your website to support. Don’t worry—you can add more languages later if needed.
Once you’ve chosen your languages, click «Continue» to move to the next step.

Make sure the «Allow Polylang to translate media» option is turned on. This feature lets you add separate descriptions for media files, like images, in each language.
When you're ready, click «Continue» to move on.

Set a default language for your site. This language will be assigned to any existing content.
Once you’ve selected the default language, click «Continue» to proceed.

Click the «Continue».

Click the «Return to the Dashboard».

Polylang has been successfully installed.
Now, it’s time to configure some additional settings.
In your WordPress admin panel, you’ll notice a new «Languages» section. Go to «Languages» / «Translations» to continue.

This section contains text strings related to template settings that cannot be edited directly on the pages, so they are managed here separately.
Update the fields to match the corresponding language. In most cases, you’ll only need to adjust the «WP Templates» field.
Once you’ve made your changes, click «Save Changes» to apply them.

Next, go to «Languages» > «Settings».

In this section, you can leave all settings as they are by default.
That said, you might consider turning off the «Detect browser language» option. This feature automatically shows users the site version that matches their browser’s preferred language.
For example, if a user's browser is set to English, they’ll see the English version of your site.
If their preferred language isn’t available, the site will default to your primary language (in this case, Russian).
To make things simpler during development and setup, we recommend disabling this feature for now.

Next, you’ll need to set up the homepage.
Navigate to «Pages» / «All Pages» to get started.

After installing the plugin, a page called «Home — English — Front Page» was automatically created for the English version of your site.

By default, this page is empty, so you’ll need to add content.
To save time, you can duplicate the content from your original homepage to the English version and simply update the text.
This way, you don’t need to build the page from scratch. You can find a guide on how to duplicate a page using the library [here].
In the page list, you’ll also notice a new column showing language versions.
Click the «+» icon to create a page for the corresponding language.

When creating a new page, make sure to assign the page to its respective language in the sidebar settings.

To enable a multilingual site, you’ll need to add a language switcher so users can easily toggle between languages.
Here’s how to set it up:
Navigate to «Appearance» / «Widgets».

Here, you'll need the «Language switcher» widget.

On the right, you'll find sections labeled «Footer Area #1» to «Footer Area #6», which are designated spaces for adding widgets to your website's footer.
The number of active areas depends on your theme. In this example, four blocks are available for use.

To add the language switcher to your site, drag the «Language switcher» widget into one of the active footer areas.
In this example, we’ll place it in «Footer Area #4».

Check the options «Display flags» and «Hide languages with no translation», then click «Save».

Check how it works and displays on your website.