Managing a single-language website is significantly easier than managing a multi-language one. However, creating a Magento multi-language store is a must if you want to take your business beyond borders.
So, whether you are setting up your first multi-language store in Magento or scaling an existing one, you're in the right place. Here you'll learn everything you need to connect with global customers and drive more traffic to your store.
From installing the language packs to translating content and enabling the — we've got you covered.
Benefits of Magento 2 Multi-Language Store
Once you start a multi-language Magento 2 store, you'll see that it's not about technical changes only. It's about a strategy that makes your business reach the international level. But that's not the only benefit.
Expanded global reach
If your store "speaks" several languages, you reach more customers around the globe. Instead of being limited to one region only. Therefore, setting up a Magento multi-language store allows you to expand your potential customer base significantly.
e.g. imagine having a store in Italy. In this case, your Italian site reaches only local customers. But once you add English, French, German, and Spanish versions, you open the door to thousands of new visitors, not only from Europe.
Improved user experience
People prefer shopping in their native language. It's a fact. Product descriptions and checkout instructions available in their local language make people more confident to buy.
Even if you offer better prices, a lot of visitors may leave because of an unknown language.
Increased conversions
Everything is simple: the easier and more comfortable the shopping experience, the more likely people are to buy something. When customers understand everything clearly, they complete purchases instead of leaving.
Even small details like translated labels and buttons can make a big difference. They remove hesitation and misunderstanding, especially at checkout.
Optimised international SEO
When your website is available in several languages, it helps your store appear in search results across different countries. Once you optimise your product pages your store becomes more relevant to people in targeted regions.
Note: by creating pages for specific regions, like Google.fr for France or Google.es for Spain, you can appear higher in local search results.
The best part here is that you can attract more visitors even without spending extra money on paid ads.
Stronger brand recognition
If you translate your store into customers' native language, you show respect and attention to their experience. This "touch" helps build a deeper emotional bond with your foreign customers.
Once online shoppers from, let's say, Italy, see the Italian language on a foreign website, they feel more welcomed. This leaves a lasting impression.
Improved customer support
Reduce the possibilities of lost sales, bad reviews, and different misunderstandings by providing support in the customer's local language. It's that simple.
Translated CMS pages, like FAQs and "Help", help customers find clear solutions without any extra effort from you. They don't need to contact your support for basic questions, saving their and your time.
Magento 2 Multi-Language Checklist
Creating a Magento multi-language store isn't as hard as you think it is, even though it might seem technical at first. The features like setting up different store views, translating some content, and switching currencies are already built in.
Your task is just to configure them and upload your translations. To make this process even easier, we've prepared the following checklist to guide you through it step-by-step.
1. Create a new store view
The main purpose of the Magento store views is to make your store support multiple languages. So your first step is to create a separate store view and set a locale for it. Then do the same for each language you want to have on your website.
Example of multiple store views in Magento
By setting the locale, you tell Magento to display correct date formats, button labels, and system messages for that language. However, the system can't do that if you don't have proper language packs installed.
2. Install and enable language packs
The next step is to install Magento language packs. They come with a set of translations for different texts on your website, like navigation titles, labels, buttons, etc. Language packs help you localise the Magento interface, both on the frontend and backend.
However, after installation, you also need to assign the language pack to each store view through the Locale dropdown.
Setting the locale (language) for the store view in Magento
3. Translate products and categories
Since your landing pages are where most of the conversions come from, this is the most important step in our Magento multi-language checkout.
When translating Magento products and category pages, you need to switch to a corresponding store view. Each store view represents a language version of your store, where you can enter translations directly.
Translating a category page in Magento
Translating product names, descriptions, and metadata not only helps your customers understand your store better. It also improves your store's visibility in local search engine results.
4. Translate product attributes and their values
Once you translate product pages, they are not completely localised. Not until you translate product attributes. Attributes like size, colour, or material, along with their options, help your customers navigate through the product options. You have to translate them to leave out any confusion on the product page.
Translating product attributes in Magento
Besides, when everything in your store is in a customer's language except for attributes, it leaves a poor impression and makes your site feel incomplete.
5. Translate CMS pages and CMS blocks
Unfortunately, language packs don't automatically translate the entire content of your store. This includes blocks and pages. But unlike with products and categories, you need to create separate versions for every language to translate Magento CMS blocks and CMS pages.
Translating the content of the CMS block in Magento
6. Translate email templates
The relationship between your store and customers relies on communication. So, it's essential to communicate with them in their language. Therefore, your last translation task is to translate Magento email templates into the corresponding languages.
Translating email templates in Magento
7. Localise currency and payment methods
Language plays a leading role in localisation. However, configuring Magento multi currency and payment methods for each store view makes your store even more convenient for your customers.
Choosing allowed currencies for the store in Magento
Even though it's not mandatory while setting up a Magento multi-language store, having multiple currencies and payment methods makes your store more user-friendly for international customers.
Payment Services available for Magento
8. Localise shipping methods
Your customers in different regions may expect specific delivery options or familiar local carriers. Similar to payment methods, shipping methods in Magento play an important part in the customer journey and influence their purchasing decision.
Offering localised shipping helps you meet the expectations and encourages people to come back.
Magento shipping options
Translate Magento Automatically
Setting up a Magento 2 multi language store is not easy. You can see that now. While it takes a few hours to configure multi-currency or payment options, translation can drag on for days and even weeks. Regardless of the number of products and pages to localise, manual translation is quite a long process.
That's when our comes in handy.
Features like auto translation, translation schedule, and integration with powerful AI engines speed things up with translation. You merely have to integrate the preferred AI tool and set up the schedule. Magefan will translate all existing and updated content on autompilot to maintain relevance and accuracy.
Bulk auto translation option for Magento products (available in all Magento mass actions)
Magento Multi-Language Stores: SEO Tips
Launching a Magento 2 multi-language store is not only about translating its content. It's also about unlockig new SEO opportunities.
Since search engines view each language version of your store as unique , your Magento SEO strategy needs to be tailored accordingly.
Translate all metadata for each language
People from different countries use different keywords when searching for your products.
e.g. while an English-speaking customer is searching for "waterproof rain boots", a German one may look for "Regenstiefel".
So, except for targeting multi-language keywords on the page, make sure to include them in your metadata too.
Use hreflang tags
Hreflang tags play a leading role in helping Google show your pages to the right audience in a specific location.
In other words, hreflangs tell search engines what language or even region you're targeting. So, Google can pull out a corresponding language variant in search.
e.g. with hreflang tags, a visitor from Italy lands on the Italian page, while a visitor from Spain — on a Spanish one, though you have 4 more languages in your store.
Therefore, not using hreflang might result in lost traffic and some language switcher issues.
Create language-specific URLs
In Magento, you can generate different URLs for the same product based on the language of each store view.
e.g. rather than using English URL across all versions — /en/men, fr/men — you can have a unique URL for each language — /men for EN and /homme for FR store views.
In this case, the French version of your store is more likely to show up when French customers search on Google.
Submit a separate sitemap for each store view
In Magento you can generate an XML sitemap for each store view. This helps search engines index and show a corresponding version of a page for the right audience.
That, in turn, increases your chances of ranking in different regions.
Start Magento Multi-Language
Setting up a Magento multi language store is a huge step towards your global growth. However, relying only on default settings is not enough to dominate search results on a global scale.
The right tools may not only help you manage translations and convert currencies. They can boost your SEO, improve customer experience and set you on the right path to international traffic.
So, don't hesitate to try Magento multi-language extensions to scale your store faster and smarter.
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