Building Multilingual Websites with Drupal: A Comprehensive Guide

In today’s globalized world, having a multilingual website is essential for reaching a broader audience and providing a seamless experience for users who speak different languages. Whether you’re running an e-commerce platform, a corporate website, or a blog, offering content in multiple languages can significantly enhance user engagement and expand your reach.

Drupal, a powerful and flexible content management system (CMS), provides extensive support for building multilingual websites. With its built-in multilingual capabilities, Drupal allows you to create and manage content in various languages, making it an ideal choice for websites with a global audience.

In this blog post, we’ll guide you through the process of building a multilingual website with Drupal, from setting up the required modules to managing translations and handling language-specific content.

Step 1: Enable Multilingual Modules

Drupal has several core modules designed to support multilingual functionality. Before you start building your multilingual website, you need to enable the appropriate modules.

Core Multilingual Modules:

1. Language: This module allows you to define the languages your site will support.
2. Content Translation: This module enables you to translate content into multiple languages.
3. Interface Translation: This allows you to translate Drupal’s interface, such as the administrative panels and system messages, into different languages.
4. Configuration Translation: This module is used to translate configurations (like menus, content types, etc.) into different languages.
5. Localization Update: This module helps you keep your translations up to date by downloading language packs.

Enabling the Modules:

1. Go to Admin > Extend.
2. Search for the multilingual modules, and enable the following:
   • Language
   • Content Translation
   • Interface Translation
   • Configuration Translation
   • Localization Update
3. Click on Install to activate them.

Once the modules are enabled, your Drupal site will be ready for multilingual configuration.

Step 2: Add and Configure Languages

Now that the necessary modules are enabled, it’s time to set up the languages your site will support. Drupal allows you to add multiple languages easily.

Adding Languages:

1. Navigate to Admin > Configuration > Regional and language > Languages.
2. Click on Add language.
3. From the dropdown, select the language you want to add (e.g., Spanish, French, German, etc.).
4. Click Save.

You can add as many languages as needed for your website. Once added, Drupal will automatically handle the language selection for your users based on their preferences or location.

Setting the Default Language:

• In the Languages settings page, you can choose a default language for your site. This is the language that will be used if a user has not selected a preferred language.
• You can also reorder the languages or change the default language at any time from this page.

Step 3: Translate Content

With your languages set up, the next step is to translate the content. Drupal allows you to create translations of content, such as pages, articles, and custom content types.

Enabling Content Translation:

1. Go to Admin > Structure > Content types.
2. For each content type (e.g., Article, Basic Page), click Manage fields.
3. Under the Language section, enable the Content translation option for the content type.
4. Click Save content type.

Translating Content:

Once content translation is enabled for a content type, you can begin translating individual pieces of content.

1. Go to the content you want to translate (e.g., a page or article).
2. In the Language section, you will see a Translate tab or button. Click it.
3. Choose the language you want to translate the content into and click Add translation.
4. Provide the translated text for each field (e.g., title, body, etc.).
5. Once you’ve entered the translation, click Save.

Repeat this process for all content that needs to be translated. Drupal will keep track of which translations exist and allow you to manage them easily through the content editing interface.

Step 4: Translate the User Interface

Drupal not only allows you to translate content but also lets you translate the user interface (UI) elements, such as buttons, labels, and error messages. This is especially useful for making your site fully multilingual, including the administrative interface.

Translating Interface Text:

1. Navigate to Admin > Configuration > Regional and language > Translate interface.
2. Select the language you want to translate.
3. Use the Search field to find specific text that needs translation, such as “Submit” or “Save”.
4. Click on the string you want to translate, and provide the translation in the corresponding field.
5. Save the translation.

You can also download language packs for Drupal’s core interface from the Localization Update module. To do this:

1. Go to Admin > Configuration > Regional and language > Translate interface.
2. Click on Update translations.
3. Select the languages you want to update, and Drupal will automatically download the most up-to-date translation files.

Step 5: Translating Menus and Taxonomy

Menus and taxonomy (categories, tags) can also be translated, which is essential for ensuring your site’s navigation and content classification are available in multiple languages.

Translating Menus:

1. Navigate to Admin > Structure > Menus.
2. For each menu, click Translate.
3. Add the translation for each menu item in the desired language.

Translating Taxonomy:

1. Navigate to Admin > Structure > Taxonomy.
2. For each vocabulary (e.g., tags, categories), click Translate.
3. Translate the vocabulary terms into the appropriate languages.

Step 6: Handle Language Switching

Once you’ve set up translations for your content and UI elements, you’ll need to allow users to switch between languages. Drupal provides various options for adding a language switcher to your site.

Adding a Language Switcher:

1. Go to Admin > Structure > Block layout.
2. Locate the Language switcher block and place it in a region, such as the header or sidebar.
3. Enable the block and configure its visibility options (e.g., show it only for specific content types or users).
4. Save the block configuration.

Now, users will be able to switch between languages easily on your website.

Step 7: Consider SEO for Multilingual Sites

Search engine optimization (SEO) for multilingual websites is crucial for ensuring that each language version of your site is discoverable by search engines. There are several best practices for SEO on multilingual Drupal sites.

Key SEO Tips:

1. Use the right URL structure: Configure your site’s URL structure to include the language code in the URL. For example, example.com/en/ for English and example.com/es/ for Spanish.
   • Go to Admin > Configuration > Regional and language > Languages, and enable the Language detection and selection settings to use language-specific paths.
2. Use hreflang tags: These tags help search engines understand the relationship between pages in different languages. Drupal can automatically add hreflang tags to your pages if configured properly.
3. Optimize translated content: Ensure that translated pages have proper meta tags, title tags, and content that are optimized for each language.
4. Avoid duplicate content: Ensure each language version of your content is properly linked and unique to avoid penalties for duplicate content.

Conclusion

Building a multilingual website with Drupal allows you to reach a wider audience and offer a more personalized experience for users worldwide. With Drupal’s robust multilingual features, including language management, content translation, and user interface localization, you can easily create a fully translated website that engages visitors in their preferred language.

By following the steps in this guide, you’ll be able to set up and manage a multilingual Drupal site with ease, making it an essential tool for expanding your online presence and improving global accessibility.