Polylang Quick Start Guide (2025)

Plugins

December 7, 2025

Polylang is one of the most popular and lightweight plugins for creating a multilingual WordPress site. It allows you to translate posts, pages, menus, widgets, categories, and even URLs — all while keeping your database clean and performance high.

This quick start guide walks you through everything you need to set up a multilingual site with Polylang: installation, language setup, translation workflow, menus, widgets, and media translations.

What You Can Do with Polylang

Create multilingual posts, pages, and custom post types
Translate categories, tags, menus, and widgets
Add language switchers anywhere
Translate permalinks and slugs
Use either manual or assisted translation
Keep site performance fast (no heavy page builders)

Note: Polylang is free, but Polylang Pro adds URL features, automatic duplication, sticky translations, and better WooCommerce compatibility.

Step 1: Install and Activate Polylang

Go to Plugins → Add New
Search for Polylang
Click Install → Activate

After activation, a setup wizard appears automatically.

Step 2: Add Your Site Languages

Polylang allows you to add multiple languages and configure language-specific rules.

How to Add a Language

Go to Languages → Languages
Click Add New Language
Select a language (e.g., English, Japanese, Spanish)
Assign a URL slug (e.g., /en/)
Choose a flag and locale
Save

Repeat for each language you want to support.

Language URL Options

Directory mode: /en/, /fr/ (recommended)
Subdomain mode: en.yoursite.com
One domain per language: requires Polylang Pro

Step 3: Translate Posts & Pages

Polylang uses a simple UI inside the editor. Each post or page has separate translations.

How to Translate a Page or Post

Edit a post
Find the Languages box in the sidebar
Select the content’s language
Click the + icon next to the language you want to translate into

This creates a new post linked as a translation of the original.

Translate Slugs

Each language version can have its own slug:

English: yoursite.com/about/
French:  yoursite.com/fr/a-propos/
Japanese: yoursite.com/ja/会社概要/

Step 4: Create Multilingual Menus

Polylang requires a separate menu per language. This ensures full control over localized navigation.

Steps

Go to Appearance → Menus
Create a menu for English → Assign “Primary Menu (English)”
Create a menu for Japanese → Assign “Primary Menu (Japanese)”
Repeat for all languages

Menus do not auto-sync; you add items manually for each language.

Step 5: Add a Language Switcher

Users need a way to switch between languages. Polylang’s switcher is flexible and can be added to:

Menus
Sidebars
Footers
Your theme (via shortcode or PHP)

Menu Language Switcher

Inside Appearance → Menus, add the built-in “Language Switcher” menu item.

Widget Language Switcher

Use the Language Switcher block in the Widgets editor.

Shortcode

[pll_language_switcher]

Step 6: Translating Categories, Tags & Custom Taxonomies

Polylang lets you translate taxonomy terms just like posts.

Steps

Go to Posts → Categories
Select a category
Add translations via the Languages panel

You can do the same for tags and custom taxonomies.

Step 7: Translate Widgets, Site Title, and Other Strings

Some texts do not appear in posts or menus — these must be translated using the String Translations tool.

Go to Languages → String Translations
Find strings like:
- Site title & tagline
- Widget text
- Theme options
- Customizer labels
Add translations for each language

This replaces text that appears globally on your site.

Step 8: Translate Media (Optional)

You can choose between sharing the same media across languages or enabling media translation.

Enable under:

Languages → Settings → Media

If enabled, each language gets its own translated image titles, captions, and alt text.

Step 9: Check URL & SEO Settings

Polylang is SEO-friendly and works well with Yoast, Rank Math, and SEOPress.

Make sure:

Your sitemap includes multilingual versions
Each language has unique URLs
hreflang tags are enabled (Polylang handles this automatically)

Polylang Pro Advantages (Optional Upgrade)

Upgrade if you need:

URL customization by language (e.g., /blog/ vs /ニュース/)
Content duplication for quicker translation
WooCommerce Multilingual features
Professional translation workflow
Better string detection

Common Polylang Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them

Forgetting to set a language for posts: Always select a default language.
Duplicate URLs: Ensure slugs differ per language.
Theme hard-coded text: Translate via String Translations.
Menu missing in another language: Create a separate menu for each language.

Conclusion

Polylang is an excellent choice for multilingual WordPress sites thanks to its clean architecture and performance-focused design. By translating posts, menus, widgets, and strings — and adding a language switcher — you can build a fully localized site with minimal complexity.

Summary:
Install → Add languages → Translate content → Create menus → Add switcher → Translate strings → Configure SEO.

Once set up, Polylang makes managing multilingual content simple, scalable, and efficient.

🔌 Looking for more? Check out our WordPress Plugins Hub to discover recommended tools and how to use them.