Probably you’ve seen other WordPress having the feature to change their blog to different language(s) and have been wondering how to set up a multilingual WordPress blog on your own site. Don’t worry, I can help you.

Honestly, once you have a WordPress blog all the task has become much easier than you think. Here’s the easiest way you can install it in your own WordPress blog.

Step 1: Add New

On your left hand sidebar under tab called Plugins look for option call “Add New” and please click that.

Step 2: Search Option

Search for “Language Translator”. You can see there will tons of options available. It’s up to you which you prefer. As for me I choose Global Translator. For this exercise you can simply follow what I do.

Step 3: Click Install

You can see there’s option call “Install” at the end of the row. Click it and a popup box will appear.

Step 4: Install Now

Click “Install Now”, the WordPress will install the Plugin automatically in most cases.

Note: Some server require extra requirements. It will require your FTP Username and Password within the WordPress Admin area itself. If you face that just get your FTP login details and you should be able to install it.

If the problem persists, you can either ask us here or consult your hosting provider for assistance. They should be able to guide you.

Step 5: Activate Plugin

Click “Activate Plugin” to make it active.

Step 6: Configure it

Once you click “Activate Plugin” the system will automatically activate it and you can see it appears on your left-hand sidebar under tab called Settings >> Global Translator. Click on it to configure.

Click to expand

That’s it!

Pretty easy right?

Enjoy it!

Cheers!

If you’re not a designer or coder then what you can really do is downloading all the themes that available online. There are tons of free WordPress themes available in the net which you can use and mostly do whatever you want. For example: type in Google “Free WordPress Themes”, you can list of sites offering free themes. Most of these are a pain-free WordPress theme customization which is within everyone’s reach. What you really need now is few basic tools, a willingness to learn how to use them, and read this article – which will help you choose the basic tools that everyone should use.

Now, I assumed you have downloaded a free theme or even probably purchased a few bucks for a “Wordpress premium” theme. It’s a cool, beautiful theme, gorgeously laid out, dripping with wonderful features.

However, it is very likely that you wish to customize the theme, whether you want to change the header, playing with a few colors here and there, replace a logo image with your own image, or radically alter the layout. So why do so many users make life so difficult for them by not using basic web development tools to customize their WordPress site?

Hey, this is a question I ask myself time after time and also questions that raised by my site’s visitors. Many times I came across posts from people wanting to change some CSS stating “I changed a few things in the CSS, but it didn’t work.”

Now, ask yourself this, “Do you understand what is CSS and how it works?” If not of course it didn’t work! Why would it, if you don’t know how CSS works. You see, sometimes you’ll get lucky and successfully tweak something blindly and its work wonderfully but please remember that you won’t get lucky all the time and will end up in frustration.

Hey, let’s make things clear. You are investing your precious time and money in building a website, so I assume you want a fully function, cool and decent looking one not only in Internet Explorer but also in Firefox, Google Chrome, or any other browsers.

In order to get those without getting frustrated you need focus regardless you’re newbie or not and equip with the rights tools. To get your customization process goes smoothly here are some secrets that can assist you during the process of tweaking your WordPress blog. Don’t worry, it’s easy to use, no headache and more importantly it’s FREE…

A Must Have WordPress Customization Tools

There are few basic tools you must have when customizing your WordPress blog. Here’s what I personally used whenever I’m installing new WordPress, upgrading, customizing a theme, etc. Not all the tools listed below will be used all the time but they each have their purpose and you should use them whenever you need.

Tool 1: FTP Client

FTP also known as File Transfer Protocol a software that used to transfer file(s) from your desktop pc to a server.

When I need to use FTP?

You use FTP when first installing a fresh WordPress blog. You also use it when you want to modify the theme and installing your Plugin. Just for info, WordPress have built-in Theme Editor which is good to use but it has limitations. The best way to handle files is by editing your template files locally, and uploads them to your site using FTP. There are some excellent free one’s out there which you simply download and install them like Filezilla or CoreFTP.

By the way, WordPress blog has evolved. I’ve been using WordPress since it’s first launched and comparing to its earlier versions, today it has simplify everything, almost!

Today, the only thing you need to do is installing the core WordPress files for the first installation. Then, all your themes, Plugin, etc can be done 100% from your blog admin area. Awesome isn’t it? A year back you need to transfer Plugin or theme to your server using FTP but today you can simply installing it from your admin area with ease.

Tool 2: Text/HTML/PHP File Editor

Personally, I use Dreamweaver. It’s so easy to use where you can view the design and the source code. It has tons of features that will ease your tasks. Of course if you’re not familiar with it then you have to spend some times to learn it. Hey, you can still use plain text editor software like Notepad, MS Word or etc. There is a lot of HTML Editor available online which you can get it for free or for a price like UltraEdit. Google is your friend so Google it.

Tool 3: Browsers

Every pc by default came with Internet Explorer and additionally you can install browsers like Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, etc. Just remember that not all browsers behave the same so your WordPress blog may looks awesomely in Internet Explorer but not with Firefox. For that reason you can use other browsers to check your WordPress customization not broken.

Personally I use Firefox as my main “development” browser, but I continually check my work in IE and Chrome. Firefox has many great features and great Plugin/widgets/add-ons which you can utilize it. So, you may use Firefox as your development browser, but do check your work in IE.

I did mention about the Plugin/widgets/add-ons earlier. This is the best part if you’re using Firefox. They have tons of add-ons that you can use mostly for free to ease your works. So, for this case I advise you to download Firebug and Web Developer Toolbar. These add-ons will allow you to inspect the HTML, CSS, Scripts and it is good for debugging, customizing CSS and finding markup errors.

Tips:

I believe maybe some of you know you can view the page source code in any browsers. For example: You can view the page source by using your mouse and “right click on the page” and “View Source” in IE and in Firefox you do the same or you can use short cut CTRL+U. The best thing using Firefox is by viewing the page source you can see if there’s a markup errors and also you can check your image URL if the image(s) not appearing.

Conclusion

Wordpress blog is great as a business marketing tool and for that reason only many business owners even individual are using blog as their main website.

You see…

You don’t need sit for a tuition class or taking up some courses in order to be an expert to create a great-looking and functional WordPress blog. What you really need to do is to understand the syntax, rules, standards and code in HTML, PHP, XHTML and CSS. We are lucky with the availability of internet and its resources there are tons of great tutorials out there which you can use to greatly improve your understanding of these topics and help you deal with problems.

Cheers!