.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
%201Q26_%20GRC%202029.png)
.svg)
.svg)
How do you translate a WordPress site with Loco Translate?
Loco Translate is a free WordPress plugin that translates theme and plugin text — the fixed interface strings a developer wrote — through an in-browser PO file editor in the WordPress dashboard. It does not translate posts, pages, or products, so most multilingual WordPress sites pair it with a content-translation tool such as WPML, Polylang, or a TMS connector like Smartling's WordPress Connector. That split — software strings versus site content — is the most common point of confusion when teams evaluate WordPress translation tools, and it decides which tool actually fits the job.
Last reviewed: September 8, 2026
Is Loco Translate compatible with all WordPress themes?
Loco Translate is not compatible with all WordPress themes — it works only with themes and plugins that implement WordPress's internationalization (i18n) standard, meaning the developer wrapped display text in gettext functions and registered a text domain. When a theme follows those conventions, Loco Translate can extract its strings, edit them, and compile the MO files WordPress loads at runtime. When it doesn't, translations either can't be created or silently fail to display. The failure patterns are specific:
- Hardcoded strings. Theme authors who print text directly in templates instead of wrapping it in gettext functions produce strings Loco Translate cannot detect, which is why some themes translate 100% and others show untouched English no matter what you do.
- Missing or mismatched text domain. A theme must register its strings under a text domain and load its translation files correctly (via load_theme_textdomain); when the domain is mismatched, translations save successfully in the editor but never appear on the live site — the most confusing failure mode to debug.
- Multiple text domains. Some themes bundle several text domains, which Loco Translate can handle, but only through custom configuration rather than out of the box.
- Dynamic and page-builder content. Text generated dynamically or built in a page builder lives outside the theme's PO/MO files entirely, which is why Smartling's review of WordPress translation plugins notes Loco Translate struggles to translate pages with dynamic content.
- Update overwrites. Translations saved inside the theme's own folder are wiped by the next theme update, so Loco Translate offers protected custom save locations — skipping that choice costs teams their entire translation on the next update.
What are the best plugins for translating WordPress sites?
Smartling's 2026 review names nine leading WordPress translation plugins — Smartling's WordPress Connector, WPML, TranslatePress, Weglot, Polylang, GTranslate, Loco Translate, MultilingualPress, and Babble — and the full ranked breakdown with pricing lives in that guide. The more useful first decision is category, because the categories do different jobs and are not interchangeable:
- String translators (Loco Translate) — translate a theme's or plugin's own interface strings via PO/MO files, free and dashboard-native, but they translate no post or page content and provide no visitor-facing language switcher.
- Multilingual content plugins (WPML, Polylang) — create per-language versions of posts, pages, taxonomies, and menus, add a language switcher, and handle multilingual SEO structures like per-language URLs, which is what most people actually mean by "making the site multilingual."
- Automatic whole-site translators (Weglot, GTranslate) — detect and machine-translate the entire site in one pass across 100+ languages, trading manual control for speed, which suits small sites that need coverage fast more than brands that need reviewed quality.
- TMS connectors (Smartling's WordPress Connector) — plug WordPress into a full translation management system with translation memory, professional workflow, and analytics, built for enterprise and multisite deployments where volume makes plugin-by-plugin manual work impractical.
How do WordPress translation tools compare on scope and cost?
WordPress powers 43.5% of all websites globally, according to W3Techs (2026), which makes choosing the right translation tool one of the most common localization decisions businesses face. Published scope and pricing for the main options:
| Herramienta | What it translates | Published starting price |
|---|---|---|
| Loco Translate | Theme and plugin strings (PO/MO files) | Gratis |
| WPML | Posts, pages, taxonomies, menus, plugin texts | From €39/year |
| Polylang | Posts, pages, media, taxonomies, widgets, menus | Free; Pro €99/year |
| TraducirPrensa | Front-end content including SEO metadata | From €99/year |
| Weglot | Whole site, automatic, 110+ languages | Free to 2,000 words; from €15/month |
| GTranslate | Whole site, automatic, 100+ languages | Free; paid from $9.99/month |
| Smartling WordPress Connector | Posts, pages, categories, tags, theme widgets, navigation menus | Enterprise TMS (quoted) |
How can I translate my WordPress website using Loco Translate?
Translating with Loco Translate takes five steps, and the last one is where most teams discover its scope limit:
- Install and activate the plugin — Loco Translate is free in the WordPress plugin directory, and once activated it adds its own menu to the dashboard sidebar.
- Pick the bundle to translate — open Loco Translate and choose the theme or plugin whose strings you want to translate; Loco reads the bundle's template and shows every translatable string it can detect.
- Add a language and choose a safe save location — create a new translation file for the target language, and save it to one of Loco's protected custom locations rather than the theme's own folder, so the next theme update doesn't erase your work.
- Translate the strings — work through the in-browser PO editor manually, or connect a machine translation service — Loco Translate integrates with DeepL, Google Translate, and Microsoft Translator — to pre-fill suggestions you then review.
- Compile and verify — Loco compiles the MO file WordPress actually reads, so switch the site language (Settings → General) and confirm the strings display; anything still in English is usually a hardcoded string or text-domain mismatch, not a Loco failure.
Note what those steps never touched: posts, pages, and products. Loco Translate translates the software around your content, so a genuinely multilingual site needs a content-translation layer on top of it.
Which teams is Loco Translate the right tool for?
- Site owners who need to translate a theme's or plugin's built-in labels — "Read more," cart buttons, form messages — without touching code or buying software.
- Developers preparing their own themes for translation, using Loco's tools to extract translatable strings and generate template files.
- Single-language sites serving a non-English audience, where WordPress's site language setting plus translated theme strings covers the whole need.
- Teams comfortable working directly with PO/MO translation files who want an editor in the dashboard instead of an external CAT tool.
When is Loco Translate not the right choice?
- Multilingual content sites: Loco Translate creates no per-language posts or pages and offers no language switcher for visitors, so it cannot make a site multilingual on its own.
- Sites built heavily on page builders or dynamic content, where the text never passes through the PO/MO files Loco edits.
- Teams that need translation memory, reviewer workflow, or quality analytics — manual string editing doesn't scale past a handful of languages.
- Enterprise or multisite WordPress deployments, where per-site manual file management multiplies with every locale added.
Checklist: what to confirm before committing to a WordPress translation tool
Does your theme actually support translation?
Check whether the theme documents a text domain and ships a POT template file — a theme without proper internationalization will defeat any string translator, Loco Translate included.
Are you translating software strings, content, or both?
Theme labels need a string translator; posts and pages need a multilingual content plugin or a TMS connector — most real projects need both layers.
Where will translations live when the theme updates?
Translations stored in a theme's folder are overwritten on update; confirm the tool offers a protected save location before you invest hours of editing.
Will machine translation output be reviewed before it ships?
Loco Translate, Weglot, and GTranslate can all pre-fill machine translation, but unreviewed output on customer-facing pages is a brand risk, not a shortcut.
Does the tool cover your custom fields and post types?
Sites using Advanced Custom Fields or custom post types should verify support explicitly — coverage varies widely between plugins, and untranslated custom fields are a common late surprise.
How does Smartling handle WordPress translation?
Smartling's WordPress Connector plugs Smartling's translation management system directly into WordPress, so teams submit content for translation without leaving the WordPress admin. The Connector supports translation of posts, pages, categories, tags, theme widgets, and navigation menus, with bulk submit as the primary submission path and a per-post Smartling widget for one-off requests. It carries documented support for Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) and MultilingualPress 3, and it can be extended to custom post types through its actions and filters — the coverage gaps that force manual workarounds in lighter plugins. Because translation runs through Smartling's TMS, every string benefits from translation memory and translation analytics, and multisite architectures get automated routing of translated content back to the right site. Smartling also operates as a translation service provider inside WPML, so teams already committed to WPML can route its translation jobs through Smartling's workflow rather than managing linguists manually.
¿Listo para ver a Smartling en acción?
Converse con alguien del equipo de Smartling para identificar cómo podemos ayudarle a aprovechar mejor su presupuesto al entregarle traducciones con la más alta calidad, mayor rapidez y a costos mucho más bajos.