We don't offer support for help with translation and multi-language features.
Reminder: our themes are for styling and not functionality. Translation and multi-language is a WordPress function and not something our theme has control over. For more information see: What is the role of my theme?
We haven't explicitly modified the core WordPress support for translations/language (WPML), and play nice with the parent theme (Genesis Translation) implementation.
If you need support for either of these, we recommend contacting the plugin developers directly.
We recommend against multi-language sites
In our opinion, you should create an entirely separate site for a second language.
Multi-language sites are a flat-out lower quality user experience than a site 100% dedicated to a single language. Take two identical sites - one entirely english, and the other as multi-language - and the entirely english one will win.
This is because:
- Translation plugins and their setup are complex and requires making trade-offs. It messes with site architecture, which splits Google crawl budget and internal linking.
- Other countries (eg. Italy) provide little to no value in terms of ads.
- Having a site with dual languages makes your business less valuable, because it adds complexity and narrows the amount of interested buyers.
If the cost of running a separate site ($1000/year) and the effort of updating two sites isn't worth the benefit you get from a second language, then just don't do it.
The complications created by multi-language sites costs FAR more than $1000/year in soft costs.
WPML
The WordPress Multilingual Plugin is one option for translating our themes, if you check out the WPML Getting Started Guide you'll see all of the documentation necessary to get that setup on your site.
If using WPML, you'll also want to add translation support to your search bars.
Polylang
We haven't tested or seen any sites using Polylang plugin, and can't offer support for this. We recommend contacting the plugin developer directly.
Speed
See this article from WPRocket on the pagespeed impact of various translation options.
Caution
Generally, we don't recommend running a multi-language blog. This is because the simplest way to monetize a recipe content site is through display advertising, and display advertising pays the highest for U.S. traffic.
It's often easier to rank in other countries and other languages, however the earnings from this traffic is typically significantly less than for U.S. traffic, and having too much non-U.S. traffic can disqualify you from the highest paying ad networks.
Because of this, we recommend everyone run an english-only blog targeting U.S. traffic. You can ignore this advice if you're sure you want to run a non-English site, but do it with the understanding that in general our advice isn't entirely applicable to you.
Complexity
When adding support for multi-language, there's a number of other (non theme/plugin and therefore not supported) issues that arise:
- localization and canonical settings in WordPress
- duplication and deduplication concerns for search engines
- Google Search Console targeting
- minimum traffic source qualifications for ad networks
In general, search engines will rank you lower if your site isn't the best match for user queries. This means that all things being equal, a site targeted at an English speaking U.S. person will outrank a site that targets non-English languages and/or countries.
The reason behind this is simple: a U.S. content developer will be familiar with U.S. customs and nuances, and their other content will be directly applicable. An Estonian (or wherever) content developer will be less familiar with U.S. intricacies and their other content/recipes may not be the most relevant for the visitor.
A site with 100% U.S. content is simply more relevant to a U.S. visitor.
Examples
These bloggers are successfully running the Feast Plugin setup with a multi-language blog: