Multilingual Setup for OpenCart

A multilingual store widens your audience and improves SEO across regions. OpenCart supports several languages out of the box, but working and indexing correctly requires the languages, translations and hreflang to be set up properly.

What multilingual involves

• store languages added and configured;
• interface and system messages translated;
• products, categories and articles translated;
• language URLs and a language switcher;
• hreflang for the search engines.

Why hreflang matters

Without hreflang Google can confuse language versions or treat them as duplicates. Correct markup tells the search engine which version to show a user from a given country or language.

The pitfalls

• untranslated strings in custom modules;
• no language prefixes in the URLs;
• duplicate content with no hreflang or canonical;
• "mixed" pages where part of the text stayed in another language.

The stages

1. languages and language files added;
2. URLs and the switcher configured;
3. content translated and modules checked;
4. hreflang implemented and indexation verified.

Common questions

Are Ukrainian and English enough?

It depends on the market; you can add as many languages as you like.

Are products translated separately?

Yes, each product has fields for every language.

Will several languages hurt SEO?

Quite the opposite with hreflang — the key is configuring it correctly.

Planning a multilingual store? I will set up the languages, translations and hreflang with no duplicates.