The Year of Multilingual Websites
I’m writing this from Tokyo, where last night I attended the State of the Word (WordPress’s annual keynote).
WordPress dominates the CMS market with a 62.3% market share, powering 43.6% of all websites globally. Significantly, non-English WordPress sites are expected to overtake English ones by 2025. The update on the roadmap for next year was also exciting to see.
I believe WordPress is already a very competitive CMS in the market, but with features such as real-time collaboration & feedback and the next generation of the block editor, it pushes WordPress even further ahead of its competitors. I should know, I was in Singapore last week for DrupalCon.
It’s fitting that this year’s event was held in Tokyo – Japan was actually the first country to localise WordPress over 20 years ago, long before WordPress even had official translation capabilities. That pioneering spirit in making WordPress truly global continues today, and we’ve seen it firsthand in our work this year.
In 2024, multilingual WordPress projects became a major part of our work at The Code Company. We’ve helped clients reach audiences across vastly different markets:
- For Fujifilm-X.com, we implemented 40+ languages managing hundreds of thousands of content pieces
- eBay Advertising needed distinct approaches for 6 languages, each with region-specific content
- Initium Media required specialised handling of Chinese dialects, with their entire backend CMS in Mandarin
- [Another Global Brand Still to Launch next year] needed different content for English-speaking regions like Australia versus the UK – showing that multilingual isn’t just about translation
What we’ve learned? Going multilingual isn’t just about plugins and technology – it’s about understanding how your content and business actually works across markets.
The Publishers’ Playbook for 2025 (APAC)
As the leading website agency for digital publishers and content-focused brands, The Code Company is kicking off 2025 with The Publishers’ Playbook APAC.
This free, 60-minute masterclass takes place on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, at 10:00 AM SGT / 1:00 PM AEDT and will equip media professionals across Asia-Pacific with actionable insights to:
- Streamline operations
- Launch new digital products
- Accelerate revenue in 2025
Special Guest Speaker: Jin Ding, CEO of Initium Media
Headlining the event is Jin Ding, CEO of Initium Media, the Singapore-based news platform that’s built a thriving paid membership community of Chinese-speaking audiences around the world.
Ding will discuss Initium Media’s recent digital transformation projects and share lessons on how their team successfully navigated language barriers to bring their ambitious product vision to life.
I will be outline the five essential tech considerations for launching or scaling a publishing website.
With over a decade of experience supporting media companies in Asia-Pacific and the US, I will be sharing practical advice on simplifying product strategy and tackling operational inefficiencies.
Register for our masterclass: https://thecode.co/the-publishers-playbook-apac/
