nbLatin script

How to translate WordPress to Norwegian

Norwegian (Norsk) reaches roughly ~5 millionspeakers. Here's what's actually involved in translating a WordPress site into it — the technical setup, the Norwegian-specific gotchas, and the SEO.

hreflang
nb
Native
Norsk
Direction
LTR
Text length
+about the same as English
Plurals
2 forms
“Welcome”
Velkommen

What's specific to Norwegian

Most of translating WordPress is the same in any language, but each language has quirks that break layouts or SEO if you ignore them. For Norwegian:

  • Norwegian has two written standards — Bokmål (nb, the common default) and Nynorsk (nn). Pick one; most sites use nb.
  • Uses æ, ø, å like Danish.
  • Formality: du (informal) is standard.

Step by step

1. Add Norwegian as a target language

Set your source language, then add Norwegian (nb) as a target. With an automatic plugin you don't create a translated copy of every page by hand — it translates on the fly.

2. Translate — automatically or by hand

Machine and AI translation get you Norwegian coverage in minutes; review the strings that matter (navigation, calls to action, legal) for the right register. Estimate the cost with the translation cost calculator.

3. Serve it under a clean URL

Publish Norwegian under a language-prefixed path like /nb/. Give pages readable slugs with the slug generator.

4. Get the Norwegian SEO right

Add reciprocal hreflang pointing at your nb version (with x-default), set <html lang="nb">, and translate titles and meta descriptions. Build the tags with the hreflang generator and verify with the hreflang checker.

Doing it the easy way

Gloty translates your whole site into Norwegian automatically with the AI provider you choose, stores it in your own database, and emits the correct hreflang and lang/dir attributes for you. See how it stacks up against Weglot and WPML, or read the pillar guide on making WordPress multilingual.

Add Norwegian to your WordPress site in minutes — automatic AI translation, stored in your own database.

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