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Learn how CMS localization can boost your online presence, expand your reach, and optimize for international success with our informative article.

CMSs: industry state and how to localize them best

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LinkedIn is a popular professional networking platform launched in 2002. Today, in 2023, it contains more than 950 million members from more than <a href="https://news.linkedin.com/about-us#Statistics" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">200 countries</a> and 60+ million companies. Such an impressive statistic makes LinkedIn the most significant professional network and, as a result, one of the best platforms for businesses and self-brand development. 

Many use it as the most popular professional network as the digital substitute for business card exchange. Having a presence on LinkedIn is quasi-mandatory to connect in various industries. This is an excellent source to promote companies, find new customers, and extend your professional network.

## Your profile - your business card
Make sure your profile is accurate and complete. It is your virtual CV and the first impression of you as a professional. LinkedIn provides a list of tools that can help you prove your skills:
- Fill in the description and provide the primary information about yourself;
- Add your experience and educational information; this is especially important if your education is related to the current topic/industry;
- Highlight your primary skills;
- Ask about recommendations from your clients - LinkedIn provides a separate row for them. 

LinkedIn also adds some really smart things to the user profiles, like endorsements from colleagues or business partners and fields for you to add portfolio items (such as presentations, certificates, etc.)

Make sure to incorporate a unique yet professional photo into your profile. Of course, you can showcase your individuality, but ensure you maintain a correct appearance.

Unlike other social media, LinkedIn doesn't require showing everyday life - you don't have to put every moment out there meticulously, but as with a "regular" CV, make sure you portray yourself wholly and coherently. Tell your story, put the facts out there, and add character. But if you have what to say, especially in your professional field - LinkedIn could be a great tool to share knowledge with fellow thinkers and build a blog. 

Once you have set up, you can add people you already know. Start with friends and colleagues and close business relations. You can ask them for some endorsements while you are at it. For example, if you worked as a translation projects manager at some company, add your direct superior to that job on LinkedIn and ask for an endorsement. Most people love doing these endorsements, not only because they (hopefully) are friendly people but also because that gives them some additional visibility (and shows them off as credible managers of other people).

We recommend that you do not randomly add people to your network on LinkedIn but only people you've had something to do with. Especially if you connect your address book with LinkedIn, it will find everyone you might have been in contact with throughout the years, but that does not necessarily mean these are meaningful connections in your life.


## Groups - the way to show you
It's not exactly original, but LinkedIn also has groups (open and closed ones), and it makes a lot, we repeat, **a lot of sense** to join groups. The groups are perfect tools to extend your network, share and collect knowledge, and gain visibility; also, they are a great source of information and education.

As a translator, there are a lot of rather large groups on translation, localization, internationalization, global communications, marketing, linguistics, language technology, and related fields. Some are independent, but most are affiliated with a company, association, or university. 

To start exploring groups on LinkedIn, it's a good idea to join a few and observe their activity for a while. Like any social network, it's beneficial to participate in existing discussions, answer questions, and offer help before posting your content. Joining groups can also bring you closer to potential contacts, especially if you need help connecting with them. You can subscribe to various discussions and stay up-to-date on community happenings.

## Companies pages - your chance to find the right place
Companies pages are a significant source of information for LinkedIn users. You can find there the primary information about the companies you are interested in, updates, and what is essential - vacancies. So, if you are highly interested in some companies - we highly recommend following them via LinkedIn. Also, company pages can show the entire atmosphere inside the company, their style, business voice, etc. 

## Content as your key to success
As we already mentioned above, you can create different content on LinkedIn, and this content can play a significant role in your success. You can share your CV with the cover letter with your contact, create attractive carousels, or write longreads and short posts with hot topics to prove your expertise. 

Besides content generated by you, LinkedIn will also remind your contacts about you. For example, it automatically generates work anniversary notifications or signals to others when you change the job. 

Contact the right people with the right speech
Sometimes, it is hard to find or contact specific people. Emails can get into spam, or you can never meet them live, especially if you are not an attendee of the same events/conferences/summit. LinkedIn makes the world close to you. With the right speech, you can contact the right people and ask the questions that arise. 

## Conclusion: networking tricks with LinkedIn
Although this introduction to LinkedIn is brief, it is crucial to understand how the platform's mechanics can benefit your branding. As a part of the professional network, you don't need to distinguish yourself from a random audience to connect with the right people. You're already a part of a crowd that shares similar interests, which can expedite your interactions with others. 

But remember that LinkedIn will always encourage you to share news, keep your profile updated, and find more people you work with, so it will be more capable of analyzing its users more accurately. A LinkedIn user with outdated job information has a much lower value to a platform whose only purpose is peer recruiting and brand building. Therefore, repeat the core message: If you are present, do it right. LinkedIn can work exceptionally well in professional contexts if your profile is at least considerably complete and polished. You will build a network rather quickly, and joining a few groups will get you in touch with many people and ideas. 

We hope you enjoyed reading this article! Stay tuned to get more information!

Start your development on Linkedin as a pro. The Lingohub team prepared the best practices combined in the guide. Click and read more

A beginners guide to LinkedIn for translators

A Beginners Guide to LinkedIn for Translators

Let's face it: no project management tool will magically solve all your team's organizational problems. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but some services, if employed correctly, can cut through your inner chaos, help streamline processes, and provide an urgently needed overview of workloads and task distribution. One such solution is Trello; our team has been working with it for quite some time. So, in this article, we wanted to provide insights into how to get the most out of Trello for your business, be it a larger software company, small developer team, or startup.

## Introduction to Trello

<a href="https://trello.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Trello</a> is a project or task management tool with cards and columns. Much like a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Kanban </a> view, this organizational principle visually represents tasks. The columns can be managed, and the cards can be moved around or re-ordered. One or several team members can be assigned to a card (simple or complex cards are available). For the latter, users can add checklists with milestones or To-Dos or enhance the cards with color coding, comments, team members' mentions, and attachments. Trello is a highly versatile organizational tool that can be very effective if used consistently, and the following tips can assist with that.


<h2>Five ways to get the most out of Trello</h2>

### 1. Better focus on set up than fixing 
You cannot outsource the thinking process to a project management tool, so carefully consider what kind of workflows you have in your team, how many team members will be using Trello, and which types of project areas you have that need to be reflected virtually in one or several Trello boards. If you do not clarify this initially, Trello will not help you manage your team, and your team will be occupied with managing itself in Trello.

Here are some thoughts to help you set it up: Which kinds of columns help you organize your work? Does each team member need one (say, "*Joe's tasks*, "*Jill's tasks,*" and "*Tasks to be discussed*"), or would you rather use a column for a specific step in the process (such as "*unassigned*," "*in the pipeline,*" "*in progress*" and "*done*")? Maybe giving different aspects of your product their columns makes more sense. No general approach fits all teams, and you need to be aware of this. The tool should help you get your work done better and organized.

> Practical aspects: Don't use too many columns. Otherwise, you will scroll horizontally without end, and the idea of a general overview will be lost immediately. Also, don't overload columns. If you need to scroll several screens down - there must be something wrong with your board's setup. 

**Pro tip:** Agree on colors to signal certain product aspects or company areas. Managing a huge enterprise? Use various boards, say one for marketing, one for office administration, one for legal, and so on.

### 2. One man, one card

The important thing in project management is that tasks can't simultaneously be assigned to a few people. Of course, when the big task is divided between a few people, it is real. Still, there should always be a person responsible for tasks done, who makes a report, etc. It makes no sense to include several people in cards, as this defeats the purpose of the Kanban view.

Adding several people to a card will make sense in the following scenario: the card contains one or several checklists, and some items rely on others, so they are included in the card for information. 

****Here is a simple example:** A card called "*Implement special offer graphic on landing page*" will include a 2-item checklist: one is "**Jeff**: Provide Portuguese ALT texts for Dave" and "Dave: Implement graphics and ALT texts for English and Portuguese, do a frontend test." 

This card can have Jeff and Dave assigned, but once Jeff sends the Portuguese HTML ALT texts to Dave or posts them in the card, Jeff is free to go and will remove himself from the card. Jeff might have even mentioned Dave in a comment within the card and let him know that he's done with his part of the task. Dave can take over and implement the whole thing, and the job is done.

<h3>3. Focus and granularity</h3>

As we said in the first point, you need to think hard about setting up your Trello board, and one essential part of that is to ensure you put what you put into your cards. The most significant mistake is having cards with no actual tasks, so they will never be moved or ready to be worked on.

**The task should be clear and well-described.** The control question is: Can someone do the task without further discussion in the defined amount of time?

For instance, a card titled "**Release new landing page**" is wrong. No one person will probably release a new landing page, as several people are involved. So, this is not a task but a project or bundle of tasks. 

To correct this process, you can create a list of cards like: "**Delivery**: Graphics for new LP" and "**Delivery**: Content for new LP" and assign them to the designer and writer. There could be some checklists with subtasks - "talk to frontend lead about requirements," "present drafts for feedback," etc. Once all the content is delivered to whoever implements it, these cards are DONE and will be moved or archived. 

Depending on the complexity of your projects, you can create more or less granular in your Trello card definitions. Try to divide the tasks and avoid checklists that will lead to a slippery slope into overloaded cards. The best part of work motivation is to be able to cross things off your list, so make things cross-offable (this word does not even exist).

> **Example of using Trello card:** Someone has to buy the beers for Friday afternoon's team chill-out on the balcony, so create a card that says "Buy some beers and put them in the fridge", set the milestone to Friday 11 am and assign it to - maybe your intern. The intern buys the beer, puts it into the fridge, and moves the card to column "Done." 




### 4. Make cards obvious and self-explanatory

We have already mentioned this aspect multiple times. Make sure the titles of your cards are concise and self-explanatory. Your team should understand what a task is about without having to open it and read the description. And if they open the card, ensure a clear explanation. Do not write a novel; just a short sentence that precisely describes this task.

> **Good example**: Set up wifi in the office (title), and the task description reads, "Set up the wifi router (UPS package in the kitchen) in the main room, set up WPA2 encryption, post passphrase to the intranet."

>**Bad example**: wifi (title), and task description - "There is no wifi in the main room."

Your controlling question should be: Will any team member know what this is about without asking me? If the answer is yes, then good.


<h3>5. Discipline will save your project management, nothing else</h3>

The last point we want to make in this rather text-heavy analysis is the aspect of discipline. Once your team is on board for a new tool and everyone has opted into its logic, discipline will decide the success or failure of implementing a tool like Trello. You need transparent processes inside your team, and each team member should understand how your company works in Trello and at all.



Your processes should transparently describe how the team works. For example, if you create a task for the design team about a new landing page, but they need text content first, who will be a responsible person to ask about it? Will be the content writers responsible for the task before reassigning or not? Or you will have two separate tasks for two teams. No matter what way you choose - the only important thing is that all participants should have the same view on the same things. 

## Conclusion

We hope this article can help you move forward with task and project management. Trello is one of many tools, so be sure to compare before you decide what fits your team's or project's requirements best. But remember that discipline is vital. Even advanced tools won't work without proper utilization.


At Lingohub, we are also developing some features that can simplify your localization management, for example:
- Color labels that allow the split of the segments by the logic groups;
- Statuses like 'New", "Preffiled," "Draft," "Translated," and "Approved" to see the exact progress of the project;
- Unlimited numbers of projects to separate your tasks if needed. As well you can group and mark the projects;
- Discussions with team members and segments mentioning;
- etc. 


To find more information - schedule a demo call with our team - we will gladly give you more information or try Lingohub for 14 days for free. No credit card. No catch. Cancel anytime

Looking to maximize your Trello project management skills? Check out our article on the top five ways to get the most out of Trello. It's packed with valuable information to help you succeed.

Getting the most ouf of Trello project management

Localizing "just" your app is not enough to get it out to your target audience. The popular app stores (Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, etc.) allow localizing the product page information to find clients worldwide. How does this work? Let's take a look at the App Store. If your app has English as the primary language - the English metadata will be displayed across different App Store regions. 

If you add one more language, like Spanish, the users with Spanish language preferences and users from the regions where the App Store supports Spanish will see the localized information. Translating primary information allows users to find your app faster and get the information in the native language. As a result, app developers get more profit in parallel with the number of downloads growing.
For now, the most popular App Stores support a variety of languages: 
- App Store - <a href="https://developer.apple.com/localization/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">175 regions and 40 languages </a>
- Google Play - <a href="https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/table/4419860?hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">44 languages </a>  
- Amazon App Store - <a href="https://developer.amazon.com/docs/app-submission/distribute-your-app-internationally.html#localization-options-supported-by-the-appstore" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">7 languages</a>

<center>The biggest app stores (<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/276623/number-of-apps-available-in-leading-app-stores/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">3rd quarter 2022</a>)<br></center> 



## What is it, ASO?

ASO or App Store Optimization is the list of activities to raise the visibility of the application for relevant user requests. This process is similar to SEO, with the main difference being that SEO is targeted on the search engines (Google and Bing) while ASO is on the app platforms. Also, ASO has fewer tools for promotion - semantic, text content, and visual. Precisely localization supports the matching of these three criteria for successful app optimization. 


## How to choose the languages for app localization? 

Of course, the best option would be to translate the product description to all app store's available languages and get as much audience as possible. But it will take much more money and time than a rational approach because the app product page - is not only about the content but also updating about releases and bug fixing, replying to the comments, etc. The more languages you have - the more everyday activities should be done. To start the app store localization:
1. Define your application's key regions - who are your users, the audience portrait, etc.
2. Consider if your product fits the cultural requirements of your targeted location.
3. Consider the overall interest in mobile applications in the region.

Based on the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1287159/app-downloads-by-country/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Statista 2022</a> report, the following countries have the biggest app downloads. 


## How to localize your app store product page with Lingohub?

**Step 1: Internationalize your app**<br>
Internationalization (i18n) is the process of preparing your product for localization. The main internationalization task is separating content that should be localized from the code. During i18n, the development team prepares language resource files for further translation. When using Lingohub, clients can synchronize these files with the system (manually or via smooth integrations with popular repositories and applications). Avoid using the hard code in your application. All the hardcoded data should also be added to the separate language resource files. 

**Step 2: Include description content in the resource file**<br>
The app store description is not part of your application code, and here is a trick. Add the product description in the resource file anyway, as well as a title and keywords. To change the title or not is a decision dictated by region requirement - does your naming sound good in another language, or are there any wrong associations with it?


---

**Note**: do not forget about images. All the screenshots, and promo banners, should also be localized. We overviewed this question in our article about "[App stores optimization](/blog/app-store-optimization-localized-apps)."

For the fast and appropriate translation of visual content (interfaces, landings, etc.) Lingohub provides the <a href="https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1091712683693829044/Lingohub-for-Figma" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Figma plugin</a> - push and pull the texts between Figma and Lingohub for fast text fitting and keeping design quality.

---


**Step 3: Receive translated content**<br>
Now that all your texts are up in Lingohub and translators or teammates are working on them, your description text will also be translated. Once 100% translated, export your resource file(s) or push them back to GitHub (or another repository you use), and you are ready to deploy. Just one step missing...

**Step 4: Enter multilingual descriptions in the app store**<br>
How to do this varies from store to store (in the Apple store, there is an "add localization" button). Now that you have the description texts in several languages go to the input form of your app store, where you already included the description in your primary language. Copy and paste your multilingual content there. There is no simple way to automate this, as each store has a different procedure.
<br>
<br>

**Remember** to repeat this process when you make changes. We recommend leaving the description texts in your resource file for Lingohub collaborators (such as translators) to be notified about changes in the original text immediately. Keep track of changes! This method ensures that your description is always up to date in all languages.


## Localize mobile applications easier than ever

This article taught you how to localize the app description in the stores. But do not miss other great opportunities Lingohub provides for mobile app localization, namely:
- iOS and Android SDK with OTA to save time,
- iOS and Android conversion for multi-mobile development,
- Public REST API for integration of Lingohub in any of your development processes,
- etc.

Want to get more information? Book a quick [demo call](/demo) to learn more about Lingohub TMS, or try it yourself with a 14-day free trial (no credit card required.) Let's grow together!


<br>

**Related links**:<br>

Apple: <a href="https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40011225-CH13-SW15
" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">iTunes Connect developer guide</a>, <a href="https://developer.apple.com/localization/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">internationalization page</a><br>
Google: <a href="https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9859152?hl=en&visit_id=638283025100204016-845790294&rd=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Upload applications to Play</a>, <a href="https://developer.android.com/training/basics/supporting-devices/languages.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">supporting different languages</a><br>
Microsoft: <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/?redirectedfrom=MSDN" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Publishing an app in the Windows store</a>, <a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/apps/publish/publish-your-app/create-app-submission?pivots=store-installer-msix" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">App submission checklist</a>.


App descriptions are essential for users searching and ranking inside the platform. Find tips on how to localize your application description in the Lingohub blog

How to localize your app store descriptions

Next to <strong><a href="https://github.com/" target="_blank">Github</a> </strong>(<a href="https://lingohub.com/?p=2148">click here to read how Lingohub handles that</a>), the most popular file management environment for developers is Atlassian's <a href="https://bitbucket.org/" target="_blank"><strong>Bitbucket</strong></a>. We have worked some magic tricks behind the scenes the last few weeks, and we now offer smooth Bitbucket integration on <a href="https://lingohub.com"><strong>Lingohub</strong></a>. For full localization resource file synchronization between your Lingohub project and Bitbucket, this allows for the most efficient localization integration also with this system.

<strong>How to set up Bitbucket integration</strong>

If you're working with Bitbucket, setting up sync to Lingohub is very simple and works just like <a href="https://lingohub.com/?p=2148">our Github integration</a>, you can follow the instructions in [our tutorial right here](/blog/2013/04/github-love-and-integration) ([click here to read more about integration workflows](/blog/2013/03/integrating-internationalization-in-a-git-workflow)). The following screenshot shows the latest iteration of our UI at the point where you set up integrations from within your Lingohub project:

You start with the resource files section of your Lingohub project and select your desired integration method in the wizard.

<img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2806" alt="Bitbucket integration" src="https://lingohub.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Selection_206-300x119.png" />

The next step is to authenticate with your Bitbucket/Atlassian account

You will then be back in Lingohub and able to select a repository, and then a branch. You can change these later at any time.

Next up select a watch pattern. This is necessary to let Lingohub know which files to watch. You can use pre-defined watch patterns or define your own using REGEX. If there are changes to your project, we will sync those with your Lingohub project, and for example, notify a translator of a changed text string that needs a new translation.

You can set your Bitbucket repository to sync with Lingohub manually or automatically. Let Lingohub worry about the rest, you're now all set for automatic integration. You can go to the settings overview to change the parameters of your integration and its status at any time.

So what if you're done translating? Go to the exports section of your project and download the resource files. A push-back to the repository (as Lingohub offers for Github integrations, and as you can see in the following screenshot) is not possible. Bitbucket does not provide that option in its API. So once downloaded, you need to push those separately back into your repository by hand or using a script. On the export page, you can also see the status of all your resource files. Download them in bulk or select individual files.

If you have further questions on Bitbucket localization integration, submit a ticket in our support desk and we'll help you out. More in-depth documentation will follow soon.

Bitbucket is a popular file management tool for developers. We've integrated it with Lingohub for seamless localization file synchronization. Check out our guide for instructions on setting up the integration.

Bitbucket localization integration now available in Lingohub

As discussed in the<a title="Internationalization Programming – new i18n tutorial series" href="https://lingohub.com/blog/2013/07/internationalization-programming-i18n-tutorial-series"> previous articles on PHP internationalization</a>, PHP provides native support for string translation using <a title="PHP internationalization with gettext tutorial" href="https://lingohub.com/blog/2013/07/php-internationalization-with-gettext-tutorial"><strong>gettext</strong></a> and PHP arrays. These can be used in any PHP project. Additionally, some popular PHP frameworks offer their own way of string translation.

In this article, I want to provide a brief summary of the internationalization process with five of the <a href="http://webcoderpro.com/blog/top-5-most-popular-php-frameworks-of-2012/">most popular</a> PHP frameworks currently out there. In this How-To you will read about using CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Zend, Yii and Symfony. If you would like us to focus on any of these (or some other PHP framework of your choice) in a future article of its own, please leave a comment.

<h2>Internationalization with 5 popular PHP frameworks</h2>

<h3>CodeIgniter framework</h3>

CodeIgniter <a href="http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/libraries/language.html">Language Class</a> provides functions to retrieve language files and lines of text for purpose of internationalization. The language files are located within the language directory. CodeIgniter automatically looks for the language directory in two locations, first within the "languages" subdirectory of the application, and then, if not found, within the "languages" subdirectory of the CodeIgniter system directory. Each language is stored in its own subdirectory. For example, English language files can be stored either in <pre> system/language/english</pre>

or

<pre> application/language/english</pre>

Language resource file names must end with _lang.php. Within the file, a line of text is assigned to a $lang array in each line this way: <pre>$lang\['language_key'\] = "The actual message to be shown";</pre>

Recommended practice is to prefix all the keys with the name of the file in which they are located, in order to avoid collision with similar keys in different files. For example, the error message that informs the user about the missing email address that is located in the error_lang.php could have this key: "error_missing_email".

Before fetching lines from any file, it has to be loaded first:
<pre>$this->lang->load('filename', 'language');</pre>
<em>Filename</em> is the name of the file without the extension. So for the previous example with error_lang.php, the filename to supply to the load function would simply be "error". The <em>language</em> specifies the set that contains the file. If the second parameter is missing, the default language set in the application/config/config.php is used instead.

After the language file is loaded, a line of text can be fetched and echoed like this:
<pre>echo $this->lang->line('language_key');</pre>
Language files that are used globally can be auto-loaded by CodeIgniter. <a href="http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/general/autoloader.html">Auto loading</a> can be set up in the autoload array in application/config/autoload.php.

<strong>Further reading:</strong> <ul> <li><a href="http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/libraries/language.html">CodeIgniter User Guide - Language Class</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/EllisLab/CodeIgniter/wiki/CodeIgniter-2.1-internationalization-i18n">CodeIgniter 2.1 internationalization i18n</a></li> </ul>

<h3>CakePHP framework</h3>

CakePHP uses its own implementation of Gettext. In the previous blog article I described <a title="PHP internationalization with gettext tutorial" href="https://lingohub.com/blog/2013/07/php-internationalization-with-gettext-tutorial">how gettext (po) files can be created</a>. Functions used in CakePHP for application internationalization are as follows: <ul> <li><a title="**" href="http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/global-constants-and-functions.html#**"><tt>__(<em>string $string_id</em>\[, <em>$formatArgs</em>\]) </tt></a><tt>- returns the string from the <tt>current</tt> <tt>domain of </tt>the loaded language for the supplied ID. Strings used for translations are treated as format strings for <tt>sprintf(), and additional arguments can be supplied to replace any placeholder<tt>s in the string</tt></tt>.</tt></li> <li><a title="__d" href="http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/global-constants-and-functions.html#__d"><tt>__d(<em>string $domain</em>, <em>string $msg</em>, <em>mixed $args = null</em>) </tt></a><tt>- <tt>it allows overriding the current domain for a single message lookup</tt></tt></li> <li><a title="__n" href="http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/global-constants-and-functions.html#__n"><tt>__n(<em>string $singular</em>, <em>string $plural</em>, <em>integer $count</em>, <em>mixed $args = null</em>) </tt></a><tt><tt>- <tt>r</tt>eturns the correct plural form of a message identified by $singular and $plural for count $count</tt></tt></li> <li><a href="http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/global-constants-and-functions.html#__dn"><tt>__dn(<em>string $domain</em>, <em>string $singular</em>, <em>string $plural</em>, <em>integer $count</em>, <em>mixed $args = null</em></tt></a><a href="http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/global-constants-and-functions.html#__dn">) </a><tt>- overrides the current domain for a single plural message lookup. Returns correct plural form of message identified by $singular and $plural for count $count from domain $domain</tt></li> </ul>

A complete list of global functions including those used for localization can be found in the <a href="http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/global-constants-and-functions.html">CakePHP documentation</a>.

<strong>Further reading:</strong> <ul> <li><a title="PHP internationalization with gettext tutorial" href="https://lingohub.com/blog/2013/07/php-internationalization-with-gettext-tutorial">Previous blog article on PHP internationalization using gettext</a></li> <li><a href="http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/internationalization-and-localization.html">Internationalization & Localization with CakePHP</a></li> </ul>

<h3>ZEND framework</h3>

The Zend framework offers its own complete solution for localization and internationalization. It includes support for both <strong>gettext</strong> as well as some other <a title="Localization resource file formats: A beginner’s guide" href="https://lingohub.com/blog/2013/04/localization-resource-file-formats-beginners-guide">resource file formats</a>.

<a href="http://framework.zend.com/manual/1.12/en/zend.translate.adapter.html">Available adapters for Zend_translate</a> (a library used within the framework to handle translation) are:
<ul>
<li>Array (use <acronym>PHP</acronym> arrays)</li>
<li>Csv (use comma separated (*.csv/*.txt) files)</li>
<li>Gettext (use binary gettext (*.mo) files)</li>
<li>Ini (use simple <acronym>INI</acronym> (*.ini) files)</li>
<li>Tbx (use termbase exchange (*.tbx/*.xml) files)</li>
<li>Tmx (use tmx (*.tmx/*.xml) files)</li>
<li>Qt (use qt linguist (*.ts) files)</li>
<li>Xliff (use xliff (*.xliff/*.xml) files)</li> <li>XmlTm (use xmltm (*.xml) files)</li> </ul>

<strong>Further reading:</strong>

<ul> <li><a href="http://framework.zend.com/manual/1.12/en/zend.translate.html">Zend_Translate - an official manual</a></li> <li><a href="http://framework.zend.com/manual/1.12/en/zend.locale.html">Zend_Locale - an official manual</a></li> </ul>

<h3>Symfony framework</h3>

In Symfony, translation of text is done through the <a href="http://api.symfony.com/2.3/Symfony/Component/Translation/Translator.html">translator service</a>. To translate a message, the <a href="http://api.symfony.com/2.3/Symfony/Component/Translation/Translator.html#trans()">trans()</a> method is used, following this process: <ul> <li>the locale is determined (from the request or a session variable)</li> <li>a catalog of translated messages is loaded from the translation resource files defined for that locale</li> <li>the requested translation is returned</li> </ul>

The Symfony framework provides support for these loaders by default:

<ul> <li><tt><code>xliff</code></tt>: XLIFF file</li> <li><tt><code>php</code></tt>: PHP file</li> <li><tt><code>yml</code></tt>: YAML file</li> </ul>

Howerver, custom loaders can be created by implementing the <a href="http://api.symfony.com/2.3/Symfony/Component/Translation/Loader/LoaderInterface.html">LoadInterface</a> interface.

<strong>Further reading:</strong> <ul> <li><a href="http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/translation.html">The Symphony Book - Translations</a></li> </ul>

<h3>Yii Framework</h3>

With the Yii framework, message translation is done by calling <a href="http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/1.1/YiiBase#t-detail">Yii::t()</a> method. When translating a message, its category has to be specified since a message may be translated differently under different categories (contexts). For example, the category <em>yii</em> is reserved for messages used by the Yii framework core code.

Parameter placeholders within the messages are replaced with the actual parameter values when calling Yii::t(). For example, the following message translation request would replace the {alias} placeholder in the original message with the actual alias value.
<pre>Yii::t('app', 'Path alias "{alias}" is redefined.', array('{alias}'=>$alias))</pre>
Translated messages are stored in a repositories called message sources. A message source is represented as an instance of <a href="http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/1.1/CMessageSource">CMessageSource</a> or its child class. When Yii::t() is invoked, it will look for the message in the message source and returns its translated version if it is found.

Yii comes with the following types of message sources: <ul> <li><a href="http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/1.1/CPhpMessageSource">CPhpMessageSource</a>: the message translations are stored as key-value pairs in a PHP array. The original message is the key and the translated message is the value. Each array represents the translations for a particular category of messages and is stored in a separate PHP script file whose name is the category name. The PHP translation files for the same language are stored under the same directory named as the locale ID. All these directories are located under the directory specified by basePath.</li> <li><a href="http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/1.1/CGettextMessageSource">CGettextMessageSource</a>: the message translations are stored as GNU Gettext files. For more information on gettext, <a title="PHP internationalization with gettext tutorial" href="https://lingohub.com/blog/2013/07/php-internationalization-with-gettext-tutorial">you can check our previous blog post</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/1.1/CDbMessageSource">CDbMessageSource</a>: the message translations are stored in database tables.</li> </ul>

Custom message sources can be created as well by extending <a href="http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/1.1/CMessageSource">CMessageSource</a>.

<strong>Further reading:</strong> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/guide/1.1/en/topics.i18n">yii framework documentation - Internationalization</a></li> </ul>

These quite popular PHP frameworks are not the only approaches to <strong>internationalization</strong>, let me know which ones you use and what your experiences are with them. We've outlined some approaches to getting your applications on the road towards <strong>localization</strong> before, and we'll focus on some other programming languages and formats in future tutorials, too. Most of these are either based on customer experiences or our lessons learned from developing <a href="https://lingohub.com">Lingohub</a>. We're looking forward to your comments.

This concise guide will teach how to implement internationalization with PHP frameworks like CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Zend, Yii, and Symfony.

Internationalization "how to" for the 5 most popular PHP frameworks

Internationalization How To for the 5 most popular PHP frameworks

When you intend to reach an international audience with your web presence, there are two ways to do this task - the 1:1 translation or the content localization. 
The first way is much easier because it includes the main text translation without additional analytical work like - audience analysis and segmentation, design, visual materials adaptation, preparing the entirely new semantic core, etc. 

The advantage of [localization](/) is that the content will be directly relevant to individual markets, their unique requirements and nuances, written by people familiar with what matters to customers and their culture. 
Which way you will choose is based on your goals, resources, and project type. If you have a small website-landing page, it is optional to adapt content. But in the case of online stores, fintech, and corporative websites - localization is much more preferable. 

No matter what you choose - the main thing you should think about from the start is how to deal with the multilingual website SEO - select the type of multilingual URLs (domains, subdomains, or subdirectories), create an organic promo strategy, and so on. If you have a translated page with the same or similar content, you should use the best SEO practices for multilingual websites is the <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/international/localized-versions" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">hreflang attribute</a>, which we want to overview in this article. 


## What is the hreflang?

Hreflang is an attribute that tells Google about the page where the content is just a variation for different languages. With it, you will prevent the issues when Google thinks that yourwebsite.de/article and yourwebsite.ch/article are duplicated content. Search engines will be informed about related content, and users can be pointed to a specific site depending on their browser's language settings. 


---

**Note:**
<a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/international/localized-versions" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google doesn't use hreflang or the HTML lang</a> attribute to detect the language of a page; they use algorithms to determine the language.

---

To deal with multilingual SEO, it is recommended to consult with experts to ensure that your website is out of risk with all standard search engines.
You can use the hreflang attribute not only for 1:1 translations of your content. Here are additional examples:
- When there are minimal differences between internationalized content pages;
- When your website is partially localized, you want to smooth out the experience for the user as much as possible. 
- If you have multiple sites in the same language but in different markets (serving .co.uk, .com.au, and .au, for example.
- When all your website is fully translated into multiple languages.



~~~
 <link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-ca"
       href="https://fr-ca.example.com/page.html" />
 <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-ca"
       href="https://en-ca.example.com/page.html" /> 
~~~
Here's an example of applying the hreflang attribute to signal two versions of your website for the Canadian market, one in French and one in English:

You can use SitemapXML, HTTP header, or HTML tag to tell Google about language variations for your content.


## Sum up

When it comes to multilingual content, many shy away from going the extra mile in providing your customers with native language interaction. The latest research showed that <a href="https://csa-research.com/Blogs-Events/CSA-in-the-Media/Press-Releases/Consumers-Prefer-their-Own-Language" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">40%</a> of customers would not buy anything if the resource did not have the content in their language. So assuming that customers should know English can steal a lot of profit from your business. 
 
Usually, rolling out in more languages is less of a headache than it has to be, even if you are using the appropriate TMS. At Lingohub, we have a list of tools - from management to CAT that will make the localization process even faster and easier. 

Contact us by scheduling a [demo](/demo), and our team will answer all your questions. 

This article describes why considering multilingual website SEO from the localization start, such as selecting the type of multilingual URLs and using the hreflang attribute, is a best practice. Read and reach the top with us