Building Multi-Language SEO-Friendly Sites in Laravel

Expanding your Laravel application to support multiple languages can dramatically improve reach and SEO. By building SEO-friendly URLs, localized metadata, and hreflang tags, you help search engines index your content correctly across regions. In this guide, we’ll set up localization in Laravel, implement multi-language slugs, add localized SEO tags, update the sitemap, and build a UI language switcher.

Setting Up Laravel Localization

Laravel provides built-in localization support. Start by creating language files in resources/lang/:

resources/lang/en/messages.php
resources/lang/tr/messages.phpCode language: Bash (bash)

// resources/lang/en/messages.php
return [
    'welcome' => 'Welcome to our site!',
];

// resources/lang/tr/messages.php
return [
    'welcome' => 'Sitemize hoş geldiniz!',
];Code language: PHP (php)

You can now use {{ __('messages.welcome') }} in Blade templates, and it will load the text based on the selected locale.

Language-Based Routes and Slugs

SEO-friendly multi-language sites should use localized URLs like /en/blog and /tr/blog. You can group routes by locale:

// routes/web.php
Route::group(['prefix' => '{locale}', 'middleware' => 'setlocale'], function () {
    Route::get('/blog', [BlogController::class, 'index']);
    Route::get('/blog/{slug}', [BlogController::class, 'show']);
});Code language: PHP (php)

Create a setlocale middleware to change the app locale from the route parameter:

// app/Http/Middleware/SetLocale.php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\App;

class SetLocale
{
    public function handle($request, Closure $next)
    {
        $locale = $request->route('locale', 'en');
        App::setLocale($locale);

        return $next($request);
    }
}Code language: PHP (php)

This ensures the correct language is applied based on the URL prefix.

Localized SEO Tags and hreflang

Each language should have its own SEO metadata. In Blade, dynamically output <title>, meta descriptions, and hreflang tags:

<title>{{ $post->getTranslation('title', app()->getLocale()) }}</title>
<meta name="description" content="{{ $post->getTranslation('meta_description', app()->getLocale()) }}">

<!-- Hreflang for Google -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="{{ url('en/blog/'.$post->slug_en) }}" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="tr" href="{{ url('tr/blog/'.$post->slug_tr) }}" />Code language: PHP (php)

The hreflang attributes signal to Google which page corresponds to each language, preventing duplicate content issues.

UI Example: Language Switcher

Add a language switcher so users can easily change between languages:

<nav>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="/en{{ request()->getPathInfo() }}">English</a></li>
    <li><a href="/tr{{ request()->getPathInfo() }}">Türkçe</a></li>
  </ul>
</nav>Code language: PHP (php)

This keeps the same path while switching the language prefix. For example, /en/blog → /tr/blog.

Multi-Language Sitemaps

Update your sitemap.xml to include entries for each language version of a page. Example for a blog post:

<url>
  <loc>https://example.com/en/blog/my-post</loc>
  <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="tr" href="https://example.com/tr/blog/my-post"/>
  <lastmod>2025-09-01</lastmod>
</url>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

This helps Google index all language variations while avoiding duplicate content penalties.

Single-Language vs Multi-Language SEO

Feature	Single-Language	Multi-Language
Reach	Only local audience	Global audience
SEO	One set of indexed pages	Each language indexed separately
Complexity	Simple setup	Requires localization & hreflang
User Experience	One language for all	Visitors can read in their language
Sitemaps	One sitemap file	Multiple language entries

Wrapping Up

Building a multi-language SEO-friendly site in Laravel involves localized routes, translated content, SEO metadata, hreflang attributes, and updated sitemaps. By adding a language switcher UI, you improve user experience while boosting search visibility worldwide. Compared to single-language sites, multi-language setups open the door to new markets and higher organic traffic.