In Croatia the searches that matter happen months before the season.
A large part of the economy runs on visitors, and visitors research in winter and arrive in summer. A site that is ready in June is ready for a decision that was made in February, which is the single most expensive timing mistake in this market.
Start with the free 15 point site check. Two working days, no call required.
Featured case study
373
products migrated
- 822feed offers, zero errors
- 4.3%conversion rate across all campaigns, Jul to Aug 2026
What is actually different about selling into Croatia
The specifics that change the build, not a list of countries I will work in.
The regulator
The Agencija za zaštitu osobnih podataka, AZOP. The GDPR applies in full.
Checkout
The euro, adopted on 1 January 2023, which removed the kuna and with it a real friction point for visitors from the rest of the eurozone.
The languages that matter
Croatian for the domestic market, and for tourism the languages your visitors book in: German, Italian, English, Polish and Czech among them. The domestic language is rarely where the money is.
The season
Demand is concentrated and the research happens months ahead. Search work started in spring is work that misses the year it was paid for.
What usually goes wrong on a Croatian site
Work started in the wrong month
Search takes time to move and bookings are decided early. A programme beginning in April is aiming at a decision most visitors have already made.
One English page for every visitor market
German, Italian, Polish and Czech visitors search in their own languages and their results pages are far less contested than the English one.
Prices still thinking in kuna
Rounded figures that made sense in the old currency and look arbitrary in euro, which quietly reads as unconsidered to a visitor from the eurozone.
Booking flows that leak
Enquiry and booking forms that fail on a phone, on a slow connection, or when the visitor is abroad on roaming, which is exactly when they are used.
Not sure which of those it is? Send the web address and the written 15 point check says so in two working days, free.
What the work actually is
The same list whether you are in Croatia or anywhere else I work.
The 15 point technical check
Speed, indexing, structured data, redirects, consent and the rest, written out in the order worth fixing rather than the order a crawler found them.
Pages for what buyers search
Built from real search data in the language your buyers type, not translated from an English page and hoped over.
A redirect map before anything moves
Every old address mapped to a new one and tested before launch, because this is the step that loses rankings when it is skipped.
Tracking that waits for consent
Nothing loads before a choice is made, and the banner says what it does. This is the part regulators are actually acting on.
Google Ads on a flat fee
A fixed monthly amount whatever the spend, so the advice does not get more expensive when the budget does.
Shopify and WooCommerce moves
Products, variants, media and URLs moved with the search positions held, on the same domain where that is possible.
Custom systems when software is the problem
Order flows, stock feeds and internal tools, when the honest answer is that no amount of marketing fixes the process underneath.
Plain monthly notes
What was done, what it changed and what is next, in a page you can read without a glossary.
Want the number first? Every price is published, including the ones I would not charge you.
Build for the languages the money arrives in
For a business serving visitors, the Croatian version of the site is the one that matters least commercially. The pages that bring bookings are the ones in the languages your visitors search in, and those are separate search markets with separate competition levels. The German results page for your offer is contested. The Czech or Polish one frequently is not.
That is a cheaper opportunity than competing harder in English, and it is the work almost nobody does, because it requires accepting that one English page is not a strategy. The relevant country pages set out what differs in each: Germany, Italy, Poland and Czechia.
The euro changeover, three years on
Croatia adopted the euro at the start of 2023. The mechanical part of that is long finished, and the part that lingers is pricing: figures that were sensible round numbers in kuna become awkward ones in euro, and a lot of sites still carry prices that were converted rather than chosen.
It is a small thing that does real damage, because a visitor from Germany or Italy reads a price the same way they read one at home. Prices set for the market, formatted properly, are part of the same job as making the booking flow work, and both get checked in the free 15 point report.
A furniture retailer: three storefronts, three ad accounts and a CRM
A Dutch furniture retailer with three brands and a ten to twelve week order cycle, where the online numbers alone made a busy business look like a failing one until the measurement was fixed.
What I will not do
Said before you ask, because it is usually the deciding part.
Promise a position
Nobody controls Google's results, and anyone who promises a ranking is either guessing or lying. I will tell you what is winnable and what is not, with the search data in front of you.
Hold your accounts
Analytics, Search Console and every ad account are registered in your name from day one. If you stop working with me you lose nothing but me.
Bill a percentage of ad spend
A percentage pays me more when you spend more, which is the wrong incentive. Advertising is a flat monthly fee whatever the budget.
Take the work if it is the wrong spend
If the free check says your problem is not a website problem, the report says so and I tell you what would actually move the number.
Rather just ask? One question by email or WhatsApp is fine.
The rest of South East Europe
Neighbouring markets, each with its own regulator, language and checkout.
Every market I work in is listed on where I work, with what differs in each one.
Fair questions before you get in touch
You are not based here. Does that matter?
It has not so far. Everything runs by email and WhatsApp, the accounts are in your name, and the work is the same work wherever it is typed. I am in Pakistan and I say so on every page, because finding that out later is worse than reading it now.
When should we start if we want results for next season?
Earlier than feels necessary. Search positions take months to move and bookings are decided months ahead, so work beginning in autumn is aiming at the following summer, not this one.
Which language should we add first?
Whichever market sends you the most bookings now, which is usually German or Italian. After that the decision is about competition, and the less contested languages often return faster.
Do we still need a Croatian version?
For credibility and for domestic buyers, yes. For bookings from abroad it is rarely where the return is, which is worth knowing before the budget is allocated.
Why are the prices on the website?
Because the alternative is a quote form, and a quote form exists to get you on a call before you know the number. The free 15 point check, the 290 euro audit and the monthly and rebuild prices are all published. You can decide before you ever write to me.
How long before any of this shows up in search?
A new page on a site that already carries some authority can move within weeks. On a site with very few links pointing at it, expect months, and expect the first movement on specific questions rather than on the obvious commercial terms. I will not give you a date, because nobody controls the result. What I will give you is the order of the work and what each step is meant to change.
Send your web address. That is the whole first step.
The written 15 point check comes back within two working days, free. It says what is holding the site back, in the order worth fixing.