In Riga, the language your buyer searches in is not always Latvian.
Latvia has the largest Russian speaking share of the three Baltic states, concentrated in the capital where most of the commercial activity is. A site built in one language is competing for part of its own city.
Start with the free 15 point site check. Two working days, no call required.
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373
products migrated
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- 4.3%conversion rate across all campaigns, Jul to Aug 2026
What is actually different about selling into Latvia
The specifics that change the build, not a list of countries I will work in.
The regulator
The Data State Inspectorate. The GDPR applies in full.
Two language markets
Latvian is the state language and a large minority speaks Russian at home, more so than in Estonia or Lithuania and most heavily in Riga. Commercial searching happens in both.
Checkout
The euro, with bank links the expected way to pay. The habit is shared across the Baltics and differs from the card first expectation further west.
The language
Latvian is Baltic, related to Lithuanian and to nothing else living. It inflects, so translated copy and translated keyword lists both end up in forms people do not type.
What usually goes wrong on a Latvian site
One language in a two language city
The single biggest missed opportunity in the market. Whichever language the site is not in, the results pages for it are usually emptier.
Latvian and Lithuanian treated as similar
They are related and they are not interchangeable. Copy written for one does not serve the other, and no buyer in either country thinks it does.
A checkout built for cards
Bank links are the normal habit. A card only checkout loses baskets at the payment step and the analytics calls it a pricing problem.
Keyword research done in the wrong form
Latvian nouns change ending by case, so a tool reporting one form hides the volume sitting on the others.
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 Latvia 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.
Two audiences, one website, done properly
A bilingual Latvian site is one structure with two sets of copy and hreflang connecting them, exactly the arrangement that works in Belgium. The expensive version is building one language, launching, and bolting the second on later, because by then the URL structure and the navigation have been designed around a single language.
Whether the second version is worth building is a question about your buyers, not a principle. I will pull the volumes in both languages for your own terms and show you, and if one language covers your market then one language is what gets built.
A small market with almost nobody doing the work
Latvia has fewer than two million people and a results page for almost any commercial query that has had very little technical attention. Pages rank here that would not get near the first page of the same query in a larger market, because the competition is a handful of local suppliers rather than an industry.
That is the trade worth understanding: modest volume, real spending power, and a results page you can actually enter. Latvian businesses also sell across the region, so the realistic target is often Estonia and Lithuania as well, which multiplies the volume without multiplying the technical work.
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 the Baltics
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.
Is a Russian language version worth building?
In Riga it very often is, and the data will tell you rather than me. Where it applies it is usually cheaper to rank than the Latvian equivalent, because fewer suppliers bother.
Can one set of copy serve Latvia and Lithuania?
No. The languages are related in the way that Spanish and Portuguese are related, which is to say not interchangeable at all for a reader or for a search engine.
Who writes the Latvian?
A native speaker, from Latvian search data. I build the structure, the targeting and the technical work around it.
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.