The market
SEO in Bulgaria, explained for a company that has never sold there
Bulgaria is a market of about 6.4 million people who search almost entirely in Bulgarian, in two alphabets that Google counts separately, on Google, with the euro as currency since 1 January 2026. The competition in most trades outside Sofia is three or four real businesses and a directory, which makes page one reachable in a season for a page written properly in Bulgarian, and unreachable for a page translated from English. What follows is what changes when you cross the border, in the order it matters, from someone who grew up searching here.
Language
Bulgarian, in Cyrillic and in Latin letters, by a native or not at all
Bulgarian is written in Cyrillic, but a large share of searches are typed in Latin transliteration, because the phone is set to English, the laptop keyboard has no Cyrillic, or the brand name is Latin and the rest of the query follows it. Google treats “климатици” and “klimatici” as different queries with different results. A page written for the market carries both, naturally, in the places a Bulgarian would expect; a page translated from English carries neither properly, and a Bulgarian reader can tell within a sentence that it was translated.
That is the single biggest decision a foreign company makes, usually without noticing: whether the Bulgarian pages are written or translated. Written pages, by a native, after a call with the people who know the product, rank and convert. Translated pages sit at position 30 with high impressions and no clicks, and the tools report them as “optimised”. Machine translation is worse than either, because it is machine-detectable and the AI assistants that now answer Bulgarian questions treat it accordingly.
What changes
Eight things that differ from a UK, German or US campaign
| Elsewhere | In Bulgaria | |
|---|---|---|
| Scripts | One alphabet, one spelling | Cyrillic and Latin transliteration counted as separate queries; both needed on the page |
| Domain | .com, .co.uk, .de by default | .bg is administered by Register.BG with its own eligibility rules; a .com with a /bg/ tree and hreflang is the usual right answer |
| Currency | Local, stable for decades | Euro since 1 January 2026; dual display in leva ended 8 August 2026; a leva price now reads as stale |
| Competition | National brands and aggregators on page one in most trades | Thin outside Sofia: three or four real businesses and a directory; Sofia behaves like a Western capital |
| The map pack | Important for local trades | Decisive: for most services the map is where a Bulgarian customer chooses, and the profile is the first month's work |
| Directories | Yell, Trustpilot, Checkatrade and the like | A handful of Bulgarian directories and trade registers; the same name, address and phone on each, in Bulgarian |
| Prices in the listing | Some competitors publish them | Almost none do; a page with a real figure is the only page that answers the price query |
| AI assistants | Well-fed with English content | Little Bulgarian-language material to choose from; a clear Bulgarian answer page is often the only candidate |
Structure
One site, two trees, hreflang both ways, Bulgarian at the root
The structure that works is the one this site uses: Bulgarian at the root, because Bulgaria is the market, and English under a folder for the reader who needs it. Every paired page declares the other with hreflang from both sides, with x-default on the Bulgarian, so Google offers each searcher the right version and never reads the two as duplicates. The Google Business Profile carries the Bulgarian name and Bulgarian categories, and the phone number on the site is the one on the profile, written the same way.
The mistakes we correct most often on foreign companies' Bulgarian sites are three: the Bulgarian pages hidden behind a language switcher that Google cannot follow, the title tags left in English over Bulgarian pages, and the contact form sending to an inbox nobody in Bulgaria reads. None is difficult; all are invisible from a head office abroad, which is what the free audit exists to catch.
Timeline and cost
A season for a regional city, longer for Sofia, and the same price everywhere
A properly written Bulgarian service page in Plovdiv, Varna or Burgas reaches page one for its query in three to six months as a rule, sooner where the competition is a directory and a template; the map moves in weeks once the profile is right. Sofia takes longer for the head terms and the same time for the specific services a chain does not write about. The prices are on the pricing page, from €190 a month, and they are the same for a Bulgarian client and a foreign one; the market is cheaper than Western Europe because the competition is thinner, not because the work is.
Alongside this
Where this leads
Questions about SEO in Bulgaria
Can we run Bulgaria from our existing .com with a language folder?
Yes, and for most companies it is the right answer. A Bulgarian tree at yourdomain.com/bg/ with hreflang for bg and en, a Bulgarian Google Business Profile and Bulgarian-language pages ranks in Google Bulgaria without a .bg domain. A .bg makes sense when the brand is Bulgarian-facing and you meet Register.BG's eligibility rules; we would not buy one just to look local.
Do Bulgarians search in Cyrillic or in Latin letters?
Both, and Google counts them as different queries. A customer types in Cyrillic on a phone with a Bulgarian keyboard, in Latin transliteration on a laptop set to English, and mixes the two in the same query when the brand name is Latin. A page has to carry the forms people actually type, which is one of the reasons a translation from English never ranks as a native page does.
Is Google the only engine that matters?
In Bulgaria, in practice, yes for search. Bing matters as the index that feeds Microsoft Copilot, and Yandex has a small share among Russian speakers. We submit to Bing and Yandex through IndexNow because it is free, and we plan the work around Google Bulgaria and the AI assistants.
Prices in euro or in leva?
Euro. Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026 and the mandatory dual-display period ended on 8 August 2026, so a price shown in leva now reads as out of date. Our own prices are in euro, and a Bulgarian page of yours that quotes prices should be too.
What does SEO in Bulgaria cost compared with the UK or Germany?
Our prices are the same for every client: €190, €390 or €690 a month, an audit for €290. That is lower than a comparable UK retainer because the market is smaller and the competition in most trades is thinner, not because the work is. What a foreign company saves is time: page one in a Bulgarian regional city is reachable in a season for a page that would take a year in Manchester.
Find out what Bulgaria searches for your services
Send your site and the cities you will sell in. The free audit tells you what is searched, in which spelling, who wins it today, and what it would take to be there.