Central Europe · EU, euro, Schengen
SEO audit for websites in Slovenia
Slovenia is small, borders four countries and has two areas where Italian or Hungarian share official status with Slovene. That mix means a Slovenian site’s audience is often wider than the country, even though the language is spoken by few people elsewhere.
These notes cover language choices, accented letters and the structured-data details for a site in Ljubljana, Maribor, Koper or the Alpine regions.
Slovenia at a glance
- Languages and hreflang codes
- Slovene
sl-SISole official language nationally - Italian
itCo-official with Slovene in the bilingual areas of the Adriatic coast - Hungarian
huCo-official with Slovene in bilingual areas of Prekmurje - English / German
en, deVisitors, business and the Alpine tourism trade
- Slovene
- Script
- Latin with three accented letters: č, š and ž.
- Domain
- .si is the country code.
- Native name
- Slovenija
- Currency
- Euro (EUR), since 2007
- Calling code
+386- Postcode
- 4 digits; an ‘SI-’ prefix is also seen
e.g. 1000 (Ljubljana) - EU, EEA and Schengen
- EU member since 2004, euro area member, and part of Schengen since December 2007.
Market notes for Slovenia
Three accented letters: an easy case for slugs
Slovene adds only č, š and ž to the basic Latin alphabet. That makes an ASCII slug policy simple (č to c, š to s, ž to z), but it is still a policy: choose it once, apply it to every language version and keep redirects from old URLs in place. Titles, headings and structured data should keep the full letters.
Many searchers type without the accents on phones, so check how your priority terms behave with and without them. Because Slovene is a small language, a handful of keywords can account for most of your demand, which is a reason to study the actual queries in Search Console rather than word lists.
Italian on the coast, Hungarian in Prekmurje
Slovene is the only official language nationally, but Italian is co-official in the Adriatic municipalities of Ankaran, Izola, Koper and Piran, and Hungarian is co-official in municipalities in Prekmurje near the Hungarian border. For a local business there, such as a restaurant, a clinic or a notary, an Italian or Hungarian page is a service to real residents as well as to visitors.
Use the language-only codes it and hu for these versions: they describe the language of the page, and they work for visitors from Italy and Hungary too. Add reciprocal links to the Slovene and English versions.
Slovene is not Croatian: do not recycle pages
Croatian visitors are an important audience for many Slovenian businesses, but Slovene and Croatian are separate languages with their own vocabulary and spelling. Reusing a Slovene page for Croatian readers, or running an automatic translation without review, tends to read poorly to both groups.
If Croatia matters commercially, build a Croatian version with its own URL and an hr-HR tag, written for customers who think of Slovenia as a neighbour. If it does not, an English page is a safer way to serve occasional cross-border readers.
Four borders: do not redirect by IP or language
Slovenia borders Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia, so visitors reach your site from many languages and countries. Resist the temptation to redirect them automatically by IP address or browser language. Search crawlers usually visit from a limited set of locations and then never see the other versions. Offer a visible language selector built with normal links, and set x-default on the page that hosts it.
Keep the same canonical rule for every language version so that the Slovene page, the English page and the Italian page each point to themselves.
Copy-ready examples for Slovenia
Both snippets use placeholder data. Replace the domain, name, street, phone number, coordinates and prices with your own before you publish them.
hreflang tags
This set covers 4 versions (sl-SI, en, de, it) plus an x-default. Put the same full set in the <head> of every language version, each page listing itself too; Google ignores pairs that do not link back.
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="sl-SI" href="https://example.si/sl/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.si/en/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="https://example.si/de/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="it" href="https://example.si/it/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.si/en/" />LocalBusiness JSON-LD
The postcode follows the Slovenia format (4 digits; an ‘SI-’ prefix is also seen) and the telephone starts with +386. Use the most specific business type that fits, and keep every detail identical to your footer, contact page and map listing.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "ProfessionalService",
"name": "Example Studio Ljubljana",
"url": "https://example.si/sl/",
"image": "https://example.si/images/storefront.jpg",
"telephone": "+386 1 000 0000",
"priceRange": "€€",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "Primer ulica 1",
"addressLocality": "Ljubljana",
"postalCode": "1000",
"addressCountry": "SI"
},
"geo": {
"@type": "GeoCoordinates",
"latitude": 46.0569,
"longitude": 14.5058
},
"openingHoursSpecification": [
{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"dayOfWeek": [
"Monday",
"Tuesday",
"Wednesday",
"Thursday",
"Friday"
],
"opens": "09:00",
"closes": "18:00"
}
]
}What the audit looks at
What the audit checks for Slovenia
UTF-8 and the č, š, ž letters
We check the charset declaration and look for broken or dropped letters in titles and descriptions.
hreflang for sl-SI and the visitor languages
The audit verifies reciprocal tags for Slovene, English, German, Italian and Hungarian pages, with valid ISO codes.
Automatic language redirects
We flag redirects based on IP or browser language that hide other versions from crawlers.
LocalBusiness schema
We check the address, telephone with +386 and that the four-digit postcode is stored as text.
Questions about SEO in Slovenia
Do I need an Italian or Hungarian version in Slovenia?
Only if you serve customers in the bilingual areas or attract visitors from Italy or Hungary. Use the language-only codes it and hu and keep each version fully translated.
Can I reuse my Slovene pages for Croatian visitors?
It is better not to. Slovene and Croatian are different languages. Build a Croatian version with an hr-HR tag if the audience matters, or use English.
Should a Slovenian postal code include SI-?
Both forms appear. Use the one that Slovenian Post and your Google Business Profile show, and keep it identical on every page.
Which hreflang code is right for Slovene?
sl-SI for Slovene aimed at Slovenia, or plain sl for readers anywhere. Add x-default for the language selector.
Is Slovenia in the euro area?
Yes, since 2007. It joined the EU in 2004 and became part of Schengen in December 2007.
Need a hand with Slovenia?
If your Slovenia audit turns up work you would rather hand over, two teams stand behind this tool. Nomor (nomor.tech) is our software development company and Limi Creatives (limicreatives.com) is our marketing company. Send us your report and tell us which market you are working in.
Nomor
Our software development company. Nomor designs and builds the software and websites behind this tool, including the audit engine, the PDF report and the pages you are reading. It is the right place to start for custom development, performance work and technical fixes.
Limi Creatives
Our marketing company. Limi Creatives is a creative agency that runs SEO, paid ads, content, social media and video for brands. It is the right place to start when you want help turning audit findings into traffic and enquiries.