SEO in Manresa: language is a keyword too

Picture a Tuesday morning in Sant Joan de Vilatorrada, right next to Manresa. A pipe bursts under someone's kitchen sink. They grab their phone and type "lampista urgent Manresa", Catalan for "emergency plumber Manresa". In Manresa there is a plumbing firm with twenty years in the trade, good reviews and a decent website, but every page says "fontanero", the Spanish word, and there isn't a single page in Catalan. It might still show up. Google might also put the firms that do say "lampista" ahead of it. SEO in Manresa has a factor that barely matters in Barcelona and matters a lot here: the language people search in.

SEO in Manresa: Catalan is not a detail

The figure comes from Idescat, the Catalan statistics institute. In the territorial results of the 2023 Survey on Language Uses of the Population, published in November 2025, 59.6% of people aged 15 and over in the Central Counties say Catalan is the only language they habitually use. Only the Terres de l'Ebre area is higher. In the Barcelona metropolitan area, the same figure drops to 24.7%.

The Central Counties include the Bages, Osona, the Berguedà, the Solsonès and the Moianès, and Manresa is the largest town in the area. The same survey says 89.3% of people there can speak Catalan and 75.6% can write it, the highest shares in Catalonia on both counts. For your business, that means a large part of your customers speak and write in Catalan, and it makes sense that many of them search in Catalan too.

It isn't the town's only language. According to Idescat, Manresa had 80,692 residents in 2025, and almost 23,000 of them were born abroad. Plenty of people will search for you in Spanish, and some in other languages. What you need is for every search to find a page written in its own language.

Why Google doesn't treat "lampista" and "fontanero" the same

Google explains it on its page about how it ranks results: the most basic signal that a page is relevant is that it contains the same keywords as the search, especially in headings or body text. Google also has a synonym system that sometimes links different words, but it isn't wise to leave everything to it. If your website never says "lampista", you are asking Google to guess.

The language of the page works in a similar way. In its guide to multilingual websites, Google says it uses the visible content of a page to work out its language, not the code. To Google, a page written in Spanish is a Spanish page, even if the business is right in the centre of Manresa.

Words that change from one language to the other

In many trades, the Catalan word looks nothing like the Spanish one. They are different searches, and each one needs its own text:

• lampista or fontanero (plumber);
• fuster or carpintero (carpenter);
• paleta or albañil (bricklayer);
• manyà or cerrajero (locksmith);
• advocat or abogado (lawyer);
• perruqueria or peluquería (hairdresser's).

In other sectors almost nothing changes: the words for dentist, physiotherapist and electrician (dentista, fisioterapeuta, electricista) are the same, or nearly, in both languages. There the language matters less, and the rest of the page decides.

And the words that say where

People searching from Navarcles, Santpedor or Sallent often add "Manresa", because that is where they go for whatever their own town doesn't have. If your pages don't say where you are and which towns you cover, those searches go to someone else. We talk about that coming and going across the county in our article on web design in Manresa.

How to find out which language people search in

You don't need to guess. There are three places to check, and all three are free.

In Search Console

The performance report in Search Console shows the searches your website has appeared for on Google. Filter the queries that contain Catalan words from your trade ("lampista", "preu" for price, "a prop" for nearby...) and look at two things: how many impressions they get and which page they land on. If Catalan searches land on a Spanish page, a page is missing. We go through it step by step in what to check in Google Search Console.

In your Google profile's performance

In your Business Profile, the performance section shows the searches people used to find your profile. It updates once a month. If Catalan words already appear there, you have proof that people search for you that way.

In what your customers write to you

WhatsApp messages, emails and reviews tell you what people call the thing you do. If they write "em podeu fer un pressupost per canviar la caldera?" ("can you give me a quote to replace the boiler?"), that is the sentence your website needs to answer.

A Catalan website that ranks

A "CA" button at the top isn't enough. Google gives three guidelines in the same guide to multilingual sites: a different URL for each language, rather than switching the language with cookies or browser settings; hreflang annotations that say which page is the equivalent of which; and each page in a single language, menu included, without side-by-side translations.

The most common mistakes go along those lines:

• The Catalan version comes out of a machine translator and nobody checks it. It repeats the Spanish word for word, instead of using the words people actually search for.
• The text gets translated, but not the page title, the description or the URL.
• The language changes with a button that doesn't change the URL, so Google only sees one of the two versions.
• The buttons, the form and the WhatsApp message stay in Spanish.

The technical side, with hreflang explained in plain words, is in our article on websites in Catalan and Spanish.

SEO in Manresa: write for your area, not for all of Catalonia

A service page that ranks in Manresa says what you do, where and for whom: the town, the nearby towns you work in (Sant Joan de Vilatorrada, Sant Fruitós de Bages, Navarcles, Súria...) and, if you go to people's homes, how long you take to get there. In both languages, each with its own words. "Fontaneria a Manresa" is correct Catalan, but if your customer types "lampista a Manresa", the page has to say "lampista".

Your Google profile can be worked in Catalan too

Many people see your Google Business Profile before your website. There are four parts of the profile that you write yourself, and in all four you can use your customers' language:

• The description. A single text of up to 750 characters, with no links or offers. Write it with the words of your trade as your customers say them.
• Services. As well as the ones Google suggests, you can add your own with whatever name you like. "Lampisteria i calderes" can sit next to "Fontanería y calderas".
• Posts. If most of your customers speak Catalan, write them in Catalan, or alternate between the two languages.
• Review replies. Reply in the language the customer wrote in. A review that says "el lampista va venir el mateix dia" ("the plumber came the same day") tells the next customer what they wanted to know, in their own language.

And make everything match: the same name, address and phone number on the profile and on both versions of the website.

The order we would work on SEO in Manresa

1. Look at the data. Search Console and the profile's performance: which searches you already get, in which language and which page they lead to.
2. Bring the profile up to date. Main category, services, opening hours, photos and description, in your customers' words.
3. One page per service, in both languages. Start with the service that brings in the most money, and with the language people use most to find you.
4. Reviews. Ask for them after every job and reply to all of them, in the customer's language.
5. Articles that answer real questions. What people ask you on WhatsApp, written up on a page, in Catalan and in Spanish.
6. Local links. Associations, trade guilds, suppliers and local media in the county that already mention you or could.

With the profile properly worked on, changes can show within weeks. New pages take longer: they usually need several months to settle, and reviews come in gradually. Each month we would check three things: impressions for Catalan and Spanish searches, separately; calls and messages coming from the profile; and positions for "service + Manresa" searches.

How much SEO in Manresa costs

Our prices are published on our pricing page and they are the same in Manresa as anywhere else.

• Basic Presence, €400 a month: three articles a month on your website and three on your Google profile, replies to every review and GEO positioning (showing up in AI answers).
• Mid Presence, €750 a month: five and five, plus management of your Google Ads and Meta Ads campaigns.
• Advanced Presence, €1,500 a month: seven and seven, the campaigns and two posts a month on your social media.

All plus VAT, with no lock-in and no setup fee: billed month by month, and you can stop with thirty days' notice. If you don't have a website yet, Your Landing is €100 a month (one page, with hosting and one mailbox) and Your Website is €200 (ten subpages, hosting, two mailboxes and one article a month). What we do at each stage is on our SEO service page.

SEO in Manresa, from the Palau Firal

We are three partners working at the same table, in the Palau Firal in Sant Antoni de Calonge, next to Palamós. With businesses in Manresa we work remotely, by video call, email and WhatsApp. We write in Catalan and in Spanish, and for a business in Manresa that matters.

Send us the link to your website and to your Google profile, and we will tell you which Catalan and Spanish searches you are missing and where we would start. No strings attached. You can also write to us through the contact form.