Sweden is ahead in SEO

Sweden has nurtured many skilled SEO professionals and is far ahead in terms of technology and implementation. How come?

The competition in search results in the USA is high; we estimated it to be about 10 times higher than in Sweden (in a smaller study a few years ago). Where you need to invest 5 SEK in Sweden, you need to invest 50 SEK in the USA to reach equally good positions. When you compare this to the 318 million people living there, Sweden is, in comparison, a much more challenging market. It costs ten times more in the USA, but you reach 30 times as many people. Why has the competition become so stiff here?

Why do we have to invest three times as much per eye in Sweden compared to the USA? My assessment is that there are many reasons, and I want to highlight a few of them. Let’s start with Sweden being a smaller market, which makes it easier to fill.

It gets saturated faster in a smaller market

The first aspect that significantly differentiates Sweden from larger markets is that there are simply far fewer searches. With good internet penetration and high activity, this means there’s a lot of content online despite fewer people. Combined with other factors, this means we’ve covered the bases faster. When we look at the major keywords in each niche, there are far fewer in a small country like Sweden. These are quickly filled with good content, whereas in the USA, an infinitely larger number of niche searches are made. “Bakery Los Angeles” is a big keyword, whereas “Bagare Vännäs” is virtually nonexistent; in fact, “German Bakery in Los Angeles” is an okay keyword. There’s much more to target.

We were early in high-competition segments

Swedish SEO got a huge boost from all the Swedish gambling companies that emerged in the middle of the last decade. In industries where advertising was not an option and with globally tough competition (due to the high profitability), many Swedish SEOs became very skilled. These skills were, of course, also applied locally, which accelerated the competition in Swedish search results.

Fewer pairs of eyes at Google

The number of industries in Sweden is roughly the same as in the USA. Even though there are opportunities for German bakery chains, they are still bakers. There are also no more positions on the first page in search results in the USA than in Sweden. Combined with the fact that there are many more English-speaking quality reviewers at Google than Swedish-speaking ones, this has traditionally made Swedish results less scrutinized.

It may sound like this should reduce the complexity, but it does the opposite. Many have managed to get away with much more trickery, which has made it harder to compete against them.

In conclusion, I would argue that Sweden is one of the toughest markets to enter for a novice SEO. Granted, there is plenty of help available, and many are willing to answer beginner questions, but the competition in search results is extremely tough. Our neighboring countries are definitely lower-hanging fruit, more on that another time.