When I was in Sweden last month, I was fortunate to meet and interview two Swedish SEOs, Johannes Eriksson, SEO Manager at Jajja Communications at his office.  I later met Daniel Norin, one Partner in a tyre and rim company www.nordendack.se for lunch. I asked them a few questions about what SEO was like in Sweden and its future in this country.

What is the search market like in Sweden?

Both Johannes and Daniel said that there was a lack of understanding of SEO in Sweden.   The search market is growing and is more competitive than just 3 or 4 years ago but it is behind the US and UK in terms of link development and education of SEO. Google does not give much attention to google.se and therefore black hat and spam websites are in the SERPs a lot longer than they would be if in the US or UK.

Are there SEO events in Sweden?

Daniel told me about a meetup which is organized monthly, by a company called Pineberry.  The market is much smaller than one would find in London or New York, but there is a tight knit SEO community in Stockholm and about 30 people go to these meetups.  There is also SMX Stockholm which takes place every October.  Jajja Communications sponsored the event in 2011.  Some of the SEO at Jajja try and visit the annual PubCon conference in Las Vegas.

Do you optimise your sites for non Swedish markets?

Most Swedes speak fluent English and I was keen to see if Jajja and Nordendack work in English as well as Swedish.  Daniel’s company sells tyres within Sweden and also to Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany and The Netherlands.  They therefore optimise these sites in these languages. Daniel works with content writers in each of these countries to ensure the sites are optimised for the local markets.  Jajja Communications target small and midsized companies and a lot of them do not conduct any business with English speaking countries.  Therefore they optimise mostly in Swedish.  They do have a few Danish and Norwegian clients and the Danish market is a little more competitive than in Sweden.

The full interview with Johannes and Daniel is on State of Search.