SEO in Sweden

Sweden has 10.35 million inhabitants. As much as 97% of them have access to the Internet! It’s the largest Scandinavian country, bordering with Norway, Finland and Denmark. Swedes are also members of the European Union. They boast many natural resources, such as a large forest area in relation to the number of inhabitants, and high quality iron ore.

Swedes like to shop online, especially when the purchased product offers a combination of quality and an attractive price. Like the Italians, they value support during and after the purchasing process. Before putting a product into a virtual shopping cart, more than half of Swedes analyse and check online reviews about it. They are “eco-friendly”, which means that if they have a choice of similar goods and one of them is made in harmony with the environment, they will choose it.

Based on many rankings, Sweden can be considered one of the safest and most corruption-free countries in the world. On the other hand, paradoxically, they are also one of the main exporters of military technology and weapons. Of course, this is not all they are famous for. Their domestic brands are worth appreciating, for example: Volvo, Saab, Husqvarna, Nordea, H&M and the extremely popular Ikea.

73% of Swedes use social media, which means a population of 7.3 million people who can be reached through this channel. Among the most used platforms, Facebook is still the leader, although during the year (comparing 2022 to 2021) its share fell by almost 12%. Below are the figures for February 2022:

• Facebook (69.45%),
• YouTube (10.1%),
• Instagram (8.73%),
• Twitter (5.7%),
• Pinterest (3.98%),
• Reddit (1.12%).

Sweden is very pro-Internet and the functionalities it offers. It is estimated that by 2035, nearly 75% of all grocery shopping will be done online in the country.

E-commerce market in Sweden

As in many countries around the world, the coronavirus pandemic, and especially the first lockdown associated with it, was a boost to e-commerce sales. By 2020, the Swedish online commerce market had reached €11.5 billion. Since then, it has continued to strengthen and grow, accounting for nearly 10% of total registered sales.

The statistical Medelsvensson (the Swedish equivalent of John Smith), as mentioned in the introduction, pays special attention mainly to quality and price. However, we should not forget about other elements that our offer should have. These include: clarity of the site, readability for the recipient, and simplicity of completing the transaction. If we put these elements together, we will invite our customers to a friendly e-shop which, if it meets their expectations, may become their favourite one.

Swedes are very mobile-friendly. There are 15 smartphones for every 10 of them. When it comes to web browsing, less than half comes from mobile phones and, more importantly, 60% of online purchases in Sweden were made through the mobile channel.

According to the above, it can be confidently stated that Swedes pay for their purchases immediately online, and the “cash on delivery” method is practically non-existent.

Orders are mostly delivered using three operators, namely:

• PostNord,
• BudBee,
• DHL.

Swedes value convenience, both when shopping online and when picking up selected products. They like their products to be at their fingertips, just outside their doorstep, so the above list of the most frequently selected efficient postal and courier providers should come as no surprise.

Why should you start promoting your business in Sweden?

Sweden is in 5th place globally in terms of Internet penetration (about 97%)! That is not all, Swedes also have the 2nd fastest Internet connection in the world (just behind South Korea). And by 2025, after increasing the availability of broadband connections, the national government wants 100% of citizens to be able to use and surf the web without any problems.

These plans and further investments in technical infrastructure are, of course, very feasible due to the strong economy and financial resources. It is obvious that further expansion and popularisation of the Internet will have its impact on the development of the e-commerce market, which is already one of the most developed in the world. Swedes are used to buying products online. As a proof of this, they are also very familiar with modern technologies and use them eagerly on a daily basis.

Comparing the possible benefits that the presence of our business on the Swedish market can bring to the estimated cost of being on it (to appear in the top search results), the result is obvious – it is worth being present there!

Link building in Sweden

The Swedish market is certainly attractive and accessible for a wide range of e-commerce businesses. As for their in-house marketing agencies, they do not necessarily specialise in SEO. Thus, they do not have a “foolproof solution” to reach the TOP10 faster. On the contrary, the actions of an experienced specialist in this field from Poland should definitely be more effective.

For effective positioning of our website in Sweden, high quality link building will be extremely important. It is good to place articles on valuable Swedish websites, so sensible “power” from a given domain is transferred towards our website.

Many Swedes have a good command of the English language. Sweden is among the top three countries that have the best command of this foreign language. This is partly due to the widespread and high standard of English teaching in schools. Films without dubbing also help, with Swedish subtitles instead of voiceover. As a result, both languages can be used in parallel in content marketing publications. This is all the more important with regard to Swedish itself, which has many local varieties and dialects, so it would be difficult for us to reach and satisfy all the inhabitants. In addition, by using English we will more quickly make friends with Google’s crawlers.