Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Norway are the next stops on our on-going tour of the global search engine markets, where we look at the latest SEO and PPC updates from the previous month.
Russian Market
Yandex.Direct is now placing ads at the bottom of the page instead of the right-hand side of the SERP (as shown below). The click-through-rate for the bottom ads is 2.5 times higher than the ads on the right-hand side. Due to the significant difference Yandex decided to remove the right-hand side ads.
Danish Market
Ecommerce
A study of the first quarter of 2013 shows that Danes are well prepared with 76% of the respondents indicating that they had researched the product before purchasing online. Whereas, 58% use search engines for research and 15% get recommendations from friends.
According to the study from FDHM 87% of Danes use a credit card when purchasing online, 5% use net banking and only 3% use PayPal.
The Competition Authority in Denmark is now entering negotiations for new lower prices on VISA/Dankort Payments which is the preferred payment method amongst Danes – this will inherently affect online retailers in a positive way.
In other news, Google has now rolled out Enhanced Campaigns for AdWords in Denmark.
YouTube
Google has recently announced the launch of YouTube Denmark, which has 2.2m unique monthly users.
Peter Friis, CEO of Google Denmark said: “The Danes have already both seen and uploaded countless videos, but with youtube.dk the global platform becomes even more interesting for our Danish users.
“First, there will be more original content in the form of local Danish media channels on YouTube, and ordinary Danish users can now apply to participate in the YouTube Partner programme, and thus have the opportunity, through ads, even to monetise the content they produce for YouTube.”
Swedish Market
Ecommerce
The first students to graduate from Swedens ecommerce university programme have all gone on to land full-time jobs, with some starting their own businesses and others entering the SEO industry.
The social network has ruled out the possibility of advertisers specifically targeting users who have listed themselves as homosexual or bisexual.
Til Death Do Us Part
Google is launching a service where you can determine what data, email, pictures, videos etc. you wish to have deleted after your death.
Domains
Swedish domain names can now include the Swedish letter Å, Ä, and Ö. It solves a lot of confusion, for example between two councils Habo and Håbo. They can now have similar domain names: www.habokommun.se and www.håbokommun.se.
SEO
The third most searched term for SEO in Sweden is the combination of SEO + price. This indicates that site owners see SEO as a cost rather than an investment says Nikke Lindqvist, leading Swedish SEO consultant.
A useful on-page SEO tool can be found at SEO Test, which is a site that helps you analyse meta description, H-tags and bread crumbs.
Norwegian Market
Online Search
Recent research shows that nine out of 10 Norwegians are searching for information online, which is a 10% increase since last year.
Search online after age
Age appears to have a major impact on the number of people looking for information online; the older people are, the less often they use the web to find information.
The study also showed that as well as age both education and employment are also important factors. While 96% of those with university degrees search for information about goods and services online, only 81% of the people with just secondary education did the same.
Students (95%) and employees (92%) are also prone to monthly searches online for information about goods and services, while only 56% of retirees and 86% of the unemployed do the same.
Domains
Local domains (.no) are Norwegian companies’ obvious favourite at 94%. Seven out of 10 firms have only a .no domain while just 20% state that they have both a .no and a .com and/or other top level domains.
Over half the population usually click through a link with Norwegian subtitles in the SERPs, and about half say that they usually opt for links with Norwegian domain names. However 27 % disagree that this is important.
There is a large degree of consensus both in the wider population and among businesses that .no is the domain most familiar in the Norwegian market and enjoys the most confidence when it comes to ecommerce.
Now you’re up-to-date with Russia and Scandinavia why not check out the latest SEO and PPC happenings from Germany, France, Italy and Spain…
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