The Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland) all have a fairly high percentage of the population with Internet connection, respectively 80%, 86%, 80% and 83%. This creates a demand for search engine optimization for all web based businesses and organizations. The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the current trends in this growing industry.



1) Focus on local search.

Over the last year alone there has been an increasing focus on wanting to be found in local searches, in keeping with Google's development in this direction. To register a new web site at Google's Local Business Center is now considered a priority.

2) Registering with local directories.

Submitting a new web site to local directories in the national language has, for the same reasons as above, become a prime concern.

3) Creation of local directories.

Many SEO companies and other businesses now have their own directories in the local language. Submission to international and US based directories is still considered important, but to a lesser degree now than a few years ago. We don't have any local article directories on par with the international ones, so for article submission we still need to rely on well established international directories in English. This also applies to video submissions.

4) Creation of local blogs and network of blogs.

Among the link building strategies there is an increased focus on getting backlinks from local blogs. Blogging is very popular, a few blogs have much traffic and high PageRank whereas the majority of the blogs are fairly small. Having a network of blogs where links to the customer's web sites can be submitted has become more important in the SEO business.

5) Getting backlinks from popular web sites.

The creation of Squidoo lenses has not really gained popularity here yet, but we think it is likely to become more popular within the next year. Getting links from sites such as AboutUs, Myspace and Facebook has caught on, especially Facebook is highly popular.

6) Building PageRank for new web sites.

The building of PageRank is usually not seen as a major concern here, with a smaller population the competition is usually less fierce and it is possible to rank well for your keyword without having high PageRank. For those wishing to have high PageRank for other reasons than only ranking well, e.g. to build credibility and trust, the most favored techniques are getting backlinks from older well-established sites and from blogs with high PageRank.

7) Social bookmarking.

Again we don't have any local bookmarking sites on par with the big international sites, so we need to use the well known US based sites. Registration with the large international bookmarking sites has been seen to have a very positive effect on ranking well also in local searches.

8) Reaching the Y generation.

For those born in the 1980's (sometimes called the Y generation because they tend to ask "Why?" a lot), information needs to be fast, short and accurate. Adapting existing web sites to their user behavior is likely to become more important over the next few years. The use of blogs and microblogs such as Twitter is especially important when trying to reach this generation.

9) The multi-lingual challenge.

Because of the global character of the Internet it is now considered a must to have at least a summary in English for all web sites in other languages. This is of course also helpful for visitors and immigrants.