Is SEO easier in European countries ?

Does anyone here do SEO in European markets such as France or Germany ?

I'm just wondering if its any easier to rank well in those countries (on Google for those countries).

I'd be interested in any real experiences.

Other than the langauge, what are the real differences ?

Is on-site SEO more effective, or do links still rule ?
Do you need as many or as high quality links as you do for US, UK ?
Re links, do all your inbounds have to be from sites located from that country ?
Do links from authority sites carry the same link juice regardless of where (which country) the destination site is based ?


Please share your experiences, or even just your opinions.

 

If you are targeting European Market I would suggest following for you.

* Get a domain with .eu extention (or any country extention in Europe).
* Take a hosting service from Europe
* Get links from Europe related sites or Europe hosted site (this should be continueous process)
* Target your content exclusively to Europe

SEO is not limited to any particular country or region. Knowledge is the key.

 

I plan on doing all those things you mentioned, although I believe the domain extension is by far the least important factor.

Knowledge is the key alright, but I'm just wondering if there's less knowlege in Europe (much smaller markets, much less competition, far fewer knowledgable SEO providers).

 

much much easier, believe me
i'm european, and i made sites in other languages (not english), that bring me very good results.

English is a very big crowed market.

 

That's encouraging news.

Is it easier just because the competition is weaker, or is the whole game easier in Europe?

 

it's because the competition is weaker, the spammers focus much more in english, so the true seo in other languages will rank much higher (less spam).

 

Everything is easier in Europe.

 

Yep on non english sites especialy some times is very easy

 

Yes it is. But keep a very close watch on EU spelling and the Character Set being used.

 

I agree. English is the dominant market on the internet. Therefore there are more competition for english keywords.

 

So all you need is

a few local directory listings
a few cheap or free links from that websites in that country

along with your onsite optimisation stuff

and you can compete on German/French Google for commercial phrases ?

Sounds too easy.

 

I understand that the German market is getting more competitive but Spain and Italy are still comparitively easy.

Wish I'd paid attention on Languages at school!

 

At the same time, the chances are you are not going to be able to monetize as much as you can in english . What I mean is that for example if you monetize your website by Adsense, YPN, affiliate networks and whatnot , affiliate networks have 0 offers that pay more than $10 per lead/action with that kind of traffic (italy, spain) , as far as I know . The ones that are out there, like those green card offers they never convert .


So yes, you can get on top but good luck finding a term that is commercial enough and gives you traffic enough to make as much as doing it in English . That is why everybody is competing for the english keywords in the serps .

 

What i would really want to ask you is, do you know the language of that country which you wanna target? If you know the language you can find the keywords and so on. Yet I believe the competition is smaller in those countries. I have been thinking about the same for a week or so, but never had time to get into. I will definitively try it out.

 

it's easier to rank on english sites.

if you want to rank on germany , you need more backlinks from german web sites

 

I don't know the languages, but finding the keywords is not a problem. There's plenty of PPC data for keyword searches done in those languages, and I can get a native translator to help me select the best phrases to use.

 

Hi,
I'm on the european market. Effectively, to be well ranked is easier in French than in English and Italian is easier than French. I know it because I have some sites translated in the three languages and my best results (in tourism) are in italian.

 

It's pretty easy to rank on some Dutch terms. Yes, there are keywords like "ringtones", it's hard to rank for that, but most keywords are pretty easy to rank on.

 

Do "Europe" here include UK? I think UK is a very competitive market.

 

Try Africa More easier..lol

I dont think that its easy to get seo ranking in EU.I'm fron EU too it's so hard.