Andre Alpar - The State of SEO and Content Marketing in Europe

#INBOUND16Andre Alpar – @andrealpar
THE STATE OF SEO AND
CONTENT MARKETING
IN EUROPE
Differences, similarities, specifics, pitfalls,
tips and tricks for working the “old continent”
Andre Alpar – Nov. 9th, 2016

1. Introduction
2. Comparing European countries
3. Examples for European country specifics
4. Results of exclusive mini survey
EXAMPLE AGENDA

1 INTRODUCTION

Andre Alpar is a serial enterpreneur that is active as a digital marketer
since 1998
Andre Alpar
• First online business in 1998
• 30+ business angel investments
• 3+ years leading role at Rocket Internet
• Conference host, podcaster, book author …
Performics Berlin
• Founded late 2009
• Part of Publicis since late 2014
• Berlin office: 170 ppl - Native speakers of 15
languages
• Performics since Sept. 2015
• Agencynetwork: 250 ppl in total in Germany.
2200 ppl worldwide.

2 COMPARING EUROPEAN
COUNTRIES

The internet speed across Europe doesn't correlate with the countries‘
wealth
Pos. Country Speed
1 Romania 55.67 Mbps
2 Netherlands 46.88 Mbps
3 Sweden 45.59 Mbps
4 Lithuania 45.51 Mbps
5 Latvia 39.15 Mbps
… … …
23 Ireland 19.75 Mpbs
24 Cyprus 9.85 Mpbs
25 Greek 8.87 Mpbs
26 Italy 8.73 Mpbs
27 Croatia 7.30 Mpbs

There are strong differences in social media usage depending on
educational level
Biggest correlation gap between social media usage
and educational level:
• Turkey
• Greece
• Portugal
No gap between social media usage and educational
level:
• Luxembourg
• Denmark
• Switzerland
Germany only country with „upside down“ conditions

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
US Europe
Facebook
Twitter
In Europe social media plays a much smaller role in everyday digital lives
compared to the US

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10
12
IE
NO
ES
SE
BE
NL
DK
PO
FR
CH
FI
US
IT
UK
DE
PL
SK
CH
AU
HU
RO
TR
RU
Relationship SV / per 100.000 Inhabitants
“Inbound marketing” is a large topic in the EU as well but strong country
differences
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7
8
US EU
US
EU

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5
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15
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25
30
DK
NO
NL
SE
CH
AU
DE
PL
IE
BE
UK
FI
US
SK
CZ
IT
PO
FR
HU
RO
ES
TR
RU
“Content marketing” is a large topic in the EU as well but strong country
differences
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5
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US EU
US
EU

-
5
10
15
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30
DK NO NL SE CH AU DE PL IE BE UK FI US SK CZ IT PO FR HU RO ES TR RU
Content Marketing
Inbound Marketing
IE, PO, FR, ES doesn't correlate to the other countries
Most of the countries are more interested in Content Marketing

How about competitiveness in SEO / the SERPs?
No Data - No Comparison! We have something!
• A representative set of 250.000 keywords
• Top 100 positions captured
• Aggregation on Domain-level
• (First data set provided in Q4/2012 for countries:
USA, UK, FR, DE, AT, CH, IT and ES
• (New / exclusive) data set provided in September
2016 for countries: USA, UK, FR, DE, AT, CH, IT,
ES and (now new) BRA, TR, NL and PL
• Data kindly provided by

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DE UK FR ES IT AT CH US BR TR NL PL
Number of Domains in Top 100 positions in millions
2012
2015
Number of domains successfully competing for top 100 positions in test
set shows German and English markets as similarly competitive

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5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Number of keywords ranking per domain in Top 100
2012
2015
Inspecting the average number of keyword an exemplary domain ranks for
paints a similar picture

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5
10
15
20
Number of URLs ranking per domain in top 10
The number of different URLs in the top 10 paints a similar picture but
showing different nuances

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0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
Number of Domains in Top 10 positions in Millions
2012
2015
When looking only at top 10 position (those who matter most traffic wise)
the picture changes slightly: Germany is significantly most competitive

3 EXAMPLES FOR EUROPEAN
COUNTRY SPECIFICS

While Onpage SEO works pretty similar for all countries, Offpage SEO can
be astonishingly different
• In international SEO there is often an
emphasis on Offpage SEO because it
differs strongly from country to
country
• Technological part of Onpage SEO
should be international from the start
and content / translations are
relatively easy to get
• Successful international Offpage SEO
campaigns result from good
processes - which is not something
every SEO likes
International CM & SEO
Onpage!
Offpage!

The Netherlands (Holland) have their “own” very country-specific types of
pages: the Startpaginas
• Ranking very well
• Used for navigation! “an entry
point to a specific topical space”
• Most popular Startpagina provider
has significant type in traffic
• Different providers of
Startpaginas
• Needed in the “natural” Dutch
link-mix

Offpage SEO in Poland is dominated by automated link-exchange systems
that violate
• Many (!) providers of automated
link-exchange systems
(comparable to Linkvault popular
around 2002)
• „Rotating“ link exchange systems
• Awareness of violation of Google
guidelines
• Huge „penalty waves“ in 2012 
Slow change process

In Russia, everything is different when doing Offpage SEO
• Yandex dominates – Google
only second
• Yandex reacts less / slower to
links
• Important ranking factor: listing
in Yandex web directory
• Huge link buying / selling
networks
• Russian SEOs favorite links:
“Rotators”

Germans are SEO Nerds & Nuts!
• “Reengineering something unknown” seems to go really well
with the German engineering DNA
• Much information in German available (little mingling with
English SEO world) / Little “interference” from other countries
in SERPs
• Some really good SEO Tools are from Germany (May not
have fancy UIs but more and more accurate data)
• My tools: SeeRobots, LinkParser, WP youtube activator, WP
SEO image renamer, RatingSpy
• Lots of measuring, experimenting and testing! Sharing in
closed circles e.g. Skype exclusive chats.
• Personal guess: a good part of real spam in the Google.com
index is “made in Germany”
• Supposedly Germans use the Google Spam Report form most
 - Examplary effect: Criteria others may not even look at:
crawlers that evaluate anchor text of all external links – also
monitor after link is acquired

No European country is like another - Europe stands for diversity in SEO
and content marketing as well (as in politics)
• More search volume for competitive generic
phrases e.g. “hotels new york” in English than
native language in Turkey and Greece
• RU: Large link rental networks and rotators -
Yandex is more defensive when it comes to links
• TR: Almost no .com.tr domains. Almost all are
CNO domains
• GR: Are searching for valuable transactional
keywords in English
• FR: No Translation - Different wording
• South America: Almost always hosted in the USA
• Exotic writings: Internal workflow/management
systems like…
• .fi and .no domains can only be owned by
companies
• In RO web directories are still a thing see
https://twitter.com/cognitiveseo/status/7819046866
55889408

4 RESULTS OF EXCLUSIVE
MINI SURVEY

1. How do you think SEO differs between the US and your
country?
2. How do you think content marketing differs between the
US and your country?
3. Does your country a) take similar “but a little later” paths
when it comes to developments in digital marketing as in
the US or b) are there always specifics in your country?
4. What percentage of digital marketing budgets are
invested into SEO?
5. What percentage of digital marketing budgets are
invested into content marketing?
15 industry (one per European country) experts were asked:

“The language and population number is a huge challenge, We are 6
million people in Denmark, which is equivalent to the population of
Massachusetts (Boston state) only.”
“I do not think there are big differences in the methods of Denmark
and the United States.”
“In the US you can make niche business of selling "footballs to people
without feet's", it will not work in Denmark because the niche is not big
enough.”
Søren Riisager from Denmark – SEO boss and partner at WebJuice.dk

Luke Fitzgerald from Ireland – Head of SEO at Wolfgang Digital
“The US SEO community is a lot more open and transparent in its
activities than the average Irish agency. “
“There's still a big gap to bridge and I guess workplace culture plays a
prominent role in these key differences also.”
“It's clear to see the age-old poetic wisdom of Irish storytelling has a
prominent role to play within modern content marketing initiatives.”
“We definitely a lead from the US if we're honest about it.”

Slavisa Gacic from Norway – Co-Founder Nettrafikk – @SlavisaGacic
“The biggest diffrence between Norway and US and other countries
is that RankBrain and machine learning/artificial intelligence have not
influenced the Norwegian SERP as much as they have in other
countries.“
“Old-school marketers as well as marketing budgets have begun to
focus more on digital/content marketing and SEO.“
“In the past two years there has been a big shift and the split is now
around 60% traditional and 40% digital.“

AJ Huisman from the Netherlands – Founder of Y Content – @AJHuisman
“The biggest difference in timing is that in NL most marketers are still
building the business case for Content Marketing.“
“In the US the marketing automation and content
planning/collaboration tools as part of Content Marketing is further
developed then in the Netherlands.”
“The Netherlands we are a at least one maturity stage behind the US,
where the US is a adolescent, here in NL we are still young - about 12-
18 months behind.“

Cosmin Negrescu from Romania– Founder SEOMonitor.com – @ncosmin
„In Romania we can even count agencies that offer SEO services on
the fingers of one hand.“
„The competition is generally lower and, consequently, it’s easier to
conquer the SERP real estate.”
“Marketers have too little experience with content marketing. But I’m
not complaining, since this is an opportunity for us.“

Andrea Pernici from Italy – CTO Search On Media Group – @andreapernici
“The only great difference is that usually US based companies have
more global opportunities and less "legal" limitations.”
“On the contrary Digital Marketing Agencies are very fast to adapt in
Italy, but customer are not rapid the same.”

Balazs Gandera from Hungary – CEO INTREN Kft. – @gandibp
“We mostly use multi-lingual SEO, most of the cases English or
German next to Hungarian.”
“It is relatively easier to gain positions in the local market.”
“As I see, there is a low-level of independence for example in TV or
ATL campaigns and a high level of independence in digital activities.”
“To put it an other way, it is often a task to manage this and still not
think in "silos", to stay relevant and close to customers in a market far
from the US.”

Andraž Štalec from Slovenia – CEO Red Orbit – @andrazstalec
“One thing is for sure. All the major Google updates are implemented
much latter than in US.“
“Market is not saturated and more "soft" SEO techniques still work.“
“Local SEO is still not a big thing. It's like living in the bubble :)“
„US consumers are used to more direct and "pushy" approach as
Slovenian users are more conservative.“

Alexandra Tachalova from Russia – Founder digitalolympus – @AlexTachalova
“SEO in Russia is nothing like SEO in the US.“
“In Russia, SEO is a more technical practice. People here love to
automate processes to make them scalable.“
“It is quite upsetting for me to admit that purchasing links is still a hot
topic here“
“The US that the Russian search market belongs to Yandex.“

Philippe YONNET from France – Director search-foresight – @Cariboo_seo
“They are less focused on marketing stuff, and they're very interested
in black hat techniques, even if they don't use it on their websites.“
“In the past, buying links and manipulating pagerank was limited to
competitive sectors“
“White hat SEO may work better in France than in the US.“
“French SEO love to take part at SEO contests.“

Neil Mccarthy from France – Agency Owner – @goodnessneil
“The dominance of Google (95% to 97% market share) in France must
make a big difference to how SEOs work. Bing France recently refuted
claims that “Google” is the most popular search query.“
“Unfortunately the increasing importance of written content and the
decreasing success of backlink spam has led to a lot of French SEOs
being responsible for a lot of bad content!”
“But France had a separate path into the web at the beginning with the
Minitel and a lot of multimedia development (interactive CDROMs
remember) in the late 90s.”

Yiğit Konur from Turkey – CEO of SEOZEO – @YigitKonur
“In Turkey, brands prefer to promote their current pages and don't
have a tendency to create 10X content to attract more links.”
“We still have a long way to go for content marketing! “
“In technical-side, Turkish SEOs are really powerful!”

Cezary Lech from Poland – MaxROY.com
“In Poland SEO is still more about acquiring links than technical SEO
and developing great on-site content.”
“Content Marketing is a new gold rush word, but a the end it's more
about buying sponsored articles than developing own content and
giving value to the readers.”

Magnus Bråth from Sweden – CEO of Brath AB – @AlfaMagnus
“We did a small study that showed 7-9 times harder competition in the
US compared to Sweden.”
“Content marketing is less evolved in Sweden and done with much
smaller budgets in a lot of cases.”
“Sweden has produced more SEO's with experience of these highly
competitive segments than any other country.”

Will Critchlow from UK - founder and CEO at Distilled – @willcritchlow
“In general, most things are very similar between the US and the UK
these days.”
“The biggest difference is that the UK audience reads US media much
more than vice versa.”
“UK content marketing can often target general English-speaking
audiences and get amplified by the US and UK markets.”
“For its size, a surprising amount of world-leading thinkers come out of
the UK - in SEO specifically (and especially technical SEO) there's
never been much gap in my experience.”

Andre Alpar from Germany – CEO at Performics
I‘m right here in
front of you! Will
tell you what I think
„live“ ;-)

SEO
15%
Content marketing
8%
Rest of digital
marketing
77%
SEO expenditure higher than Content Marketing expenditure

66%
17%
17%
similar but delayed
country specific
mix of both
Most countries take similar but delayed paths when it comes to
developments in digital marketing compared to the US

The US is the leader in Digital Marketing – European countries lag
several month / years delayed
Country Month
HU 6-12
DE 12
NL 12-18
PL 12-24
FR 24
TR 24
RU 36-48
RO 24-36

• Don‘t ever think of Europe as „one“
• The opportunity in Europe is huge!
• Use available information on market
specifics to prioritize well
• Always work with native speakers
and marketers with local knowhow
• Adapt your strategies to local
characteristics
• Have fun 
Summary

Thank you for listening! Let’s stay in touch!
• www.performics.de
• Paul-Lincke-Ufer 39/40
10999 Berlin
• info.berlin@performics.de
• Follow us:
Twitter
Google+
Facebook

THANK YOU.

BACKUP

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Facebook
Twitter
Highest social media usage rate in USA

Miscellaneous
• RU: große Linkvermiet-netzwerke und „Rotatoren“, Yandex
defensiver mit Links
• TR: fast keine .com.tr Domains. Fast alles CNO Domains
• GR: suchen kostbare transaktionale Keys auf Englisch
• Südamerika: fast immer in USA gehostet
• Exotischen Schriften: interne Workflow-
Managementsysteme wie
• RU: Large link rental networks and rotators
• RU: Yandex is more defensive when it comes to links
• TR: almost no .com.tr domains. Almost all are CNO domains
• GR: are searching for valuable transactional keywords in English
• South America: almost always hosted in the USA
• Exotic writings: internal workflow/management systems like…

Why do German companies internationalize for so many countries?
• A lot of competitors in Germany
• Good performance in Germany good performance in each
country internationalized
• Good trading conditions  e-commerce in FR no retour quote
• GER in US?
• Pfade:
• AT / CH dann UK dann EN / NL
• PL / IT / ES
• Was lohnt noch? IT in CH? NL in BE? ES

0
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NO IE ES SE BE PO NL FR DK FI CH US IT UK DE PL SK AU CZ HU RO TK RU
Relationship SV/Inhabitants
In Europe there are more people interested in inbound marketing

0
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4
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8
10
DE UK FR ES IT AT CH US
Number of Domains in Top 100 positions in millions
In France, Spain and Italy a lot less Domains are competing for 100
positions in test set – US seams to be most competitive

0
10
20
30
40
50
Number of keywords ranking per domain

0
0.5
1
1.5
2
the picture changes: UK & Germany are even more competitive than the US

In France, Spain and Italy a lot less Domains are competing for 100
positions in test set – US seams to be most competitive
0
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8
Anzahl Domains in Top 100Number of Domains in Top 100 positions in Millions

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Anzahl Keywords pro DomainsNumber of keywords ranking per domain

the picture changes: UK & Germany are even more competitive than the US
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Bekomme aktuelle kein SV für Twitter gezogen
SV Twitter FB

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US EU
US
EU
SV SEO

Andre Alpar - The State of SEO and Content Marketing in Europe

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