SEO in the Netherlands
– what do you need to know?
With more bicycles than inhabitants, the Netherlands is a country located in Western Europe, by the North Sea. Its official name, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, is not accidental. The word “Nederland” refers to the Netherlands in the local language (Dutch), literally meaning a low or lowland country. The name reflects the geographical characteristics of the country, which has about a quarter of its territory below sea level.
The Netherlands belongs to many international organisations, including the European Union, UN and NATO. Interestingly, the country has two capitals: Amsterdam (constitutional) and The Hague (administrative). The population of the Netherlands is over 17 million people, with 96% having access to the Internet. Given this high rate of Internet penetration, it is worth getting to know more about Dutch people’s preferences for the web-surfing devices.
Statistics show that more Internet users use computers, but their advantage over other devices is not significant (data for February 2022):
- desktop (52.31%),
- mobile (44.58%),
- tablet (3.11%).
Note that a large percentage of Dutch people surf the web on mobile devices. What does this imply? A need to adapt your website to work flawlessly on smartphones in order to increase the chances of increasing your revenue from this channel. In short, try to be mobile-friendly when optimising your website.
The inhabitants of the “land of tulips” have overwhelmingly saturated the market with social media, with the number of social media users reaching over 90% of the entire population (in early 2022). The most popular channel among the Dutch is Facebook, with 60% of all Internet users (data for 2021):
- Facebook (60%),
- Pinterest (22%),
- Twitter (10%),
- Instagram (3%),
- YouTube (2%).
Moreover, the number of social media users in the Netherlands has increased over the last year by 500,000 or 3.3% (early 2022 vs. 2021).
17 million
Netherlands population
96 %
of the population has access to the Internet
16 million
Internet users
93,8 %
of users use Google
Search engines in the Netherlands
As in most European countries, the number one search engine in the Netherlands is Google, used by almost 94% of all Internet users (data for March 2022):
- Google (93.81%),
- Bing (3.38%),
- DuckDuckGo (1.04%),
- Yahoo! (0.82%),
- Yandex (0.37%),
- Ecosia (0.36%).
What browsers are popular among Dutch web users? As in the case of search engines, Chrome by Google remains the leader (data for March 2022):
- Chrome (55.72%),
- Safari (24.07%),
- Microsoft Edge (7.05%),
- Samsung Internet (4.63%),
- Mozilla Firefox (4.23%),
- Opera (1.33%).
Looking at the above statistics, we can safely say that the key to success in SEO will be to gain recognition from Google (or rather its complex algorithms), to give our website a good chance of making it to the top positions of search results.
E-commerce market in the Netherlands
The Netherlands is the 17th largest e-commerce market in the world, with revenues of 22 billion US dollars in 2021.
Users
The top e-commerce revenue generating industry in the Netherlands is fashion, accounting for 31% of the country’s total revenue from the said channel. What other categories are most readily chosen by Dutch e-consumers? Let’s see:
How does the average Jan Modaal behave online? His purchasing decision is heavily influenced by the price and quality of products. Before making a transaction, he often reads comments about a given product from other users and takes account of recommendations of influencers. He likes to shop using his smartphone. As he values his privacy and online safety, he wants to have more control over the spread of his personal data. Moreover, Mr Modaal is a conscious e-consumer whose purchasing decisions are influenced by ecological issues – he pays attention to the origin of products. He buys fruit and vegetables more and more often, limiting his consumption of meat, dairy and sweetened drinks.
Speaking of the Dutch online market, it is worth taking a look at its biggest players. Number one is bol.com, the country’s most popular e-commerce platform, which generated revenues of almost 1.9 billion US dollars in 2021. The top 3, namely the aforementioned bol.com, ah.nl and coolblue.nl, account for 25% of online revenue in the Netherlands. Below you can find their list:
- bol.com (USD 1.886 million),
- ah.nl (USD 1.835 million),
- coolblue.nl (USD 1.663 million),
- zalando.nl (USD 1.022 million),
- wehkamp.nl (USD 963 million).
When going deeper into the topic of trends among Dutch e-consumers, it is important to mention their preferences for payment methods. The most popular payment method for online shopping in the Netherlands is iDEAL, a Dutch system that resembles the Polish BLIK. It is used by nearly 60% of Internet users in the country! Other payment methods include credit cards, PayPal and the Tikkie application (available in the App Store).
What domain name should you choose?
If you decide to expand your business into the Dutch e-commerce market, the best practice would be to choose a domain appropriate for a given country, i.e. “.nl” for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. You may also venture out to several European markets at the same time. If this is the case, think about a website with the “.eu” suffix. Going further, if your business is global, you should opt for the most popular international extension, which is the “.com” domain, to operate in an international market without having to consider a separate domain for each country.
Why start promoting your business in the Netherlands?
Expanding your business into the Dutch market, where 96% of the population has access to the Internet, is extremely tempting. This means that you can reach over 16 million potential customers! Given the high awareness of Dutch e-consumers, if you take care of the quality of your website content and an attention-grabbing product, you will gain the interest of many valuable Internet users, ultimately securing increased revenues for your business. So there is nothing left to do but to start your way to the top of search results in the promising market of the Kingdom of the Netherlands!
Link building in the Netherlands
Link building is one of the core elements of effective SEO activities. If you want to be visible on the Dutch online market, acquire valuable, high quality external links for your website. Another important rule is to provide links from various sources, i.e. to use diversification.
The most popular channels of acquiring links include sponsored articles, buzz marketing and social media mentions. In order to be recognised by Google algorithms and speed up your way to the top positions in search results, follow the above rules.
At the same time, do not forget about solid optimisation of your website, paying attention to both its technical side and its content.
The most comprehensive service
SEO360® ensures the most comprehensive service among other similar on the market, such as SEO or SXO, which has been confirmed by research.
Guaranteed sales increase
The service provides a guarantee of the final effect, an increase traffic and revenue / leads.
Hybrid settlements based on success fee
Once 100% of the original target is achieved, any results above are based on a success fee.
Guaranteed link maintenance
We do not remove acquired links even after the end of cooperation.
We work all over Europe
Under one contract, we can carry out our work for all European countries with the support of a network of quality partners.
Individual strategy
We prepare a comprehensive, extensive strategy in which we examine the real needs of consumers (customer insights) before starting any actions.
See how your website traffic and revenue will increase!
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SEO360®
regular SEO
How does the SEO process work in Netherlands?
Strategy
It is the starting point for SEO360® actions, individually priced and created on the basis of the customer’s needs and expectations included earlier in the brief filled in by the customer. As part of our conceptual work, we establish the KPIs necessary for successful implementation of further stages of the project, in particular analysis, content marketing plan and estimations, which are the components of the strategy.
Analysis
In this step, we carry out all the activities verifying the current state of the selected website in terms of SEO and its potential in a given country when compared to the competition. At the same time, we analyse the full user path based on the customer journey. The result of the analysis is a large amount of data that can be used to implement further SEO360® steps.
Content Marketing Plan
Individually prepared for the industry represented by the Client and for the given markets where SEO360® activities will be conducted. It includes a scenario concerning the type of created content and the way of its distribution in order to reach the consumers with it precisely and to be one step ahead of the competition. Content Creators guarantee the successful implementation of this plan.
Estimations
An extremely valuable and final component of the strategy, where we estimate individual values related to the visibility of the website in the most popular search engine of a given country, taking into account the increase in traffic and, more importantly, the increase in conversions over a specified period of time.
Technical SEO
When starting proper SEO activities, one of the necessary steps to achieve final success is technical SEO, also called technical analysis or technical optimisation for SEO, i.e. the part of optimisation that does not concern content. It consists of all activities that affect the architecture and code of a website in such a way as to make it as friendly as possible to the most stringent search engine requirements and, at the same time, to stay one step ahead of the competition.
Content optimisation
Part of optimising a website for SEO, in addition to technical SEO, is content optimisation. Valuable content for the user is one of the key elements that will help to achieve high search engine visibility as well as increase conversions and thus revenue.
UX + CRO
As part of the SEO360® service, we provide analysis and optimisation of User Experience metrics with a particular focus on heuristic experiments and A/B testing as well as Conversion Rate Optimisation. In this way, we analyse consumer activity at each stage of their purchase process, increasing sales effectiveness.
Link Building
We conduct link building using the highest quality permanent links acquired from external sources or services, from reliable publishers with a guarantee of their maintenance even after the end of cooperation. As part of this process, we take care of the correct link profile, which brings end benefits.
Ongoing Data Analysis
In SEO360®, through advanced tools supervised by the Client Success Manager, we constantly measure the progress related to the evaluation of conducted activities, and on their basis, our customers have access to extensive reports 24/7.
Increase in traffic and revenue
The ultimate value of SEO360® is the increase in brand awareness, traffic, conversions and revenue generated from the service, which is significantly higher than in the case of ‘regular SEO’ and above all, it is long-lasting.
Data source:
- https://gs.statcounter.com/
- https://www.statista.com/topics/2697/the-netherlands/#dossierContents__outerWrapper
- https://ecommercedb.com/en/markets/nl/all
- https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2022-netherlands
- https://ecommercegermany.com/blog/european-ecommerce-overview-benelux
- https://www.lloydsbanktrade.com/en/market-potential/netherlands/marketing
- https://backlink24.pl/blog/seo/pozycjonowanie-stron-holandia
Let’s stay in touch
+48 500 050 939
office@seogroup.pl
FAQ
What languages are spoken in the Netherlands?
The official language in the Netherlands is Dutch (and Frisian in Friesland). However, it is worth noting that 90% of the Dutch speak English, a fact that can also be taken into account when developing an SEO strategy.
What websites should you target to support your SEO efforts in the Netherlands?
When preparing your SEO plan for the Dutch market, consider your presence on the following websites, all of which have a significant position in the country:
- Yelp,
- Foursquare,
- Marktplaats,
- Telefoonboek,
- Expatica Netherlands.
