Balanced Growth Boutique has recently completed a comprehensive study on the state of organic search in 50 Finnish companies offering digital marketing services. This article offers insight into the findings and access to the Looker Studio report.

Understanding The Key Terms

Before we dive into the data, it’s important to clarify a few key terms that we’ll be using:

  • Organic keywords: These are the total number of keywords that a website ranks for in the top 100 organic search results on Google across all countries in the Ahrefs database.
  • Organic traffic (monthly): This is an estimation of how much organic search traffic a website receives each month. The calculation is based on the keywords that the website ranks for and the search volume of these keywords.
  • Domain rating (DR): This is an Ahrefs proprietary SEO metric. It represents the strength of a website’s backlink profile on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100, with the latter being the strongest.

If you are interested in taking a look at the data we collected for this research, you can find it here.

The State of Finnish SEO

The study focused on the state of organic search engine visibility of 50 companies offering digital marketing services in Finland. The number of organic keywords and estimated monthly organic traffic are values collected from the Finnish market, not global markets.

On average, the companies included in this research have 369 organic keywords and 607 monthly organic visitors. However, there are significant variances among the companies. Suomen Digimarkkinointi, for instance, boasts 1,900 organic keywords and 5,800 organic monthly visitors, while Nordic Morning only has 11 organic keywords and 238 organic monthly visitors.

What we found fascinating is how SEO can be a powerful tool for smaller companies to stand out from the crowd. Take Folcan, for instance, a company with a turnover of only 331k€ in 2022. Despite their smaller size, they are among the top 3 companies when it comes to the number of organic keywords, with 1,300 in their arsenal. In comparison, Suomen Digimarkkinointi, which had a turnover of 4.1M€ in 2021, boasts 1,900 keywords, while Dagmar with a staggering 180.4M€ turnover in 2022 has 1,200 keywords.

According to Ahrefs data, having a high number of keywords does not necessarily correlate with high organic traffic numbers. This is mainly because Ahrefs reports all of the content that fits within the top 100 on Google search results. A website normally starts getting traffic for relevant content only when the organic rank position is ten or above.

For example, Medialuotsi has only 198 organic keywords, but their organic traffic estimation by Ahrefs is 1,100. In contrast, Oikio has 339 organic keywords, but their organic traffic is estimated to be only 62 visits per month.

It’s worth noting that some bigger agencies such as Avaus or Luxid have only a small number of organic keywords ranking in Finland. These companies may be focusing more on other marketing activities or global SEO.

Average Domain Rating (DR)

On average, the companies researched have an average domain rating (DR) of 40. In general, DR tends to be stronger among bigger companies playing in global markets, mainly because these companies often have more unique domains linking to their websites.

However, you don’t have to be a big, global player to have a strong DR. For example, Creative Crue and Crasman have strong DRs, while Luxid has weaker DR. Even though Nordic Morning, for instance, has one of the strongest DRs (61), it has a low number of organic keywords and traffic in Finland. Conversely, Sanoma Markkinointi Routa with a DR of 31 has the 3rd highest number of organic traffic according to Ahrefs.

Keyword Analysis and Classification

We classified the top 5 keywords bringing the most organic traffic for each company’s website, providing an insight into the type of traffic these companies generate.

It’s interesting to note that over half of the traffic is created by relevant, business-related keywords such as “digitoimisto” or “a/b testaus”. 25% of the traffic comes from companies´ brand names and their variations, while 12% of the keywords are client case-related, generating organic traffic for the agency. Only a small percentage (2.8%) are not-so-relevant keywords for one’s organic search engine visibility, like “vaatimaton englanniksi”.

Concluding Remarks

In conclusion, this research provided an insightful overview of the state of organic SEO amongst Finnish digital marketing companies. It underlined the strategic value of SEO in a company’s digital marketing toolbox and the importance of understanding its nuances. For more specific information regarding the study and to view the data collected, please access the Looker Studio report.

Oh, and remember, in the world of SEO, sometimes it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog!

Did you like this research report? Or do you have questions about it? don’t hesitate to contact me:

mikko(at)balanced-growth.fi
+358 457 710 2181
LinkedIn

Mikko Rindell