Scandinavia website bad idea?

Would it be better to do Sweden, Denmark, etc seperately?

[financialhost]

We are a jobsite that is currently expanding into Europe and i have recently heard of plans to make a Scandinavian website - covering the entire sector / Sweden , Denmark, Norway, Findland & Possibly Iceland.

I am not sure if this is a great idea in terms of online marketing.

Would it be better to make a seperate website for each country?
For example would a domain name with a Sweedish extention rank better in a Sweedish search engine than a website with a Scandinavian extention?

In fact i don't even know if Scandinavia has it's own domain extention?

Anyone with experience in these markets - any advice would be very helpful.

Thanks

[Rumbas]

>Would it be better to make a seperate website for each country?

Yes. For a few reasons. 1. links. It might be easier for you to build links in these local markets if you can offer to link to a local domain as supposed to an area on a a .com. Furthermore you can do some language cross linking between your domains, and finally some local payment processors demand you use a local ccTLD when setting up a gateway.

There is no Scandinavian ccTLD extension, so if you don't secure ALL the local ccTLD's of your site/company name, somebody else might ;)

..and yes, we're fast and furious here in Scandinavia when it comes to domains ;)

[Blackie]

I would recommend going for different domains with good integration between those.

First you have different languages here in Scandinavia and your users will definetely apreciate to read native language, though we understand mostly what the page is about we like to read it "the local way".

Secondly, are links that mentioned already. Easier to obtain, easier to spread the word, crosslinking :-), etc

Third, you have geographical aspect. Most of your users will probably look for the jobs in their own country. Those few who want to see Nordic results, can get kind of advanced interface and look for the Nordic results through their local sites on local language.

My 2 cents :-)

[Leosghost]

Run all your text in an English version also ..so the Danes can look for work in Sweden etc ..and also you can attract some of the eyeballs from Orkney and the Shetlands ..Hebrides etc ..

[financialhost]

There is no Scandinavian ccTLD extension, so if you don't secure ALL the local ccTLD's of your site/company name, somebody else might ;)

Isn't .nu assosiated with being the Scandinavian domain name?

I have heard that from old articles but they were not too specific.. perhaps it did not catch on?

[financialhost]

There is no Scandinavian ccTLD extension, so if you don't secure ALL the local ccTLD's of your site/company name, somebody else might ;)

Isn't .nu assosiated with being the Scandinavian domain name?

I have heard that from old articles but they were not too specific.. perhaps it did not catch on?

[zjacob]

Culturally, all the Scandinavian countries are pretty much the same, but the main reason to have a different domain for each is language, which varies from country to country.

However, for jobs, even though you'd have a different domain/subdomain for each country, you'll get cross-over traffic, as Finns speak Swedish (and understand much of Norwegian) and do search for jobs in Sweden all the time, and Swedes understand Norwegian fluently and Norwegians understand Swedish (not sure about Danes in this context).

As for .nu domain, I guess it's mainly used in Sweden, as the swedish word "nu" means "now" in english, and sounds pretty cool in swedish with some domain names.

[financialhost]

If we take the whole of Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Iceland, ect ) - what would you say is the most dominant language spoken?

Is it still English or something else?

Any ideas?

[Blackie]

the most dominant language spoken?

is not right to say, since dominant will be the language spoken of the majority of population and this would mean swedish.

English is understood (not spoken) by many in Scandinavia, but not all.

[Tor]

In Norway practically everyone both understands and speaks English more or less fluently ;)

[rencke]

What Tor writes goes for the entire Nordic area, where about 80% of the population understands English. So, you could actually reach the people that you want to reach in English. Example: On Aug 1 this year I opened a 475 page site in English about Stockholm where a.o. hotel reservations can be made. During October, 47% of the business transacted was from Sweden, even though the exact same service is easily available at another site and in Swedish. Quite a surprise and showing that English is not an obstacle at all.

But native language is a nice touch and will get you better placement if people search in their own languages - as indeed they are likely to do. If you opt for that, you really have to cover all of the languages, i.e. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish. Danes, Finns and Norwegians are likely to be put off if you settle for just the biggest Scandinavian language - Swedish - even though many can understand it with no great difficulty.

Choice of domain is next. You can register anything you want in .se and .dk, but I think .no and .fi are still restricted. (Sticky Tor for more on .no). But you don't have to go native. Dot-coms work really well here and even dot-nu. www.nytt-jobb.nu would read as "new job now" in Swedish and (I think) also in Norwegian and Danish. Just an idea.

You could even settle for just one four language dot-com like "jobs-for-scandinavians.com" with flags for language choice on the pages.