SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the work of making a website easier for search engines to understand and more relevant to what people search for, so that it ranks higher in Google's organic search results.
Organic results are the ones you don't pay for. Unlike Google Ads, where every click costs money, SEO brings traffic that keeps coming after the work is done. That is also why it takes longer to get going.
SEO has three parts
Almost all SEO work falls into one of three categories. Knowing which of them is your bottleneck is half the job.
On-page SEO: the content on the page
This is about what the visitor actually sees and reads: headings, text, images, page titles and the description shown in the search results.
The core is simpler than it sounds: the page should answer what the person is searching for, clearly and without detours. If someone searches "how much does a website cost", the answer should appear early on the page, not after three paragraphs about the company's history.
Technical SEO: the foundation under the page
This is about things the visitor doesn't see but does notice: how fast the page loads, whether it works on mobile, whether Google can read it, whether the URLs make sense and whether the site is secure.
Technical SEO decides whether the rest of the work counts at all. A page Google can't read can contain the best text in the world and still not rank. We have gathered the essentials in our guide to technical SEO.
Off-page SEO: trust from outside
This is about what others say about you. Above all, links from other websites, which Google reads as a recommendation.
For local businesses, your Google Business Profile, reviews and business directories also belong here. For many small businesses, this part has more effect than link building.
How Google actually chooses
Simplified, Google does three things:
- Crawls: robots follow links and find pages
- Indexes: the page is read, understood and stored
- Ranks: at each search, hundreds of signals are weighed together
What you can influence comes down to three questions: Can Google find the page? Does Google understand what it is about? Is it better than the ten pages already ranking there?
The third question is the one that decides, and it is the hardest. "Better" no longer means longer text. It means that a person searching gets their answer faster and more completely from you than from anyone else.
How long SEO takes
This is the most common disappointment, so it is worth being straight about it:
- Months 1–3: technical foundation, keyword research, the first pages. Little is visible from the outside.
- Months 3–6: rankings for longer, less competitive search phrases. Traffic starts to move.
- Months 6–12: the more valuable keywords start to pay off.
- After 12 months: the effect accumulates. What you built in year one is still working.
If you have a new domain with no history, you are at the slower end. If you have an established site with technical problems, the first months can bring surprisingly quick results, simply because there is low-hanging fruit.
Want to be more visible on Google? Read about SEO →
What SEO costs
Is SEO free? The tools can be. The work never is.
In Sweden, typical prices look roughly like this:
- Ongoing SEO work: SEK 8,000–25,000 per month at an agency
- One-off audit: SEK 10,000–30,000
- SEO consultant per hour: SEK 900–1,800
- Do it yourself: your time, plus SEK 0–500 per month in tools
The difference between good and bad SEO rarely comes down to budget. It comes down to whether the work targets keywords that actually lead to business. Ranking first for a keyword that no buyer uses is money wasted.
SEO or Google Ads?
In most cases that's the wrong question, because they do different things.
Google Ads brings traffic today. You pay per click, and when you stop paying, the traffic stops. Good when you need results quickly, are testing a new service or sell something seasonal. We go through the pricing in how much Google Ads costs.
SEO takes months but keeps delivering. Good for what you will be selling for a long time to come.
The most common sensible combination for a smaller business: advertise what needs to sell now, and build SEO for what you will live on a year from now. The ad data also shows which keywords really convert, which is the best guidance an SEO project can get.
Five things you can do yourself this week
- Search for your company name and your services. What comes up? Do the page title and description look the way you want?
- Create or update your Google Business Profile. It's free, and for local businesses it often has the single biggest effect.
- Test your page speed in Google's PageSpeed Insights. If you score under 50 on mobile, there is money to be made.
- Give every page its own clear title containing what people search for, not "Home" and "Services".
- Set up Google Search Console. It's free, and it's the only place where you can see what people actually search for when they find you.
When it makes sense to get help
Get help when you know what you want to achieve but don't have the time, when the site has technical problems you can't diagnose, or when the competition for your keywords is tough enough to require systematic work.
Keep it in-house when you are starting out and mainly need to write good content about what you know best. No agency knows your trade better than you do.
More and more often, the answer ends up in an AI-generated summary instead of a list of links. The foundation is the same (a page that isn't indexed can't be cited), but there is work on top of it, which we call AI search optimisation.
If you want to know where your site stands today, get in touch and we will take a look at it. Or read more about how we work with search engine optimisation.
Frequently asked questions
What does SEO mean?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the work of improving a website so that it appears higher in the organic, meaning unpaid, search results of search engines such as Google.
Is SEO free?
The traffic you get from organic search results is free in the sense that you don't pay per click. But the work itself costs either money or time. You can do many basic measures yourself at no cost, while competitive keywords normally require ongoing work.
How much does SEO cost per month?
In Sweden, ongoing SEO work at an agency normally costs SEK 8,000–25,000 per month. A one-off audit costs SEK 10,000–30,000, and a consultant charges SEK 900–1,800 per hour. The price depends mostly on how competitive the keywords are and how much content needs to be produced.
How long does it take before SEO shows results?
Expect 3–6 months before you see clear movement and 6–12 months before the more valuable keywords pay off. A new domain with no history takes longer, while an established site with technical problems can get quick results once those are fixed.
What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the broader term and covers all marketing in search engines: both organic visibility (SEO) and paid ads (Google Ads). In everyday use, SEM is often used as a synonym for advertising specifically.
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