Dutch SEO for foreign webshops
Dutch SEO: get found by people who search in Dutch
Your site ranks fine in your home market. In the Netherlands it is invisible, even though Dutch people search for exactly what you sell. That is normal: Google treats the Dutch market as its own game, with its own words, its own competitors and its own technical rules. Stijgt is a Dutch SEO agency that plays that game every day, for clients and for our own webshops.
Why Dutch SEO is not translated SEO
Dutch people search in Dutch, even when they speak good English. And the Dutch word is rarely the dictionary translation of your keyword. Take our own business: a German shop would call it a Dachbox, an English one a roof box, but the Dutch search for a dakkoffer, and they add huren when they want to rent one. A machine translation of your category pages will miss that, and so will Google.
Dutch keyword research is the first thing we do. With Semrush and Google Search Console we find out what Dutch people actually type, how much volume each term has and who already ranks for it. That tells you which pages to build and which to translate properly. Sometimes the honest answer is that a product line has very little Dutch search volume. Then we say so before you spend money on it.
The technical setup for the Dutch market
Most international SEO problems we find are technical and quiet. Google shows your German page to Dutch users, or indexes the Dutch and Belgian versions as duplicates, or does not find the Dutch pages at all because the sitemap only lists the home market.
We check and fix the internationalisation basics so the Dutch pages can rank at all. A Dutch site does not need Dutch hosting, but it does need a clear signal that it is meant for Dutch users.
- hreflang tags that point correctly between your language versions, including nl-NL and nl-BE if you also sell in Belgium.
- A clear structure: a /nl/ folder on your main domain or a separate .nl domain. We advise which one fits your situation.
- Dutch URLs, titles, meta descriptions and internal links, not English ones with Dutch body text.
- A separate Google Search Console property for the Dutch section, so you can see Dutch performance on its own.
- Page speed and mobile usability, because Dutch shoppers buy on their phone.
Dutch content that reads like it was written here
Rankings bring visitors. Content keeps them. A category page in stiff, translated Dutch tells the visitor that this shop is not really from here, and that doubt costs you the sale. We write Dutch the way Dutch people talk: short sentences, the words they use, and the information they need to trust you.
That means category texts that answer the real question, product descriptions that are not a word-for-word copy, and buying guides for the terms where people are still comparing. We weave in the trust signals Dutch buyers look for: delivery time, returns, iDEAL and reviews.
What you can expect, and when
SEO is not a switch. In our experience the first results take four to six weeks on average, and the real effect builds over months. The first 30 days go to correct measurement, quick wins, a website analysis and a look at your other channels. After that you get a monthly report with real numbers from Search Console and GA4.
Our own AI agents do the heavy lifting: crawling, data collection, keyword clustering and drafting improvements. Frank and Sven decide what goes live. You can cancel monthly, and we work over video calls in English or German.
Proof from our own Dutch businesses
Stijgt runs Djunes.nl, a photobooth and event rental company, and Rijruimer.nl, a roof box rental business we started in May 2026. The SEO approach we sell is the one we use ourselves. At Djunes, organic traffic grew 187 percent in 12 months and online bookings 212 percent year on year, measured in GA4. At Rij Ruimer, SEO brought in traffic within the first months. No client numbers here, only our own.
FAQ
Do you write the Dutch content or do we deliver it?
We can do either. Because the research and the writing belong together, we are happy to write the Dutch content ourselves as part of the SEO project. If you have a Dutch copywriter in-house, we deliver the keyword plan and page briefs and review the result.
Is a .nl domain better for SEO than a /nl/ folder?
Not automatically. A /nl/ folder inherits the authority of your existing domain, which helps at the start. A .nl domain is a strong local signal and is easier to build Dutch links to. We decide per case, based on your current domain, your plans and the competition.
Does Dutch SEO also cover Belgium?
Flemish Belgians speak Dutch, but they search slightly differently and Google treats Belgium as a separate market. If you want both, we set up nl-NL and nl-BE correctly so the versions do not compete with each other.
Can you work with our current CMS?
Usually yes. Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, Shopware and most custom platforms can handle the setup we need. We check the CMS in the first weeks and tell you if something has to change.
What about visibility in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews?
We call that GEO and it builds on the same foundation: clear Dutch content and a technically healthy site. We measure it in GA4, in Semrush and by testing in the AI tools ourselves. We can add it to a Dutch SEO project from the start.
More about growing in the Netherlands
Request a Dutch SEO check
info@stijgt.nl · +31 6 361 417 24