SEOfrancois

“Here’s the craziest part though: SEO agencies here don’t sell “SEO” to you. What they sell you is “referencement” ("référencement” if you want the correct spelling).

That means… wait for it… “registration” (roughly)! Yes! It means they’re going to register your site with the search engines! Alta vista style all the way! Just what you need, right? Ain’t that cute? Bleh… :/”

Your article made me laugh AND CRY and, because our little US-based web services company is now blessed (cursed?) with our first French client, beg you to answer the following question:

Is there a technically better term, in French, for what SEO really is, in France? Our client uses this term too and while we’ll make it clear that SEO is so much more than search engine “registration” work, we’d like to know where we can point them (some educational write-up for french clients on: what IS real SEO, its importance, and the combination of tasks their SEO agent, if they are good, will be doing for them, on-site and off) to be appropriately “schooled".

Thanks so much!

I guess It is all about what you are interested in. If a prospect asks me about doing a seo campaign on a subject I have no interest, I will prefer to say no

I know this post is old now, but I too am french working in SEO (abroad…) and I too have been working on the french market…and I too could have wrote a post highlighting the same issues now in 2012…This is why I created my blog about “french SEO", to give people who don’t speak english access to the (multiple!!) resources available from english speaking countries (i.e. USA and UK…) Have a look: http://www.seovavavoom.com/

Thanks guys and “vive la France"…sometimes…

SEOs should remember that putting lipstick on a pig is useless.

are you serious guy ?

each language is different so SEO is different for french SERP !

you say that cause you’re hiring french people :D ?

Sebastien

Les temps changent on dirait… Pas d’accord ?

I could relate to your comments. But if not France, where do I find a good down-to-earth competent French SEO? I have lots of pages to drive traffic. But need to do SEO in French on French properties to get traction.

hi François, was nice to meet you yesterday. Concerning the lag of french seo practice vs US, i can tell you that only the low end agency do spam like hell the directories. Most of the people you met yesterday are savvy seo and some are pretty good marketers (i do not include myself among them).
You definitely can’t apply the same US marketing techniques in France, it will simply suck ! In France you need to find a balance between genuineness and hard selling, in a word do it the french way !
So despite your rant, i do feel that you’re likely to do biz in France ?

Nice article. I laughed a lot, you drama queen!! too bad to hear that SES do not plan to come back to Paris…perhaps they should think about doing it in Cannes ;)

No SES, but you have SEO Campus (2009 & 2010) http://www.seo-camp.org/category/seo-campus

Hi Francois,

I really enjoyed your panel discussion and your experiences. Only the end was a bit - unlucky. But I hope I could have shed some light on your concerns and you know where to send your emails to - from now on :-) Cheers Dino

Hi Francois - just a quick note to tell you I really enjoyed listening to your experiences during today’s panel discussion!

Br Max

I would like to agree with you about spam to improve ranking, but how could you explain this to a company which hire you ?
Also, most french SEO doesn’t spam with black hat tools or anything else, because clients want to see what was done, how, etc… and they don’t just care about the result… as you said, french people aren’t very Goal oriented, but it depends of North /South ;)
All the best from France ! :)

Hehe, I got a whole series of these pictures. Let me know if you need them for your family album :)))

Mate love you got a shot of Bebe our waitress and my soon to be ex wife

You’re up against me at 9 in the morning, so let’s do a combined session to at least have some people there.

Your session is about mashup and mine is on slot machines, so let’s make a fruit cocktail together!

Google.fr does suck! and SEO tools can’t cope with accents/seo/france - so I’m going to agree with you on this one - as the French didn’t invent the internet (preferring Minitel!) they go about everything in a very “can’t be bothered” kind of way . . . so yes, moi aussi, enjoy the women, the wine, the beaches, the je ne sais quoi of France and French living - but until Google.fr get their act together, spam away, black hat all you like!

Hy Francois,

Great speech yesterday!
I think people here in UK are still not feel very comfortable to outsource their work, but you are a great example how it can work successfully.

All the best
Tom