SEO

French SEO requires consideration that French users almost exclusively use the Google search engine. Google has about 80% of the desktop market share in France and 97% of the mobile market share. Therefore, ranking elsewhere is not an issue.

Reaching French-speaking customers worldwide is one of the most important benefits of implementing a French SEO strategy! Fifty-nine million French people live in the local market. Still, if you include all French-speaking areas globally, for example, Canada, North Africa, and South-East Asia, the number jumps to well over 300 million.

The Francophonie is an international organization that represents the community of French-speaking people. Among its member nations are the following:

• By 2021, there will be more than 300 million French speakers worldwide

• and it will be the 5th most spoken language in the world

• when it reaches 700 million speakers (8% of the global population).

• Africans account for more than 60% of French speakers.

Consumer behavior in France

The French are usually not swayed by "premium" or emotional arguments. Avoid using old-fashioned marketing tactics to attract them. There's no point in using tons of superlatives or displaying a substantial red banner on your store. Instead of generating engagement, these tactics send a terrible signal to French audiences. Call-to-actions that are too catchy and intrusive are also not welcome.

The French consumer is:

• Committed to quality without compromising on price

• The ability to adopt new habits sometimes takes a little time but is open to new ideas

• and is open to new ideas; they need all the information before making a decision

• about which content to trust

• when going organic and adopting a sustainable consumption model

• involving online credit card payment (60%) and PayPal payment (25%);

• Fans of Click & Collect (also known as Click & Drive)

• are very concerned about protecting their privacy online

One interesting thing about French SEO is that the people are big fans of the Click & Drive system, which increases the volume of local searches in the format "keyword + city." Consider that 81% of France's population lives in urban areas and 19% in rural areas.

Your business's French SEO strategy

A website's visibility in search engine results is built through search engine optimization (SEO). You create backlinks from other domains to gain credibility (SEO off-page) and optimize your content (SEO on-page). SEO needs to be understood holistically: it's about optimizing all aspects of your website to increase domain authority and gain ranking in search engine results. 

Researching keywords in French

Research the most relevant keywords within your industry in France to develop an SEO strategy for approaching the French market. To choose keywords with high relevance, the volume of monthly searches, and competitiveness, you must focus on what people use in simple online searches. The first step to competitive analysis is to perform the following:

Identifying your competitors

Compile a list of the top 10 websites your competitors are ranking for on their French SEO strategies for broad keywords, money keywords, and specific keywords relevant to your industry.

The importance of identifying keyword gaps

You should list three types of keywords once you have an understanding of what your competitors are doing:

• You could easily rank higher and gain ground on your competitors by targeting keywords from their competitors;

• If you rank higher than your competitors for other keywords, you should take action to maintain that position;

• search terms with little competition so you can gain visibility easily and quickly;

Identifying topics that interest you

It is best to pay attention to your potential audience's questions in French search engines to determine what they need. Asking questions is helpful in a variety of ways, as it allows you to:

• Learn what a particular keyword means to a user;

• determine related topics;

• Understand consumers' concerns, doubts, or second thoughts about a topic;

An exciting tool is Answer The Public, which shows you all the questions related to a particular keyword in the country of your choice.

Conclusion 

To rank for local keywords and acquire new customers, you need complete SEO Services in France. However, the French market can be tricky to conquer due to its specificities. Foreign companies often have difficulty understanding French consumer behavior, habits, and language.