Category: SEO in France

  • Google Searches in the time of the Covid 19 Pandemic: UK vs. France

    Google Searches in the time of the Covid 19 Pandemic: UK vs. France

    I noticed a few Google Trends screenshots flashing across the news and Twitter, which made me have a peek at which keyword had the strongest search increase in the UK and France: toilet paper, online yoga, how to make bread ?

    Toilet Paper

    British people definitely worried more about toilet paper than the French. They typed “Toilet Paper” in Google 500,000 times in March !

    Toilet paper searches went from 8,100 a month to 500,000 a month. which is an increase of +6,690% % in the UK (vs + 814% in France).

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  • House-sharing and SEO: the shining example of Spareroom.com

    House-sharing and SEO: the shining example of Spareroom.com

    Since moving to London last September, I rediscovered the joys of house-sharing. In Britain, people tend to keep co-living for a long time so they can live in a bigger house, be nearer the city center and enjoy a more convivial atmosphere. They only leave the house or flat share when they decide to get married and/or have children.   

    It’s an intermediary step between the parental home and married life without any of the loneliness. It’s an ideal solution for long-term or momentary singleness.  

    The main website for renting a room in the UK is Spareroom.com, created by Rupert Hunt in 2004 in Manchester after discovering house-sharing when he moved to London to play with a band.  

    Today, the site receives more than 2 million visitors every month (11 times more than the Guardian newspaper) and has become one of the UK’s leading real-estate rental site. 

    House-sharing as a way to facilitate access to affordable accommodation? 

    In Britain, house-sharing makes life easier for people with limited income or who want to stay for a short period of time. While in France, it is impossible to find a rental without a permanent job contract and guarantor earning 3 times your rent. 

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  • France Country Managers: 7 tips to boost your SEO

    France Country Managers: 7 tips to boost your SEO

    Are you in charge of the French market at an international company? Country Manager France, Head of France, Marketing Manager France…whatever your exact title, you have lots of projects on the go, a small or inexistent team and very little time to spend on SEO.

    Yet, for an ecommerce website, organic traffic represents more than 50% of its turnover. SEO is the most profitable marketing lever in the long term. (more…)

  • SEO French presidential elections 2017: who get the media’s vote?

    SEO French presidential elections 2017: who get the media’s vote?

    With the French presidential elections hovering on the horizon, I decided to take a closer look at the links leading from key media sites to the main candidates to see if they’ve picked their winner.

    I’ve already delved into the links behind the sites of the right-wing primary candidates. But this time I decided to get a complete overview of the 5 main contenders before breaking down the results by media type e.g. regional press, magazines and pure players.

    Curious to know who’s voting for who? Read on… (more…)

  • SEO for the Left wing Primary 2017: parti awareness and queries

    SEO for the Left wing Primary 2017: parti awareness and queries

    After analyzing the Right’s primary keywords, let’s now review the Left.   Of the major primary candidates from the left, who received the most visits to their site? Was it Hamon or Valls? Or was it the outsiders, Macron and Melenchon? Does site optimization influence presidential elections? Let’s see if we can find the answers to these questions in our analysis.

    As with the Right primaries, Google Trends provides an interesting analysis of the different queries based on the trending popularity of the candidates. It is important to keep abreast of various news reports as they relate not only to the primaries and candidates themselves, but to also track regional specifics which include the popular requests of all things politically related – presidential poll, Pénélope Fillon, debate Hamon Valls, slap, universal income, etc.

    google trends left wing primary

    Even though neither Mélenchon nor Macron were part of the weekend’s primary, we will review them nonetheless. Since in the end, the winner of the left primary, Benoit Hamon, must compete against them in the eventual presidential election.

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  • What can SEO tell us  during the Right Wing’s Primary?

    What can SEO tell us during the Right Wing’s Primary?

    In these political times of the right, left and center, a constant source of interesting information is Google Trends. There, any aspiring journalist or curious party can be led to neatly condensed information thanks to Google newslab which provides insight about candidate queries and searches. The most often asked questions include words such as: program, difference, Israel, “pain au chocolat”, age, Libya, marriage for all, and abortion. Let’s begin, shall we? (more…)

  • Online Marketing In France

    Online Marketing In France

    How is France doing in online marketing vs other EU countries? Spend, behavior, social media, search, cost of media. Find out the latest data about digital marketing in France!

    Online marketing in France: steady increase share of internet spend, but still behind other EU countries

    According to the site Sri France, (internet sales house association) the share of internet spend has been growing healthily, and digital advertising is now second behind TV advertising, followed by press advertising.

    online marketing FranceNonetheless, France advertiser’s spend less online than their counterparts in the UK and Germany, 25% of the overall spend vs 35% in the UK and 30% in Germany. Italy is behind France with 23% of all media spend dedicated to the internet.

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  • Top Websites in France

    Top Websites in France

    Reviewing Alexa’s ranking for all websites in France (April 2015), when compared to the US, UK, and Germany, four websites from France manage to make the top 25: Leboncoin.fr, lespagesjaunes.fr, CDiscount.com and Pole-Emploi.fr.

    Top 10 websites in France

    The top 5 websites for all countries (France, US, UK, Germany) are: Google, Facebook, Youtube, Amazon, Yahoo.

    The top site for France is “leboncoin.fr”, a kind of local eBay but completely free. Leboncoin.fr allows one to advertise items for sale and sell them commission free by utilizing a basic interface and design: peer to peer contact organized by geography and a simple seller/buyer exchange agreement. The site started in 2006 by following the example of the Swedish site blocket.se, now owned by the Schibsted MediaGroup. Leboncoin.fr has 20M unique visitors. Much more then Ebay and good for the 8th biggest site in France.

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  • Internet Users In France

    Internet Users In France

    Historically, the internet usage in France has been lower than its european neighbors, some say that the reason is that the internet was mostly available in english, or that French people being more latin are reticent to use credit cards online. but France had developed its own version of the internet in the 80’s : the Minitel. 

    The Internet’s predecessor : the Minitel

    The Minitel started in 1983, pride of the french technological companies and monopolies ( Mitterrand was elected in 1981). A big effort was made to educate the population and the state distributed free terminals to whoever had a phone line.

    Minitel terminalThe truth is that 20% of the households had a minitel in 1993, and the Minitel covered free and paying services : yellow and white pages, train tickets, public services, dating services… Some current successful entrepreneurs in France come from the Minitel dating industry : Xavier Niel (Free), Marc Simoncini (Meetic).

    Did the minitel help the rise of the internet by training the french population to use a terminal? Or was is a competitor to the internet?  (more…)