d-tags
Loading...French is the thirteenth most widely spoken language in the world and the country has the seventh largest economy in the world. All of these make entering the local market extremely profitable. Last year, France was ranked third in Europe in respect of the number of its Internet users (Germany was first on the podium and the UK followed it). Because of that, it can be safely stated that satisfactory visibility of your website in the SERPs of French customers may be quite beneficial. What do you need to know if you’re planning international SEO services or activities in France?
French Internet Ancestor
The Minitel system was introduced in France in 1982. It was based on videotext so it resembled teletext. What’s interesting, although similar services and technologies appeared in other countries already in the 1970s, it was in France that they gained the greatest popularity.
Minitel initially functioned as a phone book but later on it was used even for operating bank accounts. Why is it important for SEO? Some specialists claim that the Minitel’s popularity has delayed the development of the French search engine marketing sector in relation to the UK or Scandinavian countries. But how does the situation look today?
Today in France, 95 percent of the population uses the Internet – about 84 percent every day (Source 1: Statista). And here is the data on e-commerce: consumer goods categories. The chart shows estimated annual spending in each e-commerce category of consumer goods (data for 2023).
Source: Digital 2024: France
What You Need to Know Before Starting SEO in France?
Do the French Buy Online?
As you can see, most consumers in France use the internet for finding information and research. This plays a crucial role in defining your content strategy – based on this data, you know you have to focus on informational content. But first, we need to research whether they buy products online at all.
Source: Digital 2025 France
The answer is: yes, the French purchase online regularly. Almost half of the consumers over 16 years of age shop online at least once a week. According the GWI, the global average is 56%, which puts France slightly below the middle line. However, we have to remember that it’s one of the biggest countries in the world, so the spending should stil be high.
Source: Digital 2025: online shopping still popping
The Digital 2025: online shopping still popping report shows the power of France – it’s the fifteenth country in the world when it comes to the portion of online spendings in comparison to the total consumer goods spend in the country, with a steady 13.4% coming from the digital realm. This tells us that France is a good market to target – maybe not the best in the world, as there are countries that are much more digitalized when it comes to online purchases, but still a promising one.
Social Media in France
Social media are growing in power worldwide – we can no longer talk about SEO, but rather search as a whole, with social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram playing a crucial role. But how important are they in France itself?
Source: Digital 2025 France
Unlike the US, in France TikTok is relatively unpopular, with only 41% of the population using it. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram will play a much bigger role for the local consumers, so you should focus your social media activities on them. This trend is also reflected in the reasons for using social media stated by the French consumers.
Source: Digital 2025 France
Social media platforms are used mainly for communication. Only 24.5% of users find content through them, which is a relatively small number compared to the number of users using the internet for finding information in general. However, we have to underline that 25.7% of French consumers use social media platforms for finding inspirations about the products they should buy and things they should do. This shows that you cannot underestimate social media platforms and should support your SEO in the French market with a synergized social media strategy.
SEO in France
If you want to run an SEO campaign in a foreign country, you should start from checking which search engine is most frequently used there. In Russia or Ukraine, you’d have to devote your time to learn the secrets of Yandex. On the other hand, Seznam is the most popular in the Czech market. So which search engine rules in France?
Source: Digital 2025 France
It comes as no surprise that Google is the leading search engine in France used by almost 89% of the people. However, in 2019 this number acutally equaled 94%. This shows a trend of moving to other search engines, so you cannot put all your eggs in one basket and focus solely on Google.
1. Most of the French people search for phrases in their native language
Avoid word clusters that consist of two different languages. Choose the French names instead of the English-French ones. Otherwise, you can confuse not only the website users, but also Google robots.
2. Don’t translate your keywords literally into French
The mere fact that given keyword phrases work well in a particular country, doesn’t necessarily mean that they will work in the same way in the French market. Therefore, try to translate your phrases and examine which of their synonyms are frequently used both in official and colloquial speech. If you deal with e.g. leisure services, don’t choose the easiest way out and don’t translate mechanically everything that has worked so far. Make sure which terms are most eagerly used by the French speaking people – gite, vacance or maybe chale?
Remember that the French really care about their language. With the exception of the largest brands, which get away with coloquial language, the local consumers prefer formal communication rather than informal one.
3. Regional diversity
When selecting keywords, you should also take into account that the search terms may vary depending on the region of France from which the users come from. Thus, products and services offered by a particular company may be known under different names. For example, in the South Pyrenees region, the traditional French sweet rolls (pain au chocolat) are referred to as chocolatine. Therefore, if you aim at reaching as many customers as possible, keep in mind different names of the same products.
4. The space issue
And here comes another problem, particularly visible while translating from English as the same content translated into French can take up noticeably more space. Although in SEO this issue isn’t as important as in the case of using the PPC model, you should still remember about taking it into account while writing your texts.
5. Cooperate with a native speaker
Syntax, accents, slang… If French isn’t your mother tongue, you’ll probably hesitate about various language issues during the work. Although Google doesn’t see two pages with the same content in different language versions as duplicate content, it’s worth taking your time to translate texts properly instead of doing it literally or mechanically. Valuable pieces of writing should include both slang and culture specific elements of a given country. Here, the help of native speakers is priceless – they’ll take into account various nuances and help you to create top quality content.
6. Focus on link building
Référencement, meaning reference is the French word for SEO, so even the name itself emphasizes the role of link building in the whole process. The link database is extremely important in the French SEO. That’s why you should make every effort to get as many high quality external links to your website as possible in order to obtain a high position in the results of the local search engines.
Brand mentions also play a crucial role, especially in the AI era – they increase your chances of appearing in generative AI answers. So, focus on effective link building to gain visibility. Need help with that? Kasia Śliwa, our off-site SEO expert, is eager to help you with our link building services.
Is Winning with SEO in France Feasible?
Is it possible to run the French SEO campaign from abroad? Of course! But first you need to consider why your website should have any chances of attracting French customers. Extensive knowledge of SEO may not be a guarantee of success on the international market. In order to properly present your business in French, take care of creating content that is optimized also in terms of linguistics.
France is one of the most notable destinations when you think about international campaigns and promoting your website abroad. An economically powerful country and a great population speaking one language are just two of the factors that can encourage companies to implement an SEO strategy in France. Obviously, entering a new local market requires not only the knowledge of the specificity of the region and its culture but also, what is extremely important for SEO activities, the knowledge of its language. If you still have any doubts whether it’s worth the effort, specialists estimate that by 2050 as many as 500 million people will be speaking French!
