Search with Candour feature: My Take on International SEO and Freelancing

I recently had an amazing opportunity to join Jack Chambers-Ward on his podcast, "Search with Candour". We talked for a good 44 minutes about international SEO, my freelance journey, and the diverse clients I've had the pleasure to work with. Here, I'll share some of the highlights and insights from our chat.

The Freelance Life: Authenticity and Personal Touch

1. In the podcast, I opened up about the realities of being a freelance SEO consultant.

“My clients get super tailored service. They get someone 100% dedicated to their own project.”

Clients get the benefit of highly personalised service, but it also means that there's only so much of 'me' to go around. It's a delicate balance, but one that’s absolutely worth it for the bespoke service I can offer.

A Diverse Clientele: More Than Just Numbers

Jack and I delved into the kinds of clients that generally seek out freelancers over larger agencies.

The diversity in my clientele—from small businesses to international companies—has been both a learning curve and a source of pride for me. This isn't just for show—it's a treasure trove of learning experiences that make me a better consultant every day.

Services Tailored for You

As we delved into the services I offer, one thing became clear: one-size-fits-all solutions don’t cut it.

“Clients come to me because I’m a freelancer, they stay with me for the personality and the expertise, but we do have to get along really well to make it work long-term.”

Each client is unique, and their SEO needs are too. Whether it’s a comprehensive SEO audit or crafting a content strategy, my services are tailored to meet these individual needs.

“It’s more about making sure that the experience they get from me is top-notch, and they have their answers to all their questions, and they feel empowered to drive their strategy the way they see it fit.”

Navigating International SEO

When it comes to international SEO, it's more than just translations; it's about understanding the cultural nuances. I offer a 360º understanding of client businesses, making me equipped to handle the challenges that come with international clientele.

Listen Up! 🎧

If this has piqued your curiosity, why not listen to the full conversation? It’s packed with insights that go beyond what I’ve touched on here.

Click here to listen to the podcast on Apple iTunes

It was an enriching experience to be part of the podcast, and I hope you find these highlights as insightful as I did during the conversation. Do give the podcast a listen for the full experience and to gain a deeper understanding of my approach to SEO and consultancy.

Thanks, Jack, for having me! 😇

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Understanding and using AI for an effective international SEO strategy - A talk at the SEO Camp Day Strasbourg 2023

Link to the slides in French 🇫🇷

If you’re here, this means you likely just attended or watched my conference at the SEOCamp Day in Strasbourg, held on the 10th February 2023. I hope you enjoyed it!

I have a ton of resources about AI and international SEO. Here’s a brief list of links, I’ll soon add a comments and a few more.

What is generative AI? - McKinsey

GPT-3 explained - Science Focus

Chinese room thought experiment - Wikipedia

ChatGPT for SEO - Aleyda Solis

Generate alt tags with ChatGPT - Danny Richman

ChatGPT: Friend or Foe? - The Recipe for SEO Success Podcast - Kate Toon

What’s the future of SEO? - Panel discussion at the Erepday 2022 conference

I had the privilege of being invited to participate in the panel discussion “What’s the future of SEO?” at the 2022 Erepday conference in Strasbourg alongside two other SEO experts: Dan Bernier and Mickaël Hamard.

The Erepday conference brings together the essential news of the “hot” topics of e-reputation, branding and customer relations 2.0. It is an exceptional day of conferences, panels and networking with expert speakers in the field of the web and e-reputation to grow your brand and business. It’s organised by the amazing teams at Blue Boat.

So, what’s the future of SEO?

On the panel discussion, we discussed what SEO will look like in 10 years. My take on this was that it will remain fun and exciting, and I am positive that SEO will be around for the foreseeable future. I also believe the emphasis will be put on inclusivity and accessibility on the web.

We can't predict exactly what will happen in SEO over the next 10 years, but we know Google's global vision is to make internet information available to everyone. That shouldn't change much.

By working on making information available to people all around the world, Google is setting the stage for a new era of digital knowledge, where information is made accessible to everyone, regardless of their location, language, device or background.

We had conversations around the evolution of the SERP, especially how Google was bringing sensorial elements to the SERP. We also discussed the importance of authenticity, the need to remain true to oneself, and the concept of staying true to one's values even when the world around us changes. We discuss how the future of online search will be spread across multiple platforms, and how this will create a shift in the way we access information. We explore the implications for businesses, as well as the importance of finding ways to remain relevant in this ever-evolving landscape. Additionally, we consider the impact on people's lives and how our approach to information gathering will be shaped by the resources available to us.

The video is only in French, but the transcript can be translated to English 🙂

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at the 2022 Erepday conference in Strasbourg and I am thankful to the organisers for inviting me to be a part of the panel. It was great to be able to share my insights and knowledge with the other experts and attendees.

I am confident that SEO will continue to evolve and become even more important in the future, and I am looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for the industry.

Podcast: SEO Strategies that stand the test of time - Recipe for SEO Success

I’m very honoured to have been invited on The Recipe for SEO Success, Kate Toon’s famous podcast. 🎙

She invited me to talk about longevity in SEO and we had a lovely chat!

Here’s what we talked about:

• Core SEO pillars and principles that have remained unchanged

• How long it will take to get results from your SEO strategy

• Keywords: should you update them constantly or stick with the same ones

• What your long-term keyword strategy should be

• How to react when a new competitor moves above you in the rankings

• Milestone changes in SEO in the last three years

• Updates in SEO that you should be aware of

• How iteration factors into a solid SEO strategy

• My top two tactics to try out today

Listen on Apple Podcasts ↓

Listen on Spotify ↓

“I highly recommend that you follow Alizée. She just approaches SEO with a real enthusiasm, positivity, and a human touch, which I think is very much aligned with how I approach it.”

— Kate Toon, The Recipe for SEO Success

Huge thanks to Kate for inviting me on the podcast! 🥰 I had a great time!

Round Table: French Technical SEO - the SEO Kitchen Show by Oncrawl

I was kindly invited by the Oncrawl teams to participate in The SEO Kitchen Show’s first roundtable about French technical SEO. The SEO Kitchen Show is a series of webinars that were run over the course of 3 days in June 2022.

The goal was to share our expertise and have the audience benefit from it. We got to debate on various topics related to French technical SEO with my colleagues Véronique Duong, Julien Deneuville, Emmanuel de Vauxmoret and Rebecca Berbel to try and sort out the best French technical SEO recipe.

Topics we talked about include:

• What is technical SEO and how it’s different from “regular” SEO

• How technical SEO is important and what is its role in an SEO strategy

• What are the hot trends in technical SEO right now and which subjects could be more highlighted

• Technical SEO tools

Video recording of the SEO Kitchen show panel on French Technical SEO (in French)

This particular roundtable was in French, but you can switch on translated subtitles if you want the English version.

Other topics were discussed in English and included:

• SEO automation

• Enterprise and strategy

• Agency SEO

• Search intent

• Algorithm updates

• Content and technical SEO

• E-commerce

• Data science

I highly recommend you check out the other round tables where a lot of people I deeply admire in the industry gave their best advice.You can watch/binge watch all the replays for free!

Bonus → The SEO Kitchen Show created a cookbook with all our best recipes! 👩🏻‍🍳🥘

Twitter takeover: Use Search Intent to Optimise Product Pages - Semrush #SEOThread

The Semrush team got in touch with me a few weeks ago to do a #SEOThread on their Twitter account. I chose to write about using search intent to optimise product pages for e-commerce. You can read the whole thread below. ↓

Hello SEO friends! 👋 I'm Alizée, a freelance SEO consultant with a passion for specialty coffee and knitting.
I'll be taking over the #SEOthread today to talk about using #searchintent to optimise product pages 🤓
So get cozy, grab a notepad, and read on! 😉↓ @AlizeeBaudez pic.twitter.com/w7iyHbK6X2

— Semrush (@semrush) June 14, 2022

In a nutshell, here are the few elements I mentioned in this #SEOThread.

What is Search intent?

First things first, search intent is the purpose of a user’s search.

There are 4 type of search intent:
→ Navigational = find something or a website
→ Informational = research
→ Commercial = compare options
→ Transactional = buy, complete an action#SEOthread @AlizeeBaudez pic.twitter.com/l25vgdiJxB

— Semrush (@semrush) June 14, 2022

In a way, informational, commercial and transactional search intents coincide with the buyer’s journey. The general idea here is that you want to take your user through each step of the journey with the content you put on your website.

Where does the product page fit?

The product page can be visited by the user at any stage of the process (=any stage of the buyer’s journey). But at the end of the day, its goal is to sell. So you want to optimise your product page for the decision stage, with keywords that have a transactional search intent.

How to optimise your product page for transactional queries?

How to optimise your product page for transactional queries?

1️⃣ Check out what queries the page is already ranking for on Google Search Console

2️⃣ Extend your keyword research to transactional queries

3️⃣ Implement optimisations#SEOthread @AlizeeBaudez

— Semrush (@semrush) June 14, 2022

1 - On Google Search Console

• Look at the keywords that drive traffic to your product page. Read through them carefully. Can you already spot what type of search intent is emerging from those keywords?

• Export the keyword and define a search intent for each of them. You can use a spreadsheet or a keyword analysis tool.

How to easily spot a transactional keyword?

Look out for the words “buy”, “for sale”, “price”, “cost”, “supplier”, “quote”, etc.#SEOthread @AlizeeBaudez pic.twitter.com/19YyEwRE9V

— Semrush (@semrush) June 14, 2022

2 - Extend your keyword research to transactional queries

Now you have deciphered what brings your users to your product page, it's time to adjust and broaden your horizons! We'll do this by doing a bit of keyword research, just to make sure what we're changing is in line with what our users need.

I often use the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool to find related queries and filter the results by search intent, keeping only the transactional ones.

Pick a few of the best ones according to your usual keyword research criteria.#SEOthread @AlizeeBaudez pic.twitter.com/9ogMu9yiTl

— Semrush (@semrush) June 14, 2022

3 - Implement your transactional keywords where it matters the most

Make sure the keywords you end up with are in the page title, the meta description, the headings of the page. Include them in bold in your paragraphs, optimise your copy in the best way possible.

Extra elements to consider on your product page

💡 Extra elements to consider on your product page:

→ Have a clear CTA for your product
→ Keep the page design simple and effective
→ Go to the point in your copy
→ Include reassurance elements (reviews, payment options, delivery, use cases...)#SEOthread @AlizeeBaudez

— Semrush (@semrush) June 14, 2022

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If you need any help with your product page, your e-commerce website, or if you want to optimise your keywords for the right search intent, get in touch with me today!