Celebrating 7 Years of Learning and Growing as a Freelance SEO Consultant

What does it take to succeed as a freelance SEO consultant? As I look back on my seven years in the industry, I've realised that it's all about persistence, dedication, and a willingness to learn and grow. This journey as a freelance/consultant/business owner has been an incredible ride, full of challenges, successes, and most importantly, the support of my clients, colleagues and friends.

Although I’m still not exactly sure which job title I should use after all this time, I thought I’d take you on a trip down memory lane and share with you some insights about this journey.

To celebrate this milestone, I took my partner and friends out for a very French evening at a local wine bar. 🍷

Photo credit: Julie Capon

Back in 2016, I started working as a digital marketer for international markets in Paris. I was excited to learn more about the field and make a difference in the industry. The same week I started working there, I got my first client and started freelancing on the side. At the time, I was doing a bit of everything, testing the waters, and working a couple of evenings and weekends here and there.

After two years of hard work, my freelancing business brought me enough income to consider a different lifestyle. This meant that I could work from anywhere in the world, on my own terms, and make a living out of it! So my partner and I left Paris to travel around Europe, and set base in Strasbourg 3 years ago.

The first years were not easy, and this job is still pretty challenging. I can’t say I’m the worst boss I ever had, but I’m certainly not the kindest! As a independent consultant, I had to work hard to establish myself and build a reputation in the industry - as well as learning about the intricaties of admin life. I spent countless hours researching and experimenting with different SEO techniques, watching webinars, reading blog posts or newsletters and traveling to conferences to make sure my clients were getting the best service possible. With persistence and dedication, I slowly began to build a loyal client base, to attract fun projects to work on, and to grow confident in my skills as an SEO consultant.

Over the years, I've had the privilege of working with some amazing clients, from small startups to large corporations, businesses or agencies, and from all over the world. I've helped them improve their website rankings, increase their online visibility, and ultimately, grow their businesses. I've also had the opportunity to collaborate with some incredible colleagues in the industry, who have challenged me to learn and grow as a consultant.

I have always strived to be as transparent as possible with all my clients, setting realistic expectations and creating solid SEO strategies that stand the test of time.

My consulting path even lead me to start sharing my knowledge a couple years ago, whether by teaching classes to students or speaking at conferences.

Of course, there have been challenges along the way as well. The SEO landscape is constantly evolving, and staying up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices is a never-ending task. But I've always been passionate about this field, and I've always been willing to put in the work to stay ahead of the curve (hello AI!)

As I celebrate my 7th anniversary as a freelance SEO consultant, I'm proud of what I've accomplished, but I'm also excited about what's yet to come. I'm constantly learning and growing as a consultant.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey, from my clients and colleagues to my partner, friends, and family. I couldn't have done it without your support, and I look forward to many more years of growth and success in this amazing field.

PS: Mom and Dad, I think I turned out to be an actual business owner!

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Thank you for taking the time to read about my journey as a freelance SEO consultant. If you're in need of SEO consulting services or have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me through my website or social media channels. Let's work together to take your business to the next level!

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!

BrightonSEO April 2022 recap, notes and slides

I can’t believe this was my 5th time at BrightonSEO (IRL). I don’t do many conferences, but this one is worthy enough for me to travel 1000+ km twice a year to hang out with fellow SEOs, learn tons, make new friends, and, of course, grab a fish’n’chips on the beach - if the seagulls don’t steal it from me!

I took loads of notes, and plan to catch up on the talks I couldn’t attend on the BrightonSEO video vault. Until then, here are a few excerpts of my notes, as well as useful links and resources.

Quality assurance

Goodbye SEO fuckups! Learn to set a quality assurance framework

Slides and talk by Aleyda Solis.

Notes:

• 85% of SEOs have one to two major SEO incidents each year

• We generally spend more time fixing and improving than building stuff

• It’s not only a matter of catching error faster but to prevent them too

• SEO monitoring should be a part of a broader SEO quality assurance process:

1. Educate to prevent SEO mistakes

2. Validate to avoid launching SEO errors

3. Monitor

Technical SEO QA: shining a light on invisible work

Slides and talk by Myriam Jessier & Gianna Brachetti-Truskawa.

• Always have a staging environment to test things on

• Define what’s important for your QA:

• Critical pages

• User flows

• Core functionalities

• Questions to ask yourself: Is it crawlable? Is in indexable? Is it rank-worthy?

• Make sure to communicate potential risks to the teams

• What matters:

• Do not overload with thousands of pages

• GSC has a time delay, so keep it in mind for QA

• Some QA checks must be manual

• QA your code: canonicals, schema, and hreflang

• Use a configuration file in Screaming Frog, so everyone does QA the same way every time

• Be aware that each type of site has its own QA flavour

• Some deployments are not done by humans: cron jobs, scripts, server updates

Brand vs SEO: how to win allies and influence brand guardians

Slides and talk by Becky Simms.

• Use personas, even when you work on SEO

• SEO and the brand both use the website as a vehicle, so there’s necessarily some overlap or collaboration opportunities between both fields

Fundamentals

Beyond the basics: 5 (or 10) Google Business Profile elements you might not know about but REALLY should

Slides and talk by Claire Carlile.

• There’s now a “request a quote” feature in Google Business Profile, but it can show how your potential clients can get quotes from your competitors as well

• In your local results tracking tools, include your competitors

• UTM trackers in URLs are crucial in GBP

• When you ask for reviews from your clients, give them ideas on what they could write about to avoid “empty” or boring reviews

• Use Vision AI to check what Google sees in the pictures you add to your Google Business Profile. You want to make sure what Google sees reflects what you want your business to show.

Reporting

Freddy Krueger’s guide to scary good reporting

Slides and talk by Greg Gifford.

• There’s an unconscious bias where clients don’t always trust digital marketers or SEOs. That means every time we get in touch with our clients we have to overcome the mistrust.

• Your client came to you for a problem, and you provide a solution, so the solution needs to appear in the report. Clients want to know quickly if the stuff you do is working.

• So the most important thing is to know what to put in your report.

• You need to make it crystal clear that what you do matters. This is often as simple as:

  • Organic traffic

  • Leads

  • Organic leads

• That’s all you need in the end and that can up be put in one page.

• Customise reports to each client to speak to each clients goals. Use questions over jargon for headlines.

Keyword research

How to go after the long tail keywords (and why it matters!)

Slides and talk by Paola Didone.

• For long tail keywords, instead of creating new pages for each, start by focusing on pages you already have. You can add a small paragraph on a category page with those long tail keywords and it will do the job for the most part.

• Check what is already ranking for the keywords you are targeting

• Look at the proportion of the search volume of the head term vs the long tail keywords volume. There’s more point to targeting a long tail keyword that represents 30% of the head search term volume than 0.5%

Effective zero-volume keyword research and why it’s important

Slides and talk by Mark Williams-Cook.

• Interestingly, the content ideas AlsoAsked provides will likely have zero search volume.

• 70-80% of searches are long tail keywords

• 15% of searches are new

• So by not focusing on these keywords, we are actually getting on just 15% of keywords.

• It’s not because you have a very low search volume that you shouldn’t write about something. Think about intent volume instead of search volume.

Agency & Freelance SEO

Managing expectations with “impossible keywords”

Slides and talk by Jessica Maloney.

• “Impossible keywords” are the ones where the SERP is dominated by a brand (ex. Chapstick) for example, the ones where the client wants to to rank for X without further explanation.

• How to proceed with the client:

  1. Understand why

  2. Education

  3. Data : it’s your backup to explain and show the client what’s possible, keyword difficulty metrics

  4. Offer alternative keywords

  5. Use your own data from Google Search Console

  6. Eyes on the competition : when a client comes with a competitor and a keyword, they are often more annoyed by the competitor than by their own ranking for this keyword. So showing them what this competitor does will work better.

Explode your agency growth: be more you

Slides and talk by Nicole Osborn.

• Blending in = invisibility

• Home page should say :we know what your problems are and we know how to solve them”

• Add call to action on the first screen of the home page

• Your copy has to be super attractive, honey to a bee

• Don’t be too vague on what you do great

• Purple and blue themes are overdone

• Stock images are boring

• About page: have pictures of the people, not the building

• Boring won’t get you on the best shortlists 😉

• 3 strategies to ditch boring:

• Stand out brand values

• Connect with stories: be noticed by more of your best fit clients, tell people about who you are and they will come

• Show your personality

• People want to work with people they like, and they will talk about you if they believe they’ve found a rare pearl

Future of Search

Web design for people and planet

Talk by Tom Greenwood.

• Check out the Website Carbon Calculator

• Practical step to make a website more efficient for everybody and the environment:

  1. Do you actually need this bit of code or this image?

  2. Images weigh way more than a thousand words

  3. For simple stock photo pictures, is it really communicating useful information?

  4. Blurring the edges of a photo where you have a subject in the center can reduce the size by 50%

  5. WEBP files are 30% lighter than jpeg

  6. Use SVG files and optimise them by hand because Illustrator adds extra information

  7. Auto play videos burn through data and are detrimental to the environment and to people who don’t have access to a lot of data

  8. Animated SVG are cool

  9. System fonts are zero waste, like Times New Roman, Courrier New, and Arial

  10. WOFF2 font files are lighter

  11. Reuse styles rather than adding styles to improve CSS

  12. Jquery for forms is heavy

  13. MinimalGA for Google Analytics tracking is lighter than Google Tag Manager

  14. Contextual ads over personalised ads -> example: have sports ad on a sports article

  15. Test on Motorola Moto E6 or similar because that is the average of what users have worldwide

  16. Use dark mode

Search in the Metaverse

Slides and talk by Kara Thurkettle.

• Impacts on search:

  • Search what you see

  • Use AR

  • Try on clothes virtually so the user gets more information

• Use these technologies to do product demos, people are searching more and more for AR related terms like “see flooring in my room”

• The Metaverse changes the user journey, where the SERP becomes a 3D virtual street, or where the information provided to the user is even more personalised

Search intent

How to determine search intent for B2B

Slides and talk by Adriana Stein.

• Buyer personas are as important up in B2B in B2C

• The challenge for SEOs is to align search intent and purchase intent

• B2B is more complicated than B2S in the purchase decision stage because you have multiple people deciding to make the purchase, so we need to understand whether the search intent is B2B or B2C, as well as understand what different buyer personas we will have to deal with.

• Step 1: Streamline the buyer personas

  • It’s impossible to talk to people without knowing who they are

  • Update buyer personas regularly

  • Simplify it by categorising the personas

    • End users - the ones that use the product

    • Influencers - people who have a voice in the buying process

    • Decision makers - the ones that decide the purchase

• Step 2: Keyword research and clustering

  • Check keywords by hand and look at what the SERP looks like

  • Depending on the results you’ll be able to tell if they are B2B or B2C queries

• Step 3: Keyword map

  • Map keywords to each page/type of page

  • Use multiple keywords to describe one product, by tying it to different use cases, different contexts

  • One seed keyword, multiple related keywords

• Step 4: Create content

  • Use seed keyword, determine what buying stage this refers to, create title, then h1 and body, repeat with another seed keyword.

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This is just a quick summary of some of the talks I attended in person at the event. I haven’t mentioned the keynotes which were both incredible, or the talks I’ll catch up on in the BrightonSEO video vault.

If you want to check out all the slide decks from the event, SiteVisibility has them all listed here.

This is hands-down the best SEO conference I have ever been to, I already have my ticket for October 2022 and even pitched to talk! 🤞