Internet Strategies For French PME

Organic SEO To Give French Companies With An English Language Website The Visibility In American Markets To Compete With Anyone

As a French company targeting international markets you probably have a website in English.

Once you have had your business website up for a few months, you will be able to evaluate your results.

What can you do if you are not getting the prospects and leads you want from your website? How can a small French business gain any visibility in the huge American market? Do what the North American companies are doing.

Implement the right Search Engine Optimization campaign to get targeted visitors to your website.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often divided into two categories.
- Organic SEO
- Paid SEO

Paid SEO is essentially paid advertisements calling and leading people to your website.

What Does Organic SEO Involve?

Organic SEO is different from paid Search Engine Optimization. It encompasses a variety of tools to drive traffic to your website

Organic Search Engine Optimization is how you can get traffic to your website using tools based on distributing your content wisely in key positions throughout the internet.

Why Organic SEO Is Important To French Companies

Each category of SEO has its own value. There are a number of parameters that will influence the quality and quantity of leads to your website.

However, one of these parameters is absolutely critical to companies targeting foreign markets. Your results will depend on how well you know how to adapt your products and services to your market. If you do not know how to market your products to your foreign prospects any of your actions will be unproductive.

A well thought out organic SEO campaign combined with an integrated marketing campaign will bring you three things:
1. Potential clients to your website
2. Feedback directly from your foreign prospects and clients; and
3. Tracking tools to give you the information you need to refine your business strategy and position your products and services for more international sales.

Do you know the exact need your market has for your product?
Does your market recognize their need for your market?

If you cannot answer the two questions above, you will probably benefit greatly from organic SEO.

You could have a third party carry out extensive market research and move quickly into the traditional avenues for opening your business abroad. International business development strategies will allow you to acquire foreign market knowledge first hand here in France without the added expense and risk.

An organic SEO program is a good choice to give your website international visibility and give you time to get to know your market and to better adjust the positioning of your products and services to your international markets.

Here are the key elements you need to use in your organic SEO campaign to get your website more visibility.

Website

Your website must operate on several levels. First you have to understand that you have to begin by making your site friendly to both the people and the search engines.

One tip to be people friendly:

Adapt the amount of graphics on your main page to foreign internet capacities. For example, if you are targeting the typical North American on their home computers, the standard level of graphics or flash animation acceptable here is France will severely limit your market penetration.

One search engine friendly tip:

Have a link to your site map in the upper left hand corner of your site. Your first page is the most important for the search engines and internet users alike. Search engines will follow the site map link and people will find it useful.

Blog

One people friendly tip:

This is a current trend. More and more North American businesses are using blogs. A blog simply makes your SEO actions more effective. Blogs are also thought leadership tools that can complement your company website.

One search engine friendly tip:

The more the search engines come to visit your website the higher you will show up on their search engine results when someone enters a related search.

How can you get search engines come to visit you often? Use the “ping” function available in most blogs, and consider searching for a complete list of sites that can do a “ping” for you.

What is a “ping”? A ping list sends a notice to the web sites in your ping list each time you update your blog. This is how search engines see you most recent entries to your blog.

Article

One people friendly tip:

Articles are another thought leadership tool. They can also be used to answer any objections, gain more trust and visibility for the solutions and benefits your company provides.

One search engine friendly tip:

Articles are a key organic SEO tool. If you write educational and informative content for your foreign audience you will see an increase in visibility and traffic to your website. Send your articles to online article directories.

A good list of online article directories can be found at http://richardontheweb.com and you can choose which you would like to use, my preference is the first on the list.

If you already publish articles and want to target a specific audience, make sure you are using the article directory most used by your target market. There is no value in writing an article if you are going to post it in a place where you audience does not go.

Article Bio

One tip to be people friendly:

At the end of each of your online articles, don’t forget to put in an author’s resource box or author’s bio. Write information in this box that the reader will benefit from. Do not bore him. Only include minimal details about you at the very end of the box.

Give the readers a call to action they cannot resist. Offer a downloadable gift they will want immediately after reading your article or invite them to a fun quiz.

You need to equate your readers’ specific needs, with the momentum in your article and by offering something so compelling the readers feel an immediate need to follow your directions.

Again it boils down to how well you know your audience and how well you address their needs. The more accurately you do this the higher your click through rates will be.

One tip to be search engine friendly:

The author’s resource box or bio is the main reason why you write the articles in the first place. It is not a tool to tell of all your company’s merits. The article is a tool for you to persuade your readers to go where you want them to. As the article may be read online or printed out, spell your url’s out in full.

Depending on the maturity of the market for your product and your readers readiness to buy your product, you could have your links to your company website or sales landing page. However, for optimum organic SEO link your articles to your blogs or social media pages.

Social Media : Squidoo And HubPages

One tip to be people friendly:

There are all sorts of social media websites. Squidoo and HubPages are just two of them. Social media posts are similar to both articles and blogs. They are probably the best of both worlds.

The social media sites allow you to write on a specific topic. You can increase the length of your post, include pictures and video clips as well as advertising.

One person can write on a dozen unrelated subjects. Each subject stands alone and does not reference another subject unless you chose to make the link. This is different from blogs and articles. A blog does not allow you to disconnect like this and articles do not allow you to connect like this.

One tip to be search engine friendly:

There is a huge benefit from posting on social media websites: their high visibility. The different kinds of social media websites, some may be more appropriate to your business than others. Again treat this like a blog. All of your posts on social media sites should link directly back to your company website or sales landing page.

Keywords

Before writing anything, research your best keywords. You will need them when you sit down to write. Using keywords correctly will give you more visibility.

What are keywords? These are the words internet users will enter into their internet browsers when looking for the information you can provide.

If you want them to you’re your company easily you should have these keywords positioned throughout your online content and also in the online text that is hidden to readers eyes.

Use your keywords in:

• The titles of your articles, blog posts and social media entries
• The first paragraphs of each of the things your write.
• And again in the rest of your content.

There are various tools to determine the best keywords you should use. If you are just developing your international business online, do not let this hold you up. This is something you will need to refine as your knowledge of your foreign market expands.

If your online content is informative and interesting to your target audience you will be using your keywords. Simply remember you are writing for the web and not offline. Search engines need to see key words up front, often but not so often they think you are a machine writing for them.

Basic Internet Marketing Strategy Using Organic SEO

With the example of this organic SEO campaign, these are the steps your visitor will take:

1. Use articles published in online directories to link back to either your blog or social media page.
2. Use each blog entry to link directly to your company web site or sales landing page.
3. Use entries on the social media websites to link directly to your company web site or sales landing page.
4. Your company website, or sales landing page. Give extra thought as to where you want your visitor to arrive. Does it say to him what he needs to hear? If not, adjust your url and send him to the appropriate page on your website.

Pay attention to the “conversation” you will have with your visitors all along this path. You need to have a coherent conversation. The same story should follow through. You might want them to “land” somewhere specific on your website.

If you have potential clients in different industries, make a separate path for each industry linking them through a story line that is relevant to their needs, questions, objections, using their industry specific vocabulary.

Ask yourself the following questions at each step in the path:

• Why do we want this traffic in the first place?
• What do we want the visitor to do?
• What is he thinking right now?
• Are we answering the questions he is asking himself right at this minute?

Integrated Marketing Plan

Your internet marketing strategy using organic SEO is a powerful lead generation tool. It will bring you optimum results by using an integrated marketing both online and offline.

Implement a multi-channel integrated marketing plan to work together with your basic internet marketing strategy. Use newsletters, ezines, audio, case studies, surveys, teleconferences, videos and other communication tools to guide your visitors and get to create a relationship with them.

Cindy King is a Cross-Cultural Marketer and International Sales Specialist, with over 25 years field experience in international business development. Find out about how Cindy can help you get international clients