--- title: "SEO consultant for digital businesses · Kévin Papot" url: https://kevinpapot.fr/en/seo-digital author: Kévin Papot, SEO and GEO consultant language: en updated: 2026-10-15 --- > SEO and GEO consultant for more than fifteen years. I only recommend what I've made work on my own websites, on Google and in AI answers. [Home](https://kevinpapot.fr/en/) / [Industries](https://kevinpapot.fr/en/metiers) / Digital businesses # SEO for digital businesses: your own website deserves clients too. You build websites, software or apps for others, and your own has been waiting for two years. That's normal: client projects come first. It's also why a competitor who's not as good as you ranks higher. [Book a call](#contact)[See my method](https://kevinpapot.fr/en/methode) 1. Rattle your competitors. 2. Overtake them. 3. Protect you from their attacks. From code to screen. [Photo: Marc Mueller seven11nash, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Macro_laptop_coding_(Unsplash).jpg) **15 years** in SEO **4 books** on SEO and GEO **200+ sites** tracked every day **1M / month** visits to my e-commerce site They trusted me with their visibility DartyEurofinsCegidEBPCNP AssurancesIngram Micro ## What is SEO for digital businesses? SEO for digital businesses is the search optimisation of a web agency, a software publisher, an IT services company or a freelancer for the searches their future clients make. These searches rarely concern a technology and almost always concern a problem, a business need or a comparison between solutions. The work therefore consists of translating technical know-how into pages that a business owner or a department head understands, then backing them up with evidence. The problem ## Three flaws of agency and software websites. Symptom 1 ### Your site talks about your tools It lists languages, libraries and methodologies. Your client, meanwhile, is searching for how to stop re-keying orders by hand. Symptom 2 ### Everyone says the same thing Tailor-made, agile, attentive, passionate. Swap your logo for a competitor's and nobody would notice the difference, Google included. Symptom 3 ### Enquiries come in fits and starts A referral, a tender, then a long silence. The pipeline depends on the partners' network, which doesn't stretch. An audit, for real ## What I spot in thirty seconds on an agency website. The site below doesn't exist, but its flaws do: they're the five I spot most often. Hover over a number. Digital agency | Home https://votre-agence.exemple **STUDIO N.**Expertise · Projects · The agency · Contact Creators of digital experiences We support ambitious brands in their transformation. Let's talk about your project **Project A**Full redesign **Project B**Brand strategy **Project C**Platform **Fig. 2.** Fictional site, reconstructed. Any resemblance to yours would be a good reason to call me. 1. *1***The same title as two hundred other agencies**“Digital agency” with no town or speciality: you're competing with the whole country. 2. *2***Twelve areas of expertise, so none**Websites, SEO, social, video, branding… Visitors can't tell what you do best. Neither can Google. 3. *3***A sentence anyone could sign in your place**Replace it with what you do, for whom, with a figure: “Appointment-booking websites for tradespeople”. 4. *4***A mood video as the background**It's heavy and says nothing. It's often the number one cause of a slow agency website. 5. *5***Case studies with no results**“Full redesign” proves nothing. A useful case study states the problem, what was done, and what it brought in. What your customers type ## What your future clients search for. Six possible phrasings, quoted as examples and not measured. They have one thing in common: none contains the name of a programming language or a development tool. *1*“scheduling software for construction” : They want a solution for their trade, not software in general. A publisher needs one page per sector served, with that sector's vocabulary and screenshots. *2*“alternative to” followed by a competitor's name : They already use a tool and they're unhappy with it. An honest comparison page, one that also says when the other solution is still the better choice, convinces more than a table where you win on every line. *3*“website design agency” and their town : They want to be able to meet someone. Google Business Profile, a local page and work for nearby businesses matter more here than the list of your skills. *4*“how much does a mobile app cost” : They're preparing a budget and afraid of being ripped off. Whoever frankly explains what makes the price vary, with orders of magnitude they stand behind, gets the call. *5*“connect my online shop to my management software” : They have a specific problem and describe it in their own words. One page per use case, describing the starting situation and the outcome, captures these rare, highly qualified searches. *6*“managed IT services provider SME reviews” : They have a shortlist and are checking reputations. Your reviews, your named case studies and what third-party sites say about you clinch the decision. What works ## What works in digital, and why. Lever 1 ### Pages per problem Every situation you know how to fix deserves its own page: the need, your approach, the result. It's the opposite of an “Expertise” page with twelve icons, and it's what your clients type. Lever 2 ### Case studies In your line of work, people buy a service they can't see beforehand. A detailed case study, with the client's name when they agree, the context, what was delivered and what it changed, is worth more than any promise. It also provides precise text that nobody else has. Lever 3 ### Comparisons and “alternative to” pages For a software publisher, these are often the pages closest to the sale. They take courage: saying where you're better and where you're not. Readers can tell the difference very well. Lever 4 ### Pages per sector The same software or service sells differently to an accountancy firm and to a haulier. One page per sector served, with its own examples, multiplies the entry points without multiplying the products. Lever 5 ### Documentation and expert content Your teams know things few people know. A solid technical article, signed by the person who wrote it, attracts links and mentions you'd never have got by asking for them. What costs dearly ## Common mistakes among web professionals. Mistake 1 ### A website rebuilt every two years Every redesign changes the URLs, loses pages and resets the counter to zero. The look gets a facelift, and nobody asks what the pages were bringing in. Mistake 2 ### A tech-news blog nobody searches for What's new in the latest version of a tool interests your developers, not your buyers. Write for the people who sign the quotes. Mistake 3 ### A site too clever for Google Everything loads in JavaScript, with animations everywhere, and the search engine struggles to read the content. An agency website must first be readable, including by a bot. Mistake 4 ### References shown as logos A row of logos says neither what you did nor what came of it. Three case studies told properly beat thirty badges. The method ## My work with a digital business. You know your tools better than I do. My role lies elsewhere: choosing the topics, the angle and the order. 1. **Positioning.** Who you sell to, what, and against whom. Without that sentence, no page holds up. 2. **Problems.** The list of situations your clients are trying to solve, then one page for each. 3. **Evidence.** Case studies, reviews, mentions on third-party sites: what a buyer checks before getting in touch. 4. **Leads.** We track demo and quote requests, and where they come from. One-minute test ## Is SEO right for you? Five frank questions to find out whether support makes sense in your situation. Sometimes the answer is no, and I'll tell you. Close to home ## Digital businesses in Charente. Angoulême is known for images: comics, animation, and the studios and schools that go with them. A web agency, a freelance developer or a software publisher based here can serve businesses in the département, clients all over France, or both. Being in Charente is neither an asset nor a drawback; online, it's what you make of it. I live between Cognac and Paris, so I'm in the same boat as you. ### The agency serving local businesses Its clients are tradespeople, shops and SMEs in Charente who want someone within driving distance. Here local SEO matters: Google Business Profile, town pages, work for names people recognise. ### The studio working for the whole of France Animation, imagery, development: its clients are elsewhere. Its website needs to rank on a skill, and its Charente address only comes into play for recruiting. ### The freelancer They don't have time to maintain a thirty-page website, and they don't need one. A clearly stated speciality, three projects told properly and a consistent profile from one platform to the next already go a long way. The rooftops of Angoulême. [Photo: JLPC, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Angoul%C3%AAme_16_Vue_toits%26Charente_depuis_bd_Pasteur_2014.jpg) The historic centre of Cognac. [Photo: Jacques DASSIÉ, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cognac_Centre_historique.jpg) [SEO consultant in Charente](https://kevinpapot.fr/consultant-seo-charente)[Angoulême](https://kevinpapot.fr/consultant-seo-angouleme)[Cognac](https://kevinpapot.fr/consultant-seo-cognac) Beyond Google ## Your clients already compare providers with an AI. Your clients are among the first to use it. A finance director writes to ChatGPT: “there are forty of us, we're looking for an expense management tool that connects to our accounting, which ones should we compare?”. They get a shortlist and criteria. When it's about a service provider, the question becomes: “which agency should rebuild a manufacturer's website, with a technical catalogue?”. AI tools build these answers from what they read about you and, above all, from what others say about you: comparisons, software review sites, trade press, provider directories, public documentation. A clear, consistent description of what you do, and for whom, counts for more than a slogan. It's an area where a small, well-described company can be cited alongside much bigger players, and I've co-written two books on how to get there. [Find out more about GEO](https://kevinpapot.fr/en/consultant-geo) Question put to an AIWhich web agency specialises in websites for building tradespeople? Answer Three agencies position themselves in this niche: 1. **Our client**— specialist agency: websites and appointment booking for tradespeople, case studies with figures. 2. — generalist agency, all sectors, varied references. 3. — subscription website provider, standard templates. Agency websiteCase studiesAgency directory **Fig. 3.** Reconstruction, names hidden. This is the spot we aim for: on the list, with the most precise description. Three typical cases ## Three digital profiles. Examples made up for illustration, with no link to any existing client. They give the order of the first actions. ### A management software publisher It has good clients, all of whom came through the founder's network. 1. Create one page per sector served, with its screenshots and vocabulary. 2. Publish frank comparisons with the two or three tools it's up against. 3. Get the software listed and described on the comparison sites AI tools consult. ### A web agency of about ten people It responds to tenders and would like to receive direct enquiries. 1. Pick two specialities and display them, instead of offering everything. 2. Tell the story of a few projects in detail, results included. 3. Overhaul the Google Business Profile and local pages for nearby searches. ### A freelance developer They depend on two clients and on freelance platforms. 1. Write a home page that says in one sentence what they do and for whom. 2. Detail three assignments, with the clients' agreement. 3. Publish a few articles on their speciality, where their clients will read them. In practice ## What you get. - A positioning statement, and the pages that follow from it - The list of client problems to tackle, ranked by value - A case study template your project managers can fill in - A plan for comparisons and sector pages - Tracking of demo and quote requests Pricing ## How much does an SEO consultant cost? The fee depends on four things. I give you a precise amount after a free first thirty-minute conversation. - The size of the site: ten pages or ten thousand - The competition on your queries - What you can do in-house, and what needs producing for you - The pace you want [Request a quote](#contact) Who you're talking to ## Your SEO consultant: a business owner, not just an SEO. My name is Kévin Papot. More than fifteen years in the job, four co-written books, and the Newp agency, co-founded in Charente. I also run my own online shops, in France and internationally: one of them went from zero to a million visits a month. **Before we talk tags, we talk margin, average basket and profitability.** When you book a call, I'm the one who picks up. [Read my story](https://kevinpapot.fr/en/kevin)[See my method](https://kevinpapot.fr/en/methode) FAQ ## The questions agencies and software publishers ask. We know how to build websites. Why bring in an SEO consultant? Because building a website and getting it found are two different jobs, and because it's hard to see your own clearly. You bring the technical side, I bring the choice of topics and an outside view. Usually the project finally moves forward because someone is steering it. We sell SEO to our clients. Isn't it awkward to consult you? No, and it's more common than you'd think. Doctors have doctors too. What we say to each other stays between us. Should we target local or national searches? It depends on who buys from you. An agency serving businesses in its region should own its town. A software publisher or a specialist studio targets the whole of France on its skills, and sometimes both coexist. Our clients refuse to be named. How do we do case studies? We tell the story without the name: the sector, the size, the problem, the solution, the result. It's less powerful than a well-known name, but far more useful than a row of logos. And we raise the question of being named as soon as the next contract is signed. Should we really write comparison pages against our competitors? For a software publisher, yes, because your buyers look for them and someone else will write them in your place. The condition is to stay accurate and measured. A bad-faith comparison soon backfires on its author. Our website is a JavaScript application. Is that a problem? Not necessarily, but it needs checking. Google reads JavaScript with varying success, and AI crawlers often even less well. I check what they actually see and tell you what needs to be served differently. Our developers don't have time to write. They don't have to. An interview with one of them provides the material for an article, which my agency's team writes and they proofread. Their byline stays, and so does their time. Does SEO help with recruitment? Yes, indirectly. A candidate looks at your website, your projects and what people say about you before applying. Technical content signed by your teams attracts profiles like theirs. We sell an expensive service with a long sales cycle. How do we measure? We track incoming enquiries and where they come from, then what becomes of them in your CRM. With few sales a year, we reason in terms of the value of open deals rather than traffic curves. What kinds of digital businesses have you worked with? Software publishers, including large accounts, agencies and freelancers. My agency, Newp, looks after more than 200 websites, and I run my own. The references are on this site, and I can tell you more about them in person. --- Source: https://kevinpapot.fr/en/seo-digital · Kévin Papot, SEO and GEO consultant, Charente (France).