What I do for businesses in Lille
The businesses I support with SEO in Lille and the Nord department are mostly SMEs, online retailers and professional firms for whom Google remains the first channel bringing in customers. Organic traffic weighs directly on their revenue. I work in three ways, and one of them is often enough.
SEO audit and consulting
The starting point is almost always the same: an SEO audit that answers a single question, why this site does not rank. I examine the technical structure, indexing, internal linking, semantic coverage and performance, then deliver an action plan ranked by impact and effort. The five parts of the report are the same whatever the city; only the competitors change.
The GEO part belongs to the same report: how your business appears in the answers of ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and what needs to change for it to be cited. When the business targets local customers, local SEO is added: on those queries, the Google Business Profile listing decides a good share of the result before the website even comes into play.
SEO copywriting
This is how I came into the profession, and it is the area where I have the most volume behind me. Three families of content, which follow very different SEO rules:
- Blog articles for direct-to-consumer brands, such as Panda Tea and Unbottled. The goal is to cover the long tail around the product category, then organize those articles into a topic cluster so they push the sales pages instead of competing with them.
- E-commerce product pages, notably in the PIM of Drawer. In a catalog, hundreds of product pages look alike: each one has to target its own query without sliding into duplicate content, while staying readable for the shopper. The SEO of a catalog raises enough technical questions to be handled separately.
- News and informational content for Meilleure Innovation. Here, freshness and publishing speed decide the ranking, and the markup has to keep pace.
The rule stays the same from one format to the next: the text has to be useful to the person reading it and explicit for Google. If it only does one of the two, it only does half the job.
Website creation and redesign
I design and build websites made for search from the start: search-driven architecture, Core Web Vitals under control, structured data, and an admin interface you can use without me. For example, I carried out a full redesign with a domain migration, on a site holding twenty-five years of archives, without losing rankings.
How I work
I always proceed in the same order, so that at every moment you know where the work stands and what comes next.
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Diagnosis
A full crawl of the website, analysis of Search Console, a record of your real rankings, and a look at the search results you are targeting and at what the sites already there are doing.
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Prioritization
Each problem found is costed in expected gain and workload. You receive an ordered list where the first three lines are often worth the next twenty. You decide what we start, and in what order.
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Execution
I take care of the fixes: markup, redirects, URL structure, structured data, performance, content. You approve, I publish.
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Measurement
Rankings, impressions, clicks and conversions recorded before and after, on the same keywords. A readable report that says what the rankings gained, what that brought in traffic, and what is left to do.
I go beyond recommendations
Many SEO missions stop at the report. It is accurate, it is complete, and it waits for someone to find the time to apply it. Six months later, the site's visibility has not moved an inch.
I apply the fixes myself, on the platform your site runs on. On WordPress, Shopify, PrestaShop, Wix or Webflow, that means settings, plugins, page templates and markup reworked where they cause problems. Each optimization is applied, then checked live. On a custom-built site, it means working directly in the code: I work in JavaScript, PHP and MySQL.
In practice: the redirects are written, the structured data is in place, the rendering is tested, and everything is live and checked. I define the strategy and I am the one doing the hands-on work, so there is no specification to hand from one team to another, and no waiting time in between.
Where I work
I am based in Aubigny-au-Bac, between Douai and Cambrai. I can travel across a large part of the Nord and Pas-de-Calais departments for a kick-off meeting or a progress review: Lille and its metropolitan area, as well as the areas around Douai, Cambrai, Valenciennes, Lens, Hénin-Beaumont and Arras.
That said, the work is done very well remotely, by video call and in writing, and that is how almost all SEO missions run. Everywhere else in France, I work remotely only.
How much does an SEO consultant cost in Lille?
It is the first question I get, so I might as well answer it right away. Here are my prices and what they cover.
Audit and implementation
| Site size | Audit only, all taxes included | Audit + fixes applied, all taxes included |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 50 pages showcase site, tradesperson, firm, local SME | €690 | €1,290 |
| 50 to 300 pages SME with an active blog, small e-commerce | from €1,190 | from €1,890 |
| 300 to 1,500 pages established e-commerce, catalog site | from €1,990 | on quote |
| Larger, multilingual or multi-site | on quote | on quote |
Content and follow-up
| Optimized article, 1,000 to 1,500 words | €125 |
|---|---|
| Pillar article, 2,000 words or more | €245 |
| Quarterly follow-up rankings, Search Console, Core Web Vitals, report | €290 / quarter |
| Monthly support e-commerce, contested market, ongoing production | €990 / month |
| Consulting session, 2 hours minimum | €60 / hour |
On a local showcase site, I do not sell a monthly subscription. Once the audit is done and the fixes applied, a ten-page site does not generate a day of work per month. What remains useful is a quarterly review at €290, plus content paid per piece when you want to produce some.
Monthly support makes sense when there is real recurring output: a catalog that changes, content to publish every week, a contested market that needs monitoring. In that case, we agree together on what gets done each month, before starting.
All prices shown include all taxes: VAT does not apply (article 293 B of the French General Tax Code). Nothing is added to the amount shown.
Frequently asked questions
What does an SEO consultant charge?
In France, the average daily rate of a freelance SEO consultant is around €500, with a range from €280 for a beginner to €600 and more for a very experienced profile. In Lille, observed daily rates sit between €350 and €700.
For services, a full audit is commonly billed between €800 and €2,500, and monthly support between €500 and €3,000 depending on the size of the site. My own prices are shown higher up on this page.
What are the three types of SEO?
Technical SEO, which concerns Google's ability to crawl, understand and display your pages: speed, indexing, URL structure, structured data. On-page SEO, which covers the content and how it is organized: tags, headings, internal linking, semantic coverage. Off-page SEO, which concerns your authority as seen from outside, mainly the links pointing to your site and mentions of your brand.
A fourth field has been added recently, GEO, which aims for your business to be cited in AI-generated answers.
What are the four pillars of SEO?
Technical, content, popularity and user experience. Technical work makes the site readable for search engines. Content answers the questions your customers actually ask. Popularity, mainly backlinks and link building, establishes your credibility. User experience, measured in particular by Core Web Vitals, determines whether visitors stay once they arrive.
The four hold together: excellent content on a site Google does not crawl brings nothing, and a technically perfect site without content ranks for nothing.
Is SEO free?
Clicks from organic search are not paid to Google, unlike Google Ads. The work that produces them does cost time or money: audit, technical fixes, writing, link acquisition.
The difference lies in how long it lasts. An Ads campaign stops the day you cut the budget. A page that ranks well keeps generating visits for months after being paid for once.
How long before seeing results?
Technical fixes produce visible effects within a few weeks, sometimes a few days for indexing. Ranking gains on commercial queries generally take three to six months, and longer in a contested market.
In the local markets of Hauts-de-France, where competition is often weak, that time shrinks considerably. That is why I start with the audit: it shows from the first week which time horizon you are looking at.
Independent consultant or SEO agency in Lille?
An SEO agency brings a team, a high production capacity and continuity if someone leaves. In return it bills for its structure, and your account is often handled by a supervised junior profile. Lille has several, and for a large production volume they are the right choice.
With an independent consultant, you talk to the person who works on your site, from the first conversation to the launch. The whole budget goes into production. It suits SMEs, mid-sized online retailers and local businesses.
You are not based in Lille itself. Is that a problem?
For your website's SEO, no: the work is identical wherever the provider is, and it is done remotely in almost every case. I am based in the Nord department (59) and can travel to Lille for a kick-off meeting or a progress review.
It does matter for your own local SEO, though: your Google Business Profile listing must show your real address, and that is one of the points the audit covers.