Digital marketing in Quebec: the complete guide

Before choosing a channel, look at where your customers drop off: they can’t find you, they find you without understanding your offer, or they understand it without managing to reach you. Each case calls for a different first action. If several rows of the table apply to you, start with the highest one: the first rows often determine how well the next ones work.

This table expresses a principle more than a rule: each step builds on the previous one. A flawless Google Business Profile that sends people to a broken form loses customers at the last moment. The following sections go through the steps in order, with the guides that explore each one in more depth.

The first task requires no tool at all. For each service you want to sell first, write a sentence that answers four questions: what, for whom, where and why you. Take a fictional cabinetmaker in Sherbrooke. “We build custom kitchens for Eastern Townships homeowners who are renovating, with one contact person from plan to installation” can guide a page, a Google Business Profile and a post. “Carpentry, cabinets, renovation and more” forces every channel to guess.

Next, list the questions your customers ask before they buy. Reread your recent emails, messages and call notes. Questions about timelines, prices, service area, steps or maintenance will become the material for your pages, your FAQ and your posts. Twenty or so real questions are worth more than a keyword tool: they also reveal the words your customers actually use.

Define the area you serve, because it changes the strategy. A clinic that sees clients on site, a contractor who travels across three regional county municipalities (RCMs) and a shop that ships anywhere in Canada do not have the same priorities. Also choose the main action you expect from an interested customer: call, request a quote, book, visit the store or buy online. This action will become the common thread of your website, your posts and your measurement.

Finally, check that the services you promote are actually available, at the price and within the timelines you can deliver. Promoting an offer your team cannot deliver creates frustrating inquiries. If an offer changes, note which materials describe it (website, profile, email templates, pinned posts) to avoid contradictions.

Your website is the only channel where you fully control the content and the structure. Social networks and search engines change their rules; your pages remain the place where a customer checks your offer before writing to you. A Google Business Profile, a post or an ad almost always points there: if the landing page disappoints, each of these channels loses its effect.

For a service business, the foundation often fits in a few pages: a home page that clearly says what you do and where, one page per main service, a page about your team and how you work, a contact page and a privacy policy. Each service page answers the questions you gathered earlier and ends with the action you expect. Check them on a phone: readable text, an easy-to-reach call button, a form that works and a message that lands in an inbox someone actually monitors.

Two Quebec rules directly affect your website, even if you mostly work in English. The Government of Quebec points out that businesses must make their catalogues, advertising and websites available in French (new tab) (in French). According to the checklist for doing business in French from the Office québécois de la langue française (new tab) (in French), another language can be added, but only if French appears at least equivalently and the French version is accessible on terms at least as favourable. The Commission d’accès à l’information (new tab) (in French) also states that a business must publish on its website the title and contact information of the person in charge of protecting personal information, as well as detailed information about its policies and practices for governing that information. If you collect information by technological means, a contact form for example, you must publish a privacy policy written in clear and simple terms. The complete guide to business websites covers these rules along with the site’s other projects.

Do you need to redo your website? Not necessarily. If the structure holds up and the problem comes from a few vague pages or a faulty form, targeted fixes are often enough. A redesign makes more sense when the site can no longer be changed easily, displays poorly on mobile, or when your offer has changed so much that it needs a new organization. The guide to preparing a website redesign explains how to inventory your pages, keep your old addresses and check the result before launch.

Also think about what happens after launch: who hosts the site, who holds the access, who renews the domain name. Our guide to business website hosting helps you ask these questions. At Serafex, a website project is quoted for your project; hosting is offered as a separate service, with HTTPS and site transfer. Domain names are not part of the offer.

For a business that serves nearby customers, the Google Business Profile is often the most useful action at the start: it shows your hours, phone number and reviews in search results and in Google Maps. Google says that local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that there is no way to pay for a better local ranking (new tab). Its advice is concrete: verify the profile, fill it in as completely as possible, keep your hours up to date, including special hours, add photos and respond to reviews.

Also follow Google’s guidelines for representing your business (new tab). The profile name must match the real name of the business, with no slogan or list of services added. A business that travels to its customers, like a landscaper or a plumber, sets a service area and hides its address. A hybrid business, which also serves customers at its address during its posted hours, can show both its address and a service area. Then check that the name, address, phone number and hours match across the profile, the website and directories: conflicting contact details cost you calls.

Organic SEO takes over for broader or more detailed searches, such as “custom kitchen price Sherbrooke”. It relies first on clear, accessible and useful pages. Google’s SEO starter guide (new tab) points out that there are no secrets that will automatically rank you first, and that some changes take effect within a few hours while others take several months. Judge the work on trends over several months, not over a week.

Also open Google Search Console (new tab). This free service is not required to appear in Google, but it shows how your site appears there: its performance report gives clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position, by query and by page. You will see which searches already lead to you and which pages to strengthen. For a first review, the guide to preparing an SEO audit lists the observations to gather.

SEO with Serafex covers the audit, keyword research, fixes, tracking and backlinks within the agreed scope. SEO add-on plans are on hold, however: they are not offered for purchase at this time, without this suspending the tracking already planned for an existing client. As Google points out, no one can guarantee the top position: be wary of any offer that promises it.

Content is not an obligation to post every week. It is how you answer your customers’ questions before they buy, in writing, in pictures or on video. Sort your list of questions: some enrich a service page (steps, timelines, price ranges), others feed an FAQ, and a few deserve an article. Start with the ones that come right before a quote request or a call.

Google recommends producing helpful, reliable, people-first content (new tab). One of its self-assessment questions sums up what is at stake: will a reader feel they have learned enough to achieve their goal? Google also says it does not favour any particular word count. Your advantage is your experience: a contractor who explains, with photos, how they protect a lived-in house during work offers something generic text cannot.

The same material can be used several times: an article becomes a newsletter section, two or three posts and a standard answer for your team. If you send a newsletter, Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (new tab) applies. You need express or implied consent and, in every message, identification of the sender, a mailing address and a phone number, email address or website that remains valid for at least 60 days after sending, as well as a way to unsubscribe, with requests processed within 10 business days or less. You must also be able to prove consent on request. Implied consent is limited in time: it can last up to 2 years, or only 6 months after an inquiry or a job application.

Producing content mainly requires confirmed facts, usable photos and someone to review. The guide to preparing a content request explains what to provide to get an accurate text or visual on the first try. Content creation with Serafex covers web copy, articles, newsletters, images, videos and presentations within the agreed scope. Formats, quantities and revisions are set with each request.

Social networks are mainly for staying in touch with people who already know you, showing your work and making referrals easier. They are rarely the best first project when the website and the profile are weak, since most posts point back to them. Choose one or two networks based on two criteria: where your customers spend their time, and the format your team can produce without burning out. A team that doesn’t shoot video will avoid a video-centred network.

A pace you can sustain beats an intense start followed by three months of silence. Choose a cadence you can keep up even in busy periods, prepare topics a month ahead and name the person who approves. The guide to planning your social media with a calendar you can keep offers a method for the calendar and approvals. Also answer messages and comments: unanswered questions give the impression that no one is there.

The language rule applies here too. The checklist from the Office québécois de la langue française specifies that commercial documentation must be written at least in French, whatever the medium, which includes websites and social networks. You remain responsible for this even when the content is produced by a third party, such as an agency or a freelancer.

Paid advertising, on Google Ads or on social networks, can produce visibility quickly, for example for a launch or a seasonal offer. It has two limits: it stops when the budget stops, and it amplifies the flaws of the landing page. Before launching a campaign, plan a dedicated page, a measurable action and a test budget meant for learning. Serafex does not currently offer paid advertising campaign management. If you choose this option, call on a specialist.

On the Serafex side, the social media page describes content preparation, the calendar and publishing through the connected accounts. The platform’s Social space is in development, however, with a preview reserved for administrators and the demo account, and social media plans are not available at this time. Preparing your topics is still useful, but it does not mean that scheduling is possible for your account.

Measuring does not require a complex dashboard. The indicator that matters most for a business is simple: the number of serious inquiries and where they come from. Add “How did you hear about us?” to your form, ask the question on the phone and write down the answer. Also record the situation over the three months before any change: without a starting point, there is no way to know whether an action helped.

Business Profile performance insights (new tab) are only available for a verified profile and only show the metrics relevant to your type of business. Compare equivalent periods: a seasonal business does not compare July with January.

Analytics calls for more caution in Quebec. According to the Commission d’accès à l’information (new tab) (in French), an organization that collects personal information using technology that can identify, locate or profile a person must inform that person beforehand. These functions cannot be turned on by default: it is up to the person to turn them on, if they wish. As the Commission summarizes it, the law defines profiling as collecting and using personal information to assess certain characteristics of a person, including their interests or behaviour. In our reading, which does not replace legal advice, advertising retargeting pixels, designed precisely to target a visitor based on their interests or behaviour, generally fit this description.

So list the tools installed on your website: audience measurement, advertising pixels, chat, embedded videos or maps. Ask each provider what it collects and whether it sets cookies before any consent. Favour minimal collection, a banner that actually blocks non-essential cookies until the visitor accepts them, and a privacy policy that reflects your real practices. The guide Law 25 and your website offers a one-hour check, and the complete guide to Law 25 covers your other obligations. For a question of interpretation, consult a legal professional: this guide is not legal advice.

How much should you invest? In an article updated in 2023, BDC points out that there is no universal answer, but offers a rule of thumb for your marketing budget (new tab). Businesses that sell to other businesses should spend 2 to 5% of their revenue on it, and those that sell to consumers often 5 to 10%. A 2019 BDC study of more than 1,400 Canadian businesses put the average spending of businesses at just over $30,000 a year. These benchmarks cover marketing as a whole, not just digital.

For a fictional consumer services business with $400,000 in revenue, this benchmark gives $20,000 to $40,000 a year. Split that amount into four items: fixed costs (hosting, tools, subscriptions), one-time projects (building or redesigning the website), recurring work (content, profile, social networks) and a small share for tests, such as a time-limited paid campaign.

Time is the cost people forget most often. Even with outside support, the owner provides the facts, the photos and the approvals; they are often the one who slows the project down without meaning to. Set aside a fixed slot, for example one hour a week for the profile, reviews and messages, and half a day a month to approve content and look at the numbers. A plan that demands more time than you have will end up abandoned.

To situate the Serafex offer: the base plan does not automatically include every service; the website is quoted for your project and hosting is offered as a separate service. The offers and plans page explains these points in detail. The catalogue is read-only: nothing is purchased online, and a request opens a discussion about scope.

A good part of the early work is within reach of a business: writing down the offer and your customers’ questions, creating and maintaining the Google Business Profile, responding to reviews, opening Search Console, photographing your work and posting on one network at a modest pace. These tasks mostly require consistency and a knowledge of your trade that no one else has.

Outside support becomes useful when a mistake would be costly or when time runs short: a redesign that changes addresses, a technical problem that keeps pages from being indexed, regular content production your team cannot sustain, or setting up measurement and cookies.

Before signing with a provider, Google suggests asking an SEO a few questions (new tab): examples of past work, compliance with Google Search Essentials, expected results and their timeline, experience in your industry. Add your own checks:

• The accounts (domain, hosting, Google Business Profile, Search Console, social networks, ad account) stay in your business’s name.
• The scope specifies the deliverables, quantities, revisions and what is not included.
• Reports show the work done and verifiable data, not just a score.
• No guaranteed position in Google is promised.
• The person who approves on your side is named, along with the time they can devote to it.

Serafex brings together a work platform, the Seraf assistant and human support, which can help you scope a website, prepare content and track requests and their approvals in one place. The guide to organizing your business’s work with Seraf shows how to connect requests, documents and decisions. Current limits are part of the answer: SEO and social media add-on plans on hold, the Social space in development, no paid campaign management. The platform overview and the service pages clarify what is available.

Let’s talk about your starting point in digital marketing.