Here in Canada we have two official languages: French and English.
In the past, this has never affected me, other than the fact that my
cereal boxes contain French on one side.

As of today, Canada’s two languages are affecting me significantly.
I am currently doing some SEO work for a dual-language website which
has the problem of search engines ignoring some French sections of
their website.

So, how does one SEO a dual-language site? At the simplest level, by
making the search engine believe it’s actually looking at two different
sites: one French, and one English.

Start with the basics: split your French content from English
content - whether it be product pages, glossarys, or human-readable
sitemaps. Develop a French site structure, ensure English and French
pages are not heavily inter-linked, do some French link building to the
French-only side of the site, etc…

I am not condoning the “microsite syndrome” here (splitting your
link building and SEO efforts between two smaller sites rather than
just focusing on one main website). You can host both your French and
English versions of your site on the same domain, as long as there is
some separation between them, whether it be a sub-folder or two
separate navigation paths.

As search engines become more discerning in their pursuit of higher
relevancy, having separate language sub-domains or domains could
potentially help with future optimization though, by allowing the
highest level of site customization.

I am by no means an expert on French SEO, mainly as my French
language ability is fairly poor. Can anyone else who has had experience
search engine optimizing for dual languages offer advice?