Tailored Web Solutions for the Self-Employed: Insights from SysGear’s Hocine Sahnoun

Founded in 2015 by veteran IT professional Hocine Sahnoun, SysGear was born out of a desire to make web services more accessible and affordable for entrepreneurs and freelancers. In his exclusive Website Planet interview, Hocine shares how the company has grown into a full-service digital agency, his approach to e-commerce and marketing, and why balancing personalization with AI-driven efficiency is the key to SysGear’s future.

How and when was SysGear founded, and how has the company evolved since then?

I founded SysGear in 2015, at a time when I was actively participating in numerous networking events and meetups in Montreal. As an IT professional with over 20 years’ experience, I was actively looking for entrepreneurship opportunity, so I identified a significant need in the market among entrepreneurs and freelancers, who were struggling with web services, digital identity, high costs and web project management due to a lack of understanding of the intricacies of web services.

Inspired by this observation, I embarked on a journey to acquire web design skills. Initially, with just a few customers, some tasks were outsourced via platforms such as Fiverr. As the customer base grew, I maintained a good relationship with my freelancers from Fiverr and formed a dedicated team, and we expanded our service offering to include additional services such as hosting and digital marketing.

What makes building e-commerce websites different from building other sites?

There are several unique and complex considerations when it comes to building e-commerce websites. Firstly, the basic functionality is far more elaborate. This includes the management of a detailed product catalog, considering multiple attributes (sizes, materials, colors, etc.), precise inventory tracking, and varied pricing options.

E-commerce sites also require advanced search functionality, with filtering options (by category, price range, brand, etc.) to enable users to quickly find the products they are looking for.

The purchasing process itself is inherently more complex, integrating a multitude of features such as discounts, tax calculation, shipping costs, and the integration of multiple payment methods. In addition, an e-commerce site must offer member login, order history, whitelists, and other customizations to enhance the customer experience.

Another fundamental pillar of e-commerce sites is security. While there are many secure and reliable payment processors, such as Stripe and PayPal, it is imperative to integrate clear data privacy policies and obtain customer consent to comply with the various regulations in force.

Finally, an e-commerce site needs to perform well when it comes to digital marketing. The site must be fully responsive (responsive) and optimized for search engine optimization (SEO) to maximize conversions and performance. It should also include customer service automations, such as virtual assistants or chatbots, to handle initial customer queries. Many other marketing features, such as promotional pop-ups and email marketing integration, are also essential. Creating an e-commerce site is always a challenge, the complexity of which varies considerably depending on the products and services the site is intended to sell.

What can you tell me about your digital marketing services?

We have three main digital marketing services

Web/SEM campaigns: These are paid campaigns on Google to help customers generate new leads with highly targeted, measurable traffic based on their customers’ profiles and behaviors. These SEM campaigns can be optimized to target your specific audience and geographic area.
SEO: SEO is about providing quality content and images on the front-end of the site. Quality content for visitors, but also so that search engines understand what the site’s pages are about. This is one of the most important services we offer; it’s an ongoing task.

Social network management: We design publications with relevant keywords and tags and publish them on different social network platforms at strategic times to maximize visibility. We also optimize social network profiles for a better strategy, to stimulate and automate the creation of interactive content.

In what direction do you see SysGear heading in the near future? What can we expect from the company going forward?

I think balancing personalized customer service with the efficiency of AI tools is a very smart approach. Industry-specific solutions can really help differentiate our business, as customers often appreciate when services are tailored to their needs. So, we will be heading in this direction. There’s huge potential in there to boost productivity while maintaining creativity. The next few years should certainly bring many exciting opportunities.