Your tactics on improving organic search for a site in a struggling industry

[ChristianMKG]

We work with a client of ours with organic search initiatives.

The problem is: the industry (e.g. the core of the business) is sagging. It has been for a couple of years. And they're finally feeling these sagging losses.

Google Trends support this and shows it quite nicely. It pretty much mirrors organic search referrals as well. The industry (e.g. the core phrase that the company and its competitors have historically hit very hard) as well as Google Trends for the client (middle of the pack) and their two big competitors are attached.

Wondering if anyone else has had this type of circumstance with their clients and some of their go to tactics that helped them stop the skid (and even make it start going up).

Thanks

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[dynamyt100]

Perhaps they should look at re-branding the product offering before they look at ranking. Take a look at this inspirational video by Rory Sutherland.

[MattAntonino]

I mean ... this depends why it's a struggling industry. If you're a buggy maker and cars are growing in popularity, you're nearly screwed. You'll go around Central Park a few times ... but you're never going to sell 10k in a year.

If you're a candlemaker and electrical lighting is taking over, however, redefine the product. Candles are 'romantic' and for 'when the power fails.'  They're for 'good smells', etc.

If you're a camera manufacturer and digital cameras are kicking your film cam butts, start making digital cameras.

That's 3 different things - how you market those depends very much on what the problem is, how you want to solve it and then how you can go about marketing it to these new customers.

[HashtagHustler]

Hey There!

Well, this is somewhat of an uphill battle. I agree 100% with Patrick's response, unfortunately if you are in an industry that is sagging across the board, that makes things a little more difficult. However, there is always hope, creativity can and will always over come. One of my favorite examples of this is Blendtec. The CEO of Blendtec knew he had an amazing commercial/industrial blender but knew he was competing against Sony/HamiltonBeach/GE and other massive companies and he knew there was no way he could climb to the top based on old school SEO against giants like these. So he created a concept, "Will It Blend", a YouTube series which he essentially blends anything and everything from iPhones to Golf balls to see if it will in fact blend. He even blended a broom, literally. Anyway, he created a separate website, willitblend.com and linked domain that only to Blendtec.com which sent all SEO benefit to BlendTec's website, also 100% organic.

Anyway, if you look at the numbers BlendTec has drastically more backlins and WillItBlend still has more PA/DA than BlendTec, but all of that juice that WillItBlend generates, gets sent to BlendTec. All he did was create a fun way to interact with his appliance. Also making it on a separate domain I personally feel was smart because if something were to go wrong he could just cut the ties between WillItBlend and BlendTec!

Good Luck! Try and have some fun with it. Hope this helps!

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Christian

I would consider this a time to revitalize your business and the industry:

• What old content can you revamp?

• What social platforms can you start exploring?

• Explore new ways to distribute your content (Search Engine Journal)

• Does any content need to be consolidate or removed? (Try this resource)

• Check your on-site SEO

• Check your Local SEO

• Explore new uses for your service or products

• What other opportunities do your service or business have?

• Are there any new directions you can test out?

• Try surveying the audience you do have

• What do they want out of your product or service?

• Moz has a good resource from 2010 that has some good pointers

• Focus on areas that you are succeeding  (Content-Gap SEO: A Potentially Untapped Opportunity)

Hope these help a bit! Let me know if you need any more help! Good luck!