Is ranking hurt by slow moving product

[Wales]

I sell B2B industrial products.  I have 300 products on the site.

Some products are seldom purchased and the brand name is not significant for these products

If the title page is the right wording and length, and there is a valid product widget -1-1-1 but nobody  has bought one in 5 years due to it being a niche product, but they could and it's a profitable sale.

Question:  Is** overall site rankin**g **being hurt **by valid content ( Description, Part # and Price and it can be checked out in the cart), but is is never/seldom searched for.?

[icecarats]

I think you're getting into what Google can know or not know territory; especially if you're dealing with different SKUs. If you're both working the same keyword though, and his CTR is higher that probably will have an effect. The original scenario of 'not much traffic' is different from this though, since you're implying that there is traffic, but it's being split into multiple types. If you're going with 'solid gold widget' and he's got 'plastic widget' and the latter is getting more traffic/clicks, then it may have an effect on the base 'widget' term relevance.

[EGOL]

..are they moving 10 a day while you're moving 1 a month?

Thanks for this comment.  I am interested in something similar.

Let's say I sell a very high end product that moves slowly but my competitor sells disposable product in great quantity.  We both have very satisfied customers.

Do you think that there is any way that Google can see his conversions and promote his rankings above mine because it looks like he has hot product and I do not?

[icecarats]

I Agree with Alan. We have a client with relatively slow moving product and they are top 10/top 5 for the majority of their keywords. However something to consider is the competition's space as well; are they moving 10 a day while you're moving 1 a month? If so you might want to examine what they are doing versus what you are doing. The advantage of 'slow' categories is that the competition usually isn't that strong, and there are usually incumbent players who aren't being aggressive with SEO. It might be that if you just do everything 'right' within that category you could get a bit of a bump over others who are relying on being incumbents.

[AlanMosley]

No, that page may not be helped but your site would not be suffering.
The 80/20 rule holds true to almost every business, you make 80% of your money from 20% of your products, and 20% of your money from 80% of your products.
you make 80% of your money from 20% of your customers, and 20% of your money from 80% of your customers.
80% of your customers take 20% of your time, and 20% of your customers take 80% of your time.
If you try to get rid of the 20% that don’t make money on, the 80/20 rule will result on what you have left. If you increase your variety, you will still have the 80/20 rule apply.

so rather then get rid of products, you should increase your range.