Being an internationally renowned brand in the manufacturing and sale of active ingredients for the chemical industry and enjoying a solid market position doesn't always go hand in hand with dominating the search results (SERPs).
This is more common than we think.
Especially in industries with business models built on distribution networks, with products regulated by law (as in the case of medicines), and where the impact of digitization is limited.
Even so, it's possible to star in a case study like our client's:
A large company manufacturing active ingredients in the chemical industry.
Many consolidated companies with strong brands in the physical space can face great difficulties leveraging the Internet's potential to boost visibility and branding.
However, with the right strategy and clear lines of action, it's possible, even for the most "brick and mortar" companies, to drive forward a roadmap that boosts:
Over the past 12 months, our agency, iSocialweb, has fully transformed the online visibility of a company manufacturing active ingredients.
The metrics speak for themselves:
This success is down to an effective SEO strategy, paired with a holistic approach to tackling the web development and design challenges this client was facing.
A real challenge for the iSocialWeb team led by Jose Joaquín Rodríguez.
Key lessons to take from this Case Study
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All these points, well combined and executed, show that an SEO strategy can transform any company's online presence in a short time frame.
Even at a large corporate company.
Achieving gains of 560% in impressions and 194% in daily clicks.
Context and starting point: a manufacturer of active ingredients for the chemical industry
Our client was facing a complex situation.
They were coming off a brand change, so the site had recently been revamped, which left unresolved issues stemming from a botched web migration.
Aside from that, their website had a large amount of content focused on topics related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
User demand for which was in clear decline.
Which resulted in a significant loss of search visibility.
So, a solid strategy was required to recover visibility and increase the quality of organic traffic to their site to attract their potential target audience.
The challenge: legacy, internal bureaucracy and an unfocused content strategy
Our first task, after the technical SEO audit, was reflecting on the challenges the client was facing:
We were clear that everything couldn't and shouldn't be tackled at the same time without putting the project itself at risk.
On one hand, all the design and programming aspects had to be fixed; on the other, we had to see how the domain would respond to removing duplicate content, thin content and a new site architecture.
Managing all of this at once can generate confusing signals for search engines.
And end up causing drops in organic traffic and rankings on the project.
So we decided to tackle the project in sequential, priority-based phases.
Solution: How did iSocialWeb approach the project?
Our approach to the project was divided into three crucial phases, each with a specific focus and purpose:
Between one phase and the next, we waited to see how the site's organic traffic responded before rolling out all the changes and starting a new stage.
Let's now see how we deployed the SEO strategy for our client:
1. Fixing technical errors
As we mentioned, we ran a detailed technical audit to identify all the coding and programming issues on the site.
This included identifying SEO errors as well.
During this stage, we focused on solving the problems related to programming, web design and code issues inherited from the migration.
We also fixed errors, optimized redirects and made sure the technical structure was in its best shape.
It was an essential process to remove technical obstacles that were hurting the site's visibility in search engines.
It took considerable effort and tension, since before rolling out the changes we had to keep confirming that Google was responding positively to them.
That's how we tackled the optimizations in site architecture, programming and design, and fixed all the errors without surprises or negative outcomes.
2. Content cleanup
Once the technical changes were settled, it was time to tackle the removal of low-value or duplicated content.
So we carried out a deep cleanup of the content on the site.
To do this, we analysed web traffic data, internal and external links, and user response for a large number of URLs.
In this way we were able to discard false positives and keep them out of the pruning process.
This is very important.
Especially when you're going to act at scale.
Because in a content-pruning process it's very easy to delete URLs that have value, either because they're recoverable, have potential to rank better, or even have backlinks and qualified traffic.
Something that can have fatal short-term consequences on any project's rankings.
So we set up a rigorous process to remove only what was truly redundant.
At the end of this process, we simplified the site structure and reduced the number of URLs.
Keeping only the highest-quality content.
This allowed us to fix the "thin content" and duplicate content issues.
And avoid any collateral drops.
3. New and improved content strategy
Finally, we kicked off the stage of creating new content, a process that continues today.
Working with the client, we developed a strategy of creating new "evergreen" content that provides a solid baseline of visibility.
The previous strategy prioritized having content based on current events that in many cases overlapped with other portals related to the active-ingredient manufacturing and laboratory formulation industry.
Here, our team advised the client on the importance of incorporating content that would never go stale for users and that would provide a base on which to keep steadily attracting users.
This reduced dependence on trending topics, which tend to have very high demand peaks but are more volatile and have little potential to generate long-term online visibility.
The results: a 590% increase in impressions and a 194% increase in clicks on Google
This three-phase strategy allowed us to tackle the initial technical challenges, clean up and optimize the content, and ultimately focus the content strategy in a direction that would ensure lasting, sustainable visibility in the active substances and ingredients market.
Something you can verify in the chart below:
The key to a project like this is managing all the changes very carefully to avoid the risk of drops.
It's easy to scale a project that barely has traffic by taking sweeping actions.
But when the domain already has established traffic, taking a radical change approach can trigger heavy drops.
That's why at iSocialWeb, when it comes to SEO, we always adopt the methodology that will deliver the best outcome for the client.
In this case, we tested the changes and looked to confirm them with data to roll out fixes and configurations at scale only once we were sure of the results.
For us, it's key to control the effects on crawling and indexing to avoid drops or sharp spikes followed by a drop.
For that same reason, results arrived step by step and took 5 months to accelerate.
However, from 31 March 2023 onwards, we started to see the effects of the SEO strategy we'd planned.
And in the following months we reached:
Something our client had never experienced to date and which placed the brand where it deserved to be, given its authority and status.
Conclusion and final thoughts
SEO can be a great ally for companies and organizations that base a large share of their revenue on attracting online customers and users.
No one disputes that.
However, it can also be a powerful ally for companies and business models built on traditional distribution networks, to increase brand exposure and market recognition.
This case study is a great example of the latter.
Where a business strategy based on physical product distribution can also leverage the strength of a solid online presence, promoting the right content and building a substantial website.
By committing to optimizing the site, the programming and the content, and by avoiding SEO errors, the result has been a dramatic increase in online visibility over a 12-month period.
Reinforcing the brand's pillars and its exposure.
Plus making recognition easier among the distribution network's customers.