Founder-led work, before Project Station was founded
Founder-led work, before Project Station was founded
Hardware store in German-speaking markets · Technical e-commerce
A four stage plan to overtake established rivals in German search
A four-stage plan to grow a bilingual English and German store in Germany, Austria and Switzerland against rivals with years of authority, by stopping the two language versions competing and targeting keywords in the right order.
4stages: foundation, parity, overtake, defend
3countries covered: Germany, Austria and Switzerland
2language versions, each owning its own keywords
Timeframe: Roadmap in progress
The goal
Defend and grow a bilingual store across Germany, Austria and Switzerland against competitors who had owned the main search terms for years.
How we did it
Four steps, in a fixed order, because the order is what makes it work.
- 01
Finish the site move
Redirects, language tags and indexing were fixed first, because problems in the base affect everything built on top.
- 02
Stop the two languages competing
German copy rules were set and every keyword got one owning page per language, which ended the two versions competing with each other.
- 03
Overtake competitors
A ranked list of target searches was won with German content and link building.
- 04
Keep the gains
Monitoring, a refresh schedule and competitor tracking keep the gains from slipping back.
What made it hard
The English and German pages were competing for the same searches, so both ranked worse. A recent platform move had also left technical damage. The order of fixes mattered.
The result
The plan is being carried out stage by stage. Its method (fix the site move first, give every keyword one page per language, then go after competitors) is now our template for any bilingual or multi-country site.
The lesson you can use
Sites in several languages rarely fail because of translation. They fail because two language versions compete for the same search, and both lose. Deciding which page ranks for each search in each language, and sticking to it, is what makes a bilingual site work. It applies to Arabic and English sites just as much as German and English ones.
Fix the migration, then fix ownership, then attack. Reverse that order and a bilingual site stalls.
Abdul Hakeem, Project Station co-founder
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Founder-led work, before Project Station was founded