Here’s how I showed up #1 in rankings against a top player in a $52,000,000,000 (billion) industry.
Where my car friends at? Anyone heard of SEMA?
It’s an invite only, 1,000,000 square feet automotive convention for those in the car community. Not open to the public.
Their industry of US automotive specialty and aftermarket industry does somewhere between $52–53 billion in sales annually. SEMA is one of the to dogs, and I outranked them for some of their main traffic drivers.
Years ago I ran a car enthusiast website, EliteRides (which is how I got into online marketing). That car site allowed me to get in with a media pass.
After going to SEMA the first time you’re in awe. It’s a show of just eye candy in one form or another.
There are so many unbelievable cars, modifications, concept cars… and in my 20’s, the booth models weren’t a bad thing either.
After going the first time in 2004 I wanted to see what other pictures of all the cool stuff I could find. There was next to nothing. So, why not solve that problem myself?
Started SEMA Gallery.
The first year I had only 25 pictures to load. This was before smart phones, and when digital cameras were expensive.
Next year, now with a plan, I took 914 pictures. Third year, took 2,446 pictures.
And I optimized the site after the first year. Straight to the top of page 1 on Google for all of SEMA’s media terms:
- SEMA videos
- SEMA pictures
- SEMA Show pics
Nearly any form of media search and I owned the result.
Some time around 2011 I received a call. It was SEMA’s lawyer. I played dumb and said it was a web hosting client, not me. But I’d “talk to them.”
Looked the guy up. Former FTC attorney. With that, I decided SEMA Gallery had seen it’s end days.
What was wild is the amount of traffic it was getting. SEMA is the first week of November each year, and I’d make thousands of dollars in ad revenue ever year during October and November.
They didn’t care about the traffic or marketability. They just wanted it down, with no interest in acquiring any snippet of it.
SEO lets you step in where existing attention lives but information doesn’t. That gap is your opportunity. Find the demand missing solutions, and become the solution.
