February 21, 2025

Driving SEO Success for Brands like Hyundai & Combilift in Tennessee

Thompson Lift Truck, a leading provider of material handling equipment, expanded into a new market with the launch of a depot for forklifts in Nashville, Tennessee, with a key focus on promoting its premier brands, Hyundai and Combilift. To establish a strong digital presence in this highly competitive market, Thompson partnered with Madcraft to enhance its organic visibility and drive awareness for its key brands, Hyundai and Combilift. With well-established competitors like United Rentals, BigRentz, Titan MH, and TMH MidSouth, the challenge was to gain search visibility and establish Thompson as a key player in the Tennessee market.

Keyword Impressions

+1,244

vs. previous period

New Rental Customers

+78

year-over-year

Keywords Ranking #1

+500

since project start

Repeat Customers

+24

year-over-year

Keyword Impressions

+1,244

vs. previous period

New Rental Customers

+78

year-over-year

Keywords Ranking #1

+500

since project start

Repeat Customers

+24

year-over-year

The Challenge

Breaking into a new market requires more than just launching a website, it demands a strong local SEO presence and strategic content alignment. The key challenges Thompson Lift Truck faced included:

Competitive Market Landscape: Tennessee’s material handling industry is dominated by large, well-established rental and sales companies, making visibility a challenge.
Limited Organic Presence: With no prior localised digital footprint, ranking for relevant search terms in Tennessee was a major hurdle.
Building Brand Authority: As a new entrant, Thompson needed to position itself as a trusted provider of Hyundai and Combilift equipment in the region.
Local SEO Optimization: Ensuring Thompson’s online presence aligned with Tennessee’s market demands, including Google Business Profile (GBP) and Bing Places optimization.
Building Industry Authority: As part of a rebrand, establishing Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT) was crucial to gaining traction in search results.

How Madcraft helped

Madcraft implemented a comprehensive SEO strategy tailored to increasing the visibility of Hyundai and Combilift machinery in the Tennessee market. The core approach included:

Localized Content Strategy: Developed a dedicated content hub with pillar pages and supporting blog content specific to Tennessee’s material handling needs.
Keyword Strategy & Targeting: Identified high-intent search terms specific to Hyundai forklifts and Combilift multi-directional forklifts, aligning content with customer needs in the material handling industry., ensuring alignment with Thompson’s business goals.
On-Page SEO Optimization: Improved metadata, internal linking, structured data, and keyword placement to enhance search rankings.
Google & Bing Business Listing Optimization: Ensured accurate, locally optimized business listings to improve local search visibility.
Competitive Benchmarking: Conducted an analysis of top competitors and leveraged insights to enhance Thompson’s content strategy and backlink acquisition.

The Outcome

Madcraft’s SEO strategy yielded significant improvements in search visibility over the course of 12 months:

12.4% Increase in Visibility across targeted search terms.
1,244% Growth in Keyword Impressions in Tennessee, dramatically expanding the brand’s reach.
Ranking Growth:
- 500% increase in keywords ranking in position 1
- 133% increase in keywords ranking in the top 3
- 54% increase in keywords ranking in the top 20.

These results demonstrate how a focused SEO approach centered on Hyundai and Combilift can effectively increase brand awareness, drive customer engagement, and establish a foothold in a competitive market.

Additionally, the impact on customer acquisition was substantial:

New Rental Customers: Increased by an impressive 78% year-over-year compared to 2023.
Repeat Customers: Grew by 24% year-over-year during 2024. Thompson Lift Truck is now well-positioned to continue expanding its presence in Tennessee, and this initial success serves as a foundation for further growth in the region.

What's Next

As Thompson Lift Truck continues to establish itself in Tennessee, Madcraft’s ongoing SEO strategy will focus on building on these early successes. Further initiatives will include:

Expanding local content efforts to target additional cities and industries within Tennessee.
Enhancing backlink acquisition strategies to strengthen domain authority.
Continuing technical SEO and UX improvements to sustain long-term rankings.

This case study highlights how a data-driven, localized SEO approach can effectively introduce a brand into a new market, drive organic traffic, and improve search visibility in a competitive landscape.