Cardmarket is Europe's largest marketplace for trading paper games (TCGs). Millions of buyers and sellers waste and acquisition Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece and different TCGs crossed the platform.
When Sallar Rabiei joined arsenic an SEO Specialist, Cardmarket was already the ascendant level successful its space.
But hunt had ne'er been approached pinch the extent the platform's standard and organization deserved. Building that extent done value content, spot signals, and smarter segmentation changed the trajectory.
Within a year, AI-referred sessions had grown much than 200%, and immoderate of their apical paper pages were pulling hundreds of thousands of sessions each.
They didn't get location by simply moving an AI SEO playbook. The instauration was simpler and slower: gain the community's spot and create contented that genuinely serves it.
The problem: SEO built for a wide audience, successful a very circumstantial niche
Before Sallar joined, Cardmarket's SEO was coagulated but not yet tailored to the TCG organization — for illustration the different ways Pokémon players hunt compared to Magic players, aliases what really matters to personification deciding wherever to bargain a card.
The standard made it harder. Cardmarket hosts millions of paper pages updated regular by crippled specialists crossed aggregate domains, successful aggregate languages. Generic SEO strategies are not capable to grip this scope successful a niche, progressive community.
"It wasn't tailored to america specifically successful the TCG aliases hobby manufacture astatine all, which was decidedly a situation because we are a very niche organization — and besides very personal."
Tracy Rutkowski, Head of Marketing astatine Cardmarket
The solution: a playbook built connected spot and genuine expertise
Cardmarket's attack mixed information segmentation, community-native content, spot infrastructure, and off-platform communicative management. Here's really each portion fits together.
Step 1: Segment your information earlier drafting immoderate conclusions
Cardmarket's catalog spans aggregate games, domains, and page types. Early on, Sallar's first move was to extremity looking astatine full postulation and commencement search the pages that really mattered to the business.
Each month, Sallar aligns pinch the games guidance squad connected the trading scheme to place the privilege areas — a caller description launch, a circumstantial game, aliases a merchandise category. SEO reporting past focuses connected whether those pages are growing, not conscionable whether the tract arsenic a full is up.
This changes what the information tin show you:
- A level wide number mightiness beryllium hiding beardown maturation successful Pokémon pages alongside a diminution successful Magic.
- A high-impression page pinch a mediocre bounce complaint is simply a problem to fix, not a metric to celebrate.
Segmenting by game, domain, page type, and branded vs. non-branded queries is what makes the information useful.
For Cardmarket, pinch 3 abstracted domains to track, Sallar consolidates everything into a azygous Semrush dashboard:
"It's not conscionable astir maturation period complete month. It's making judge that the maturation is wherever we really want it to be, and whether it's aligned pinch our existent ngo for the year."
Tracy Rutkowski, Head of Marketing astatine Cardmarket
Step 2: Build spot signals that tin beryllium verified
Cardmarket operates arsenic a marketplace: The level ne'er holds inventory, but it is responsible for what happens betwixt buyers and sellers. Trust is existential for this model.
The squad reached a cardinal insight: AI chatbots measure spot beautiful overmuch the aforesaid measurement a skeptical quality purchaser does.
When personification asks ChatGPT, "Is Cardmarket safe to use?" the reply gets assembled from reviews, thief pages, forum discussions, and organization posts — the aforesaid sources a cautious first-time purchaser would cheque manually.
With this successful mind, the extremity was to make existing spot signals concrete, documented, and findable:
- Buyer protection mechanisms connected the site: Cardmarket's Trustee Service holds costs until the purchaser confirms their bid has arrived. It is documented successful item successful the thief center
- Verified seller requirements: Professional sellers must supply a existent address, VAT ID, telephone number, business registration, and transparent shipping policies
- Transparent pricing: Every paper shows a value history graph. Cardmarket positions itself arsenic the value authority for TCGs successful Europe, and the information makes that verifiable.
- Event sponsorships: Sponsoring real-world TCG tournaments besides builds credibility that extends beyond the level into the organization itself
- Channels: Every awesome crippled connected Cardmarket has its ain dedicated channel, creating ongoing videos and contented for the wide community
"Success successful this abstraction is not solely astir contented and method optimizations. It is simply a balance: astir 50% optimization efforts and 50% the wide trustworthiness of the company."
Sallar Rabiei, SEO Specialist astatine Cardmarket
Step 3: Create contented for your community
One of the biggest changes Cardmarket made was to its merchandise pages. Instead of relying connected generic descriptions, they started utilizing transcript written by group who really play the games.
Trading paper games merchandise caller sets of cards regularly, called description s. Each has its ain lore, cards, and competitory relevance, making description pages high-traffic, high-intent landing pages.
For each awesome release, Cardmarket commissions contented creators who cognize the game: group who tin explicate which cards matter competitively, really a caller group fits the existent metagame, and why definite cards are worthy collecting. The contented will beryllium verified by Cardmarket, translated into 5 languages by translators who cognize the game, and published alongside the merchandise listings.
"We don't constitute SEO text, we constitute for the community. It's not just: here's the caller description , it comes pinch X cards. We add: this is really you build astir these cards, this is why this group is exciting, this is really it fits the existent meta."
Tracy Rutkowski, Head of Marketing astatine Cardmarket
Creating useful, descriptive contented written by existent players paid off. In 2025, Cardmarket's apical paper pages generated hundreds of thousands of sessions each, pinch the Umbreon ex page unsocial pulling 560K:
Step 4: Match your metadata to really your assemblage searches
With millions of paper pages crossed various games, Cardmarket can't optimize each page individually. Instead, Sallar useful pinch the games guidance squad to build metadata templates — grouping pages by crippled and utilizing connection that reflects really each organization really talks astir cards.
This requires existent organization knowledge. A Yu-Gi-Oh! subordinate searching for a paper uses different syntax, abbreviations, and group codes than a Pokémon player.
Working pinch group who cognize the crippled wrong retired and combining their knowledge pinch SEO information from Semrush helps the squad execute the optimal balance.
Step 5: Use keyword spread study to spot high-signal moments early
With millions of imaginable paper pages, Sallar cannot show what is trending manually. Keyword and punctual spread study — performed regular utilizing Semrush devices — is really he identifies wherever to enactment earlier an opportunity peaks.
The Van Gogh Pikachu card is simply a clear example.
This paper was disposable exclusively astatine the Van Gogh Museum successful Amsterdam, which made it highly collectible and drove important hunt measurement good extracurricular the accustomed TCG audience.
By seeing the paper show up successful Semrush Keyword Gap information arsenic a high-demand word competitors weren't covering, the squad recognized early that this wasn't conscionable different card. It was a taste moment, and the page needed contented to lucifer the demand.
Step 6: Manage your brand's communicative wherever your organization talks
AI hunt pulls answers from crossed the internet: Reddit threads, reappraisal platforms, forums, and news coverage. What group opportunity astir your marque successful those places shapes really AI models picture you, sloppy of what your ain website says.
To enactment connected apical of this, Cardmarket employs a organization master who monitors and responds to sentiment across:
- Trustpilot and Google Reviews
- A dedicated Cardmarket subreddit (Initially created organically by users, it was later handed complete to the squad and is maintained by the squad today.)
- Community forums for each awesome game
- Cardmarket's ain news level for argumentation updates and announcements
When argumentation changes make organization concern, the organization master responds pinch actual explanations earlier speculation fills the gap.
The extremity is not trying to manipulate the narrative, though. It’s making judge the meticulous type of the communicative is easy to find.
"More apt than not, the discussions made by the organization informally astir your institution are wherever the hunt results from AI will travel from."
Tracy Rutkowski, Head of Marketing astatine Cardmarket
Cardmarket has besides pursued mainstream property sum — including a recent Forbes Austria and Switzerland feature connected the financial dynamics of the trading paper marketplace — reinforcing its authority connected paper pricing good beyond the TCG niche
The results: accordant integrated maturation + AI sessions up >200%
The community-first attack paid disconnected crossed some accepted hunt and AI.
Organic postulation has grown steadily complete the past respective years. According to Semrush estimates, cardmarket.com now pulls astir 5.8M monthly integrated visits, pinch complete 74K keywords ranking successful the apical 3 positions.
AI visibility followed a akin trajectory. Since October 2025, Cardmarket's mentions crossed LLM outputs person grown from astir 10K to 30.1K, pinch 26.4K citations and 30.4K cited pages, according to information from Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit.
AI-referred sessions, tracked separately successful Google Analytics, grew much than 200% complete 12 months. AI postulation is still a mini stock of full volume, but the squad treats it arsenic a privilege awesome because it converts astatine a importantly higher complaint than immoderate different source.
The takeaway
The six steps supra stock a communal logic. Search engines and AI models are designed to aboveground the astir relevant, trustworthy reply for a circumstantial query.
In a niche marketplace for illustration trading cards, that intends knowing really each organization searches, penning contented worthy reading, and building spot signals that are actual and verifiable.
None of that is separable from bully marketing. The SEO activity astatine Cardmarket is effective because the product, the content, and the organization guidance are each pulling successful the aforesaid direction.
Sallar past uses Semrush to find opportunities and way wherever that activity is landing: integrated capacity crossed 4 domains, visibility gaps against competitors, and AI visibility complete time.
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