In this week’s teardown, I analyze a 9-year-old golf eCommerce site, RainOrShineGolf.com. The site receives about 31,000 organic traffic per month according to Ahrefs.
The owners of the business have built one of the top sites for people interested in buying golf simulator equipment for their homes. They not only sell many popular brands, but have developed their own golf simulator accessories like nets and golf mats.
Golf is a popular hobby and many golf enthusiasts are willing to spend thousands of dollars to be able to have a golf experience at home. According to the National Golf Foundation, the overall participation base in the United States is 41.1 million.
In this week’s teardown, I analyze why this site is winning and what I would do to grow the business.
This is what I cover in this report:
- Website overview
- Major highlights
- Competitor overview
- Easy wins to increase revenue and/or traffic
- Actionable takeaways you can apply
Let’s get into it!
✅ Website Overview & Highlights
The organic traffic has been up and down in recent years and declined in recent months from its peak. It appears to have been affected by recent Google algorithm updates as some top keywords have dropped.
Ahrefs shows a high quality link profile with 1,100 referring domains, including links from several high-authority media sites.
Archive.org shows that the site has been active on the domain since 2016.
The business was founded in 2016 by Zach Vanderveldt and Shawn Foley in Charlotte, North Carolina. They have experienced strong growth of 150% year over year from 2016 to 2020 and hired a small team to help fulfill orders and provide customer service.
In addition to selling the top golf simulator brands, they also have developed their own accessory products like SwingTurf, a popular artificial turf mat, and SwingBay, a golf simulator screen and enclosure.
Due to the complexity and high price point of many of the products, they offer free consultations with experts and even in-person demos at their Charlotte showroom. They also have live chat that offers assistance to website visitors.
The navigation menu highlights a quiz that provides recommendations after you answer a few questions. The quiz also collects visitors’ email and phone number.
One of the strengths of the site is the well-optimized collection pages. These collection pages provide valuable curated lists of product recommendations for specific needs like “Best Golf Launch Monitors”. This page gets an estimated 2,000 organic traffic despite recently falling from position 1 to position 7.
The website design is very well done and conveys trust with potential customers. The design features a lot of customer testimonials and brand logos which helps build trust with potential customers.
Highlights
- 1,100 referring domains
- About 200 product pages and 100 informational articles
- YouTube channel with 1.7k subscribers
- Facebook page with 5.4k subscribers
Why is this site winning?
- Strong link profile with links from sites like Mashable, SI.com, and CBSSports.com
- They produce their own products which can earn links and brand mentions.
- Their brand name has high search volume (about 1,600 searches per month).
- They have a physical showroom where they can take photos and create videos of products.
- Google Business Profile shows many positive reviews with a 4.3 average rating.
Top 3 Competitors
Here are similar competitors targeting many of the same keywords.
- ShopIndoorGolf.com – An eCommerce site selling golf simulator products with 54k organic traffic (Ahrefs).
- Carlofet.com – Another eCommerce site specializing in custom golf simulators with 39k organic traffic (Ahrefs).
- AceIndoorGolf.com – A small business that installs custom golf simulators for homes and businesses with 27k organic traffic (Ahrefs).
Let’s get into the easy wins to grow this specific website.
🔥 5 Easy Wins To Grow This Website
There are opportunities to significantly grow this brand. I break down the following easy wins:
- Dropship or sell related golf equipment
- Add a shopping cart drawer instead of redirecting to the checkout page
- Sell high-margin commodity products as upsells
- Publish more blog posts for top of the funnel traffic
- Add a popup for email collection
Let’s get into it!
➡️ Win #1: Dropship or Sell Related Golf Equipment
The site focuses on selling golf simulator equipment and accessories.
However, they could increase sales by adding additional product pages that golfers would also be interested in such as golf clubs, golf balls, rangefinders, golf apparel, golf bags, and other golf products.
Rain or Shine Golf is a broad brand name that can be applied to other golf products that golf enthusiasts are interested in.
With a strong link profile and high domain authority of 53, the site can rank highly for a lot of additional golf products if new product pages are added.
Customers would rather buy from a business with a strong reputation and good customer service than an average affiliate site.
➡️ Win #2: Add a Shopping Cart Drawer Instead of Redirecting to the Checkout Page
When visitors add a product to their shopping cart, they are redirected to the shopping cart page which takes visitors away from product pages and interupts the shopping flow.
Adding a shopping cart drawer that slides out when a product is added to cart would allow the visitor to keep shopping for additional products.
A slide-out shopping cart drawer (or mini cart) provides a more seamless shopping experience because customers don’t have to click the “Back to Shopping” button to view product pages.
Additionally, the shopping cart drawer can suggest complementary products that the customer may want to add to their order. It can also highlight the free shipping, low price guarantee, and live customer service.
➡️ Win #3: Sell High-Margin Commodity Products as Upsells
Any customer who is buying golf simulator equipment is already invested in spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on home golf equipment.
They will need to buy additional products to get the most out of the experience such as golf balls, golf gloves, golf tees, curtains, lighting, or other golf products.
Adding upsells during the checkout process and after the customer has checked out will increase the average order value.
Currently, the shopping cart does not suggest any additional products.
➡️ Win #4: Publish More Blog Posts for Top of the Funnel Traffic
Currently, the site has about 330 indexed pages with a mix of product pages and informational articles. I counted less than 100 informational articles so there is opportunity to add more.
The informational articles are highlighted in the navigation under the “Learn” menu item.
Some of their articles are too short. The article “What Size Room Do I Need For a Golf Simulator?” is one of their highest traffic pages but only has about 300 words. I recommend adding useful content to these pages as very short articles usually don’t rank as high.
Since golf simulators are a complicated topic that require education, adding more informational articles can attract more top of the funnel traffic that can start learning about the available options and consider signing up for the email newsletter.
The low hanging fruit is to look at what articles are generating a lot of organic traffic for other golf simulator websites and consider publishing similar articles.
➡️ Win #5: Add a Popup for Email Collection
Due to the high price point and complexity of setting up a golf simulator, the customer lifecycle is longer than most products.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to collect the email of new visitors with a popup window so that they can develop a relationship with the potential customer through email marketing. Then when they are ready to buy, they are more likely to think of Rain or Shine Golf.
They already collect emails with a form in the footer and a quiz, but they can get a higher conversion rate if they use a popup window. They could also offer a special discount or other incentive to encourage people to enter their email.
👉 Actionable Takeaways
Here are actionable takeaways that you can apply to your niche website today:
- Expand the number of product pages by offering additional relevant products that can be dropshipped to increase search traffic and revenue.
- Find high-margin products to suggest as addons during the checkout process or after checkout.
- Leverage strong domain authority by publishing more informational guides that can increase traffic from people interested in golf simulators.
- Keep more website visitors in the customer funnel by adding an email collection popup.
