In this week’s teardown, I analyze a 10-year-old cat product eCommerce website, Meowingtons.com. The site receives 31,000 organic traffic per month (Ahrefs estimate) and much more from Facebook and Pinterest.
The owners of this business have done a great job of driving traffic to the site from a target audience of people who love cats with a combination of engaging social media content and interesting articles.
In this teardown, we examine the key success factors driving growth for this brand and what I would do today to increase traffic and sales.
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
This site’s website traffic had strong growth in late 2023 when many informational sites lost traffic from Google updates. However, it declined in early 2024 from its peak.
The domain has earned a respectable 1,300 referring domains with many links from authoritative media sites.
The Meowingtons.com domain has been live since 2014. The company was started in Manhattan by three friends who love cats. Their vision was to build a popular brand where cat lovers could find interesting content about cats and shop for a large variety of cat products.
Today the website features a lot of great content for cat lovers including a daily web comic called Milton the Cat. Visitors can shop for a wide range of cat products such as cat trees, cat beds, cat toys, and clothing for cat owners.
Interestingly, Meowingtons had a legal battle with the popular music artist Deadmau5 whose cat was named Professor Meowingtons.
They also donate a portion of profits to support cat adoption charities and have helped numerous cats find a home.
They excel on social media with lots of engagement on Facebook, often by posting funny cat memes and their latest webcomic. Their posts typically get hundreds of likes with some posts getting over 2,500 shares.
The website design is very well done and adds to the fun and creative brand that is designed for cat lovers.
Highlights
- Pinterest account with 23k followers and 3 million monthly views
- Facebook page with 1.4 million followers
- 1,400 referring domains
- Links from several authoritative media sites like Wired, Vice, Mashable, Buzzfeed, and more.
Why is this site winning?
- Facebook posts that get a ton of engagement
- Good branded search volume of about 200
- Unique visual content like webcomics that attract repeat visitors
- High domain authority helps blog articles rank highly
Top 3 Competitors
Here are similar competitors targeting many of the same keywords.
- CatastrophiCreations.com – An eCommerce site focusing on unique and creative cat furniture with 33k organic traffic (Ahrefs).
- NewCatCondos.com – Another eCommerce site focusing on USA-made cat furniture with 20k organic traffic (Ahrefs).
- PawsomeCouture.com – An eCommerce site selling premium cat collars and cat jewelry with 7k 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:
- Start an affiliate program
- Reach out to cat sites for guest posts or product reviews
- Publish more cat content on the blog
- Improve CRO on the checkout page
- Add exit intent popups
Let’s get into it!
➡️ Win #1: Start an Affiliate Program
I could not find an affiliate program on the website which could be a great opportunity to increase revenue. Adding an affiliate program can grow revenue by getting referrals from other sites and content creators without having to pay for advertising.
An affiliate program also increases brand awareness by incentivizing content creators in the cat niche to mention the Meowingtons brand and website.
You can also earn passive links with an affiliate program because not everyone adds the “nofollow” or “sponsored” label to their links. Additionally, you can be added to sites that create lists of affiliate programs for different niches like Authority Hacker’s article “18 Best Cat Affiliate Programs in 2024”.
➡️ Win #2: Reach Out to Cat Sites for Guest Posts or Product Reviews to Build Links
Meowingtons can increase their mentions and links on other cat sites and cat blogs by offering free or discounted products to site owners for an honest review or giveaway. They have many interesting and unique cat products that would make interesting review content on cat sites.
They can also offer to provide fun and interesting cat content as a guest contributor on relevant sites. Getting articles published on sites in the cat niche will result in links and increase awareness of the brand and product offerings.
Additionally, they could reach out to cat non-profits and cat-related sites that have a resource page and request to be added. In their pitch, they can mention that a portion of their proceeds are donated cat charities and they have directly helped dozens of cats find a home.
Another source of potential links is their extensive library of excellent webcomics. They can offer these comics to other content creators to use for free in their content with attribution.
Or if you do not have time outreach, we can secure links on your behalf.
➡️ Win #3: Publish More Cat Content on the Blog
The site has about 1,170 pages according to Ahrefs but published just 16 articles on the blog in 2023.
With a strong domain authority and links from many high authority media sites this site has the potential to rank for more high traffic keywords that cat owners would search for.
Articles like “There Are 5 Feline Personality Types – Which Is Your Cat?” rank number 1 for the keyword “cat personality types” and drive over 1,000 organic visitors per month to the website.
They can produce a better version of popular articles that lower authority cat sites are already ranking for. These opportunities can be found by analyzing the top pages of cat sites with a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush.
Once people who have cats or are interested in cats visit the site from Google search, they can learn about the products and enter the sales funnel by signing up for the email newsletter.
➡️ Win #4: Improve CRO on the Checkout Page
When customers add a product to the cart and go to the checkout page they will see a simple form.
One way the site could increase sales is to suggest complementary or related products that the customer may also be interested in when the customer is on the checkout page. For example, when a customer adds a cat tree, the checkout page could suggest accessories they sell like replacement pads.
The site offers free shipping for purchases of $75, so the checkout page can show a progress bar of how much needs to be added to the cart to receive free shipping.
Another item that will help increase conversion is adding trust badges like the Better Business Bureau A+ rating, a Secure Checkout badge, or McAfee Secure badge. If they offer a strong return policy they could add a badge for a 100% Money Back Guarantee.
For my own eCommerce brands, I use a drawer shopping cart like Rebuy Engine. It automates all of the above. Highly recommended!
➡️ Win #5: Add Exit Intent Popups
When a visitor shows exit intent on a product page or the checkout page, the site can display a popup to offer an additional discount or another offer to attempt to keep potential customers on the site or to complete their purchase.
For instance, Meowingtons can show another popup offering a 10% discount for signing up for the email newsletter or offer a limited-time deal like a free Meowingtons t-shirt with purchase of a certain amount.
They do follow up with visitors who leave items in their cart if they have signed up for the SMS alerts.
👉 Actionable Takeaways
Here are actionable takeaways that you can apply to your niche website today:
- Add an affiliate program to acquire new customers without having to pay for advertising.
- eCommerce sites can leverage good domain authority by publishing content that lower authority information sites already rank for.
- Improving the CRO of the checkout page is one of the best ways to increase sales quickly.
- Add exit intent popups for visitors of product pages or the checkout page to make an offer to potential customers before they leave the site.
