We analyze a 7-year-old men’s fashion site, SuitsExpert.com. The site receives 154,000+ organic visits per month (Ahrefs estimate) from about 248 pages.
This site is interesting because it provides expert advice on a specific topic with high-priced items (men’s suits).
Helping men dress well can be a lucrative niche as a formal outfit can cost several hundreds of dollars and include many related products like watches, sunglasses, and shoes. A competitor in this niche makes $5,000 per video teaching men how to dress well (via sponsors).
The owner has done an excellent job building a great resource in the suit niche with lots of helpful guides and custom illustrations. Google has rewarded the site with strong traffic growth over the past few years. According to their About page, the site has exceeded 10 million site visits.
However, there is still room for improvement in some areas that would help take this site to the next level.
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 website has had strong traffic growth since 2016 and is currently below its peak of 230k traffic.
Around December 2022, it appears to have been affected by a Google update as organic traffic dropped by nearly half. This was around the same time as the Link Spam Update and Helpful Content Update in December 2022.
The DR is slightly low for a site with 4,500 referring domains, partly due to a lack of high authority links (DR 80-90) compared to some competitors.
SuitsExpert.com was founded by Alexander Stoicoff, a men’s fashion expert who studied fashion in Rome and now lives in the Houston area.
The site is supported by a team of 5 contributors according to the About page. The headcount for this site suggests strong revenue for a site with medium traffic levels.
The site focuses on product recommendations for specific needs by men looking for suits. They also have many in-depth guides that provide basic education about formal wear for men.
Since suits are expensive and have a longer sales cycle, the site smartly encourages visitors to sign up for the email newsletter with a popup CTA so it can continue communicating with site visitors. They could offer a lead magnet to increase signups with a free eBook like “Everything You Need to Know to Look Great in a Suit”.
The site design looks professional and high quality.
One thing that could be improved is the layout of the top navigation. People expect a clickable logo in the upper left that takes them to the home page. Instead, there is a clickable email address “portal@suitsexpert.com” which is unusual.
Additionally, there are unnecessary social links in the upper left corner including the Twitter account which has just 8 followers. Pinterest would be a better social profile to promote since Pinterest can be a strong source of traffic for fashion sites (it is the biggest traffic source for Real Men Real Style).
For the mobile version, the top of the page is missing a logo or site name and the H1 font size is too large.
Highlights
- 154K traffic on about 248 pages (621 average traffic per page)
- 4,500+ referring domains
- YouTube channel with 700 subscribers
Why is this site winning?
- The content is written by an expert in the subject matter
- Great custom illustrations
- Strong focus on the topic of suits which helps improve topical authority
Top 3 Competitors
Here are similar competitors targeting many of the same keywords.
- FashionBeans.com – A top men’s fashion and lifestyle site with 2.7M organic traffic.
- RealMenRealStyle.com – Another men’s fashion and lifestyle site with 450k organic traffic.
- GentlemansGazette.com – Another men’s fashion and lifestyle site with 250k organic traffic.
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:
- Increase SEO authority by building high-authority links
- Add a comparison table to the top of buying guides and other CRO improvements
- Add call to action buttons to static product images
- Add Slickstream to increase page views and time on site
- Add additional sources of revenue like courses and coaching
Let’s get into it!
➡️ Win #1: Increase SEO Authority by Building High Authority Links
With a clear demonstration of subject matter expertise by the owner of the site, there is a good opportunity to build more high authority links from well-known publications by investing in a PR link building campaign.
Despite 4,500 referring domains, there are not many high authority links from well-known publications compared to some competitors in the niche. The exception is one random link from the New York Times crossword puzzle.
A good starting point is to assign someone on the team to follow the HARO queries from the “Lifestyle and Fitness” list and identify men’s fashion requests or respond to them directly.
The team could also find journalists who frequently write about men’s fashion topics by using tools like Prowly (which has a free trial) or through manual research. Then reach out to these journalists to introduce the founder and explain how he can be a helpful resource.
Additionally, the founder can reach out to well-known publications to become a guest contributor on the subject of men’s style and fashion (e.g., Huffpost, Forbes, etc.).
Antonio Centeno from Real Men Real Style does a great job at getting his name on many high authority sites by going on podcasts like Smart Passive Income and writing for publications like The Art of Manliness.
Additionally, the site could consider publishing buying guides on high authority sites that accept sponsored posts for a fee (e.g., SF Gate). Another option is to acquire a relevant aged domain or existing site with powerful links and transfer the link equity with 301 redirects to Suits Expert.
A stronger link profile with high authority links increases trust and can help protect the site from being significantly affected by future Google updates.
➡️ Win #2: Add Comparison Tables to the Top of Buying Guides
The CRO on the buying guide articles like “Best Men’s Dress Shirts” can be improved by adding a ranked comparison table to the top of the buying guides.
Currently, there is a large featured image that takes up almost all the real estate above the fold when a visitor lands on the page.
Instead of this featured image, the page could have a ranked comparison table of the top 3 products which helps provide some quick recommendations for the visitor. Some visitors don’t have time to scroll down and view the 15 different options provided in the article and prefer a short list of recommendations.
Some pages on the site have unique comparison images that show different suit options next to each other.
While this is visually appealing, it is not obvious that the visitor can click on each suit to buy or learn more.
We recommend testing a comparison table layout at the top of the page instead to check whether this increases the conversion rate.
The product CTA buttons are white which can be easy for visitors to miss when they are scrolling. We recommend changing the buttons to a contrasting color like red that will make them stand out more.
➡️ Win #3: Add Call to Action to Images of Products
There are countless images of suits and clothing accessories in buying guides and informational articles on the site.
These images provide an opportunity to generate more affiliate clicks and sales by adding a call to action button near the image so the visitor knows they can buy the product or learn more info.
Here is how Esquire uses a red CTA button to encourage visitors to click on the affiliate link for a shirt image:
Another option is to add a featured product box below the image using a plugin like Affiliatable or AAWP.
➡️ Win #4: Add Slickstream to Increase Pageviews and Time on Site
Slickstream is a tool with many features that improve user engagement such as content recommendation boxes and better site search functionality. These features help keep visitors on the site longer and increase page views.
Raptive acquired Slickstream and made it free for sites using Raptive display ads (new signups for Slickstream are currently paused if you don’t work with Raptive).
In one study, Raptive sites using Slickstream saw a 10% increase in session RPM and a significant increase in pageviews per visitor.
One of the popular features is the “filmstrip” which shows recommended articles to the visitor in a carousel at the top of the page.
There are additional content recommendation boxes that can be inserted into any part of the page.
Slickstream also improves the search functionality of sites with fast results as you type.
Another helpful feature is the highlighter which can “highlight” any element on a page and grey out the rest of the page (great for call to actions).
Visitors can also “favorite” articles on your site, which prompts visitors to enter their email addresses with an option to subscribe to the email newsletter.
Since this site already uses Raptive display ads, the Raptive team will install Slickstream for free if requested.
➡️ Win #5: Add Additional Sources of Revenue like Courses and Coaching
Understanding how to choose and wear formal attire is a complicated topic where education can be valuable.
There is a good opportunity to create a course on this topic for men who want to upgrade their fashion knowledge and improve their style.
A good example is The Style System, a course offered by Real Men Real Style for $295.
A course will provide the highest revenue per visitor compared to other revenue sources like display ads and affiliate links.
Suits Expert already has an email list and a large amount of expert information on the site which can be leveraged by creating a course.
Another potential source of revenue is personal style coaching or consulting for people who want to improve their style and prefer individualized help over Zoom. Real Men Real Style charges $4,997 for coaching which includes 3 1-hour sessions.
👉 Actionable Takeaways
Here are actionable takeaways that you can apply to your niche website today:
- If your site doesn’t have high-authority links, it is worth monitoring and responding to HARO queries or using other methods to acquire high-authority links.
- If you have a lot of images of products, add CTA buttons near the images to encourage more affiliate clicks.
- If you use Raptive, ask them to install Slickstream to increase user engagement and collect more emails.
