Spreadshirt Case Study

Designing an SEO landing page with superhero designs.

The Challenge

This project consisted of a 5-day study that I did for a job interview. In this study, I had to understand which websites the users were browsing before they visit Spreadshirt and how we can direct them to visit Spreadshirt. To do this task, I had to inspect the whole user journey from Google search to Spreadshirt.

Note: If you want to look, you can reach the actual website from this link: https://www.spreadshirt.com/

What was the Case Study?

Create a unique landing experience that attracts the users to stay and finally buy a product.
Decide on which sections to have and what should the content of the page be, to increase conversion and trust.
Think about what the user needs to see and what is relevant to the search term they used.
Responsive page
Target group: 16-35 of age, both male & female. The page will be viewed by users that searched on Google, for the term “superhero t-shirt” and landed there.

Goals

In this case study, I’ve needed to;

• Create a landing page that attracts the user after they find Spreadshirt on Google while they looking for a super-hero t-shirt.

• Increase the accessibility of our landing page.

• Increase their chance to shop on Spreadshirt and become returning users.

• Increase the Spreadshirt rankings on Google.

I've used qualitative and quantitative research methods in order to gain deeper insights into our goals.

The Discovery

Research Techniques

Before deciding which research techniques and tools I have to use, I needed to identify which questions I should ask the users.

Questions to be answered in the study:

How is the adventure of buying printed t-shirts? (Specifically, we focus on the superhero t-shirts) How do they search it on Google? Which keywords are used mostly?
Are the order and the spelling of the words affect the search results when users search for superhero t-shirt on Google? Are there any differences in the order of words and their spelling when they search superhero t-shirt on Google?
What are the keywords that provide high-rank results for Spreadshirt?
Which keywords should we use in our new landing page?
Why do our competitors have the top ranks while Spreadshirt doesn’t?
What are the users’ habits in buying printed t-shirts?
How do users search for their favourite superhero t-shirt?
Which online website do our users prefer to buy a superhero t-shirt? Why?
How do users decide to buy a specific t-shirt? What motivates them? At which points do they have confusion and hesitation? How can we support users in their journey?
Which functions of the website are the users using most when they are trying to buy a t-shirt? Do they experience any inconvenience?
Are there any extra functions users might need? What are the users’ comments on these extra and existing functions?
What are the functions that draw users’ attention on other websites that Spreadshirt is lacking?

After identifying the questions, I’ve decided to use these techniques to improve my knowledge before design phase which are;

• Guerilla in-depth interview

• Usability Test

• Benchmark

• Research on Google Trends

• Similar Web

User Type

Among the new users, I’ve focused on creators&buyers and direct buyers.

Guerilla In-depth Interview & Usability Test

Before the test, I came across some problems:

• Lack of Spreadshirt users around me

• Low number of users I can access

I found 4 people (I had to find at least 5 according to NN Group) who are interested in superhero t-shirt and bought them online before.

Users aged between 16-35 self-employed, employed, unemployed, university student

Also; None of them heard Spreadshirt before.

Note: I didn’t have the mobile tool to do the remote tests, I decided to interview users on the desktop.

Research Plan

After determining what questions to be answered by the user, I prepared the research plan before interviewing with them.

After the user recognition step, I explained to users to perform the test, which includes a specific scenario, as they would do away from a test environment. I asked the users to think out loud and let them complete their tasks. After that, I finished the interview by asking some questions right after the scenario.

Questions before scenarios

Are you interested in superheroes? Which one is your favourite superhero?
Have you ever received a gift or shopped superhero merchandise? From where and what was the reason for you to choose that place?
Have you ever designed and ordered printed products? Where? Why did you choose that place?
a. Did you encounter any problems when ordering? What was the problem?
b. Are you satisfied with the result? What do you like/dislike about it?
Which features of the merchandise determined the product you choose and what were the other reasons you choose that one?

Scenarios

Scenario 1:

You live in the United States you want to buy your favourite superhero t-shirt for your friend or yourself (To yourself: Thor t-shirt and to your friend: Batman t-shirt) What would you do?

Aim: To understand how users search for superhero t-shirt and what they do when they are directed to the site?

Scenario 2:

If the user started from another website instead of Spreadshirt in the first scenario; Let's go back to at first, and this time we look at the results suggested by the Spreadshirt, then we repeat the first scenario.

Aim: To understand how users are navigating in Spreadshirt after they land on the website from Google search.

General opinions about Spreadshirt

Spreadshirt is considered a quality and trustworthy by their customers. The variety, images and customizability of products add value to the website, after visiting the other websites from the first scenario.

However, the problem was Spreadshirt not being on the first page on Google search. For this reason, I had to redirect them to Spreadshirt after the first purchase they made from another website.

Usability Problems

I observed that the users who used Spreadshirt in the tests had some usability problems. I have tried to correct these problems in the new design. Some of these are as follows;

Users had difficulty understanding where they were on the land page. The title did not draw attention.
There were users who thought that there were few sorting options. For example; Sort by customer review
Users looked for more filtering options for Superhero. They went back to the in-site search to see other superhero t-shirts.
The users who customized the product had difficulty in understanding changes in the price and had difficulty adding the finished design to the cart.
It was difficult to return to the original product for the user who saw the price increase over the customized product.

Keywords /SEO

Before I started with the SEO part, I used SimilarWeb to be familiar with the Spreadshirt traffic, for example, which countries are used the most and which competitors they have.

Most of the traffic comes from organic search and the percentage of paid search is very low.

First of all, I used Google Trends to find which keywords are searched most on Google.

There is no difference between "superhero t-shirt" and “t-shirt superhero”
Users search for “Superhero” as a compound word like “superhero”
Users have a tendency to search it like superhero “t-shirt”, not a superhero “t-shirts”

I realized from interviews that people sometimes use their character names to search on Google. That’s why I compared the interest of the user’s favourite “x hero t-shirt” with "superhero t-shirt”.

The result is the “superhero t-shirt” term most likely to be searched on Google but specific character names are still required on the landing page.

On the other hand, when a user types “super hero tshirt”, Spreadshirt appears on top, but if the user types “superhero t-shirt” it doesn’t appear on the first page. I think, these keywords are important and need to be included in product strategy.

I’ve also used Ahrefs to understand which keywords have volume and to see whether Spreadshirt has traffic from these keywords or not. But I couldn’t find the keywords like the superhero, marvel, batman, thor etc. (But it is crucial to revise them)

In addition, I've needed to look at the top related keywords.

Competitive Analysis

On SimilarWeb, Top 10 competitors seem to be next in terms of product strategy. In addition, by searching “superhero t-shirt” on Google, I saw which competitors looked more powerful in terms of SEO and I tried to discover why.

The reasons why competitors rank higher than Spreadshirt's;

Content
Optimized header tags
Search friendly URL’s
Rich snippets
Descriptive product titles
Filters for different heroes

The first three are also available on Spreadshirt. These considerations also should affect the design of the landing page.

Examples from competitors who have higher ranks

Ideation

User Stories & Function Recommendations

As I outlined the user’s mental model on research and decision steps (Both direct buyers and creators&buyers) shows that there are some functions that users want to see after landing the superhero t-shirt page on Spreadshirt. In the real world, these functions should be prioritized by using MOSCOW.

As a user I want to;

Design Phase

Structure

Wireframes

Web Superhero LP

mWeb Superhero LP

UI Design

The main focus is on visual consistency, the selection of suitable lines, buttons, text and colour options, using real-life metaphors, and the efficient usage of white space. After the development phase, if there are areas that need improvement by examining user behaviours, improvements should be continued in the design.

Functional Needs on Final Design

mWeb UI Design

Desktop UI Design

Conclusion

My main goals are to provide easy access to t-shirts that match the user’s interests on the landing page and to utilize the suitable content which can elevate the Spreadshirt’s website on Google rankings.

After this case study and presentation, I got the job. :)

Thanks for reading!