Business:
Vapor Lounge
VAPOR LOUNGE
Improving Bounce Rates and Conversions Results in More Revenue
Keeping a close eye on industry changes and trends while improving the site with a user-first mindset helped us to maintain steady SEO and revenue growth over the years.
+3,302% 
Increase in Revenue
+474%
Increase in Conversion Rate
+12,656%
Increase in Transactions
Brief:
Vapor Lounge quickly became a go-to for vape supplies in the northwest, through providing high-quality products and top-notch service. Working to garner this kind of following through its eCommerce store was the next challenge, and our team has been happy to work alongside them on this journey. The company’s expertise and knowledge of the industry, coupled with working closely with our team to stay up to date with best practices and industry research, has allowed for substantial and consistent ecommerce growth over the years.
Services Provided:
- Discovery & Research
- Website Architecture
- Content Strategy
- On-Page SEO
- Website Design
- Conversion Optimization
Introduction & Challenge
When we started working with Vapor Lounge in December 2014, we knew the nascent ecommerce store had great timing. It would be a few years, though, before we’d be able to look back at the e-cigarette trend and understand just how great its timing was. Here’s the trajectory for “vape juice,” a popular search phrase in the industry, from January 2004 to the present:
That small red dot marks the moment in time when Vapor Lounge approached our digital agency, Grow With Studio, for help with its organic strategy. The locally owned company had six locations in the Pacific Northwest at the time and was starting to become recognized as a trustworthy brand and leader in its industry, especially in its local area where it has done a fantastic job at serving its community.
Nonetheless, the company’s growth had stalled when it reached out to us. Businesses that jump on a trend early benefit from upward momentum, to be sure. However, they also face stiff headwinds as the market grows increasingly saturated with competition. Where Vapor Lounge once had the default differentiator of being one of the only games in town, it now needed to carve out an organic and narrative place for itself in the midst of an industry gold rush that seemingly everyone wanted in on.
We started working right away on content creation and product/category page optimization, scheduling regular phone calls with Vapor Lounge’s in-house marketing team so they could update us on industry news and trends. We continue to regularly revisit our keyword research and content plan to adapt it to rapidly evolving changes in product terminology, vaping technology and search behavior.
Our Approach
After auditing Vapor Lounge’s website and surveying the landscape, we decided the new ecommerce shop’s challenges were twofold: 1) We needed to improve conversions, and 2) we were targeting very competitive (albeit high-value) keywords and had no base of long-tail keywords to incrementally pick up the slack should those big-ticket keywords slip or not pay off.
At the same time, we work to ensure the site provides all the information customers need to make their purchase decision, and we’ve implemented CRO-focused navigation redesigns on multiple occasions to help customers find products faster and keep the ever-changing industry favorites front and center. To further improve CRO, we implemented advanced filtering within both the site search and the product categories.
We were able to reduce Vapor Lounge's bounce rate from 36.6% (June–July 2015) to 1.39% (June–July 2020), a 96.21% improvement whcih resulted in higher transactions, conversion and revenue.
Conclusion
Results didn’t happen overnight, and we’re fortunate that Vapor Lounge understood the amount of time it takes to pick up momentum online. By June 2015, we were seeing the early signs of organic health that we love to see, and the site’s organic traffic has been on an upward climb ever since.
Vapor Lounge just opened its tenth brick-and-mortar store, and we continue to work together today. We’ve loved having a front-row seat to an explosive market, and we appreciate the challenge of battling it out in a competitive, rapidly changing industry.
“Traffic has increased significantly and sales have more than doubled!
The Studio Team is an absolute pleasure to work with. They have always been very patient with me and working with my schedule. They not only added value with SEO expertise but also recommended and helped implement numerous improvements outside of SEO that have enhanced my website and customer experience!”
Travis Jent
Owner
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