Case Study: Birdie Girl Golf

How a Shopify Theme Upgrade Boosted Sales and SEO for Birdie Girl Golf

Birdie Girl Golf is a women-focused golf accessories brand known for its bold, playful designs. This summer, I partnered with them to refresh their Shopify storefront — retheming the site from Dawn to Prestige, optimizing the shopping experience, and strengthening their SEO and navigation.

The Challenge

The site was running on Dawn 3.0, a solid but basic free theme. While it passed Core Web Vitals, it lacked advanced merchandising and filtering options. The brand needed:

  • A more premium, conversion-focused design to match their bold product line.
  • Better navigation and search so customers could easily find products.
  • A foundation for sustainable SEO growth and improved visibility.

Smarter Shopping with Search & Discovery

As part of the redesign, I implemented Shopify’s Search & Discovery app, added strategic product tagging, and built out advanced filtering options on collection pages. These upgrades made it much easier for customers to find what they were looking for — whether browsing ball markers, cart seat covers, or accessories.

Improving how products are discovered not only helps customers shop faster but also drives higher add-to-cart rates and repeat purchases.

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The Process

1. Theme Evaluation & Recommendation

I ran a detailed theme analysis across five Shopify themes (Dawn, Impulse, Wonder, Concept, and Prestige). Key considerations included:

  • Core Web Vitals performance (critical for SEO and user experience).
  • Search & filtering features for collections.
  • Animations, quick view, and merchandising tools to elevate the shopping journey.

While Dawn was free and functional, most other options failed Core Web Vitals. Prestige stood out: it passed CWV on both mobile and desktop, included advanced filtering, product quick view, and merchandising features like “Shop the Look.”

Decision: Retheme the site with Prestige, balancing performance with modern features.

2. UX & Navigation Upgrades
  • Installed Shopify’s Search & Discovery app for improved product findability.
  • Reorganized the main navigation menu to guide customers toward key product categories.
  • Implemented quick view functionality and modern collection layouts for smoother browsing.
3. Checkout Optimization

After analyzing the funnel, I identified friction: on mobile, alternative payment buttons (Shop Pay, PayPal, etc.) were appearing above the primary “Checkout” button, leading to confusion.

  • I reordered the checkout buttons in the theme code, ensuring the main “Checkout” CTA was always prominent.
  • Post-fix, checkout completions increased.
4. SEO Technical Fixes
  • Resolved technical SEO issues with metadata, headings, and site structure.
  • Provided future content recommendations (especially for gift-related searches where rankings lagged).
  • Optimized product-focused terms (“women’s golf bag”, “golf cart seat covers”) that showed strong potential.
Results

One Month After Launch

Shopify Metrics (May 18 – June 16, 2025 vs. Apr 18 – May 17, 2025):

  • Sessions ↑ 12%
  • Orders ↑ 5%
  • Added to Cart rate ↑ 12%
  • Completed purchases ↑ 5%
  • Returning Customer Rate ↑ 36%
  • Average Order Value ↓ 11% (customers buying more often, smaller baskets)

Google Search Console:

  • Clicks ↑ 11%
  • Impressions ↑ 17%
  • Top search gains: “women’s golf bag” (+91), “golf cart seat covers” (+25), “cute golf bags” (+12)

Conversion Funnel Insights:

  • Adds to cart were up, showing stronger product appeal.
  • Checkout completion increased after fixing button order on mobile.
  • Returning customers surged — proof the new experience is bringing buyers back.

Key Takeaways

Within just the first month after relaunch, Birdie Girl Golf saw measurable improvements in traffic, engagement, and repeat customer behavior.

By combining a careful theme evaluation with UX and SEO upgrades, the brand transitioned from a basic Shopify setup to a premium, performance-driven storefront.

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