Case study · Shopify ecommerce SEO · Collegiate headwear, United States
A Shopify store selling college caps, up against the biggest names in headwear and the biggest marketplace online. When we started, page five was a good day. Today all 12 searches we track for The Game Caps are on page one of Google, from #1 for “Original Bar Snapbacks” to #3 for “UNC Hat”, above New Era and Amazon.
The Game Caps
thegamecaps.com › collections › north-carolina
Branded Bills
brandedbills.com › collections
New Era Cap
neweracap.com › collections
Amazon.com
amazon.com › Officially-Licensed
Positions 3 to 6 from the Google search for “Unc hat”. The full screenshot is below.
(01) The search
Illustration. The real searches are below.
When The Game Caps came to us, page five was a good day. In national ecommerce, that is another word for invisible. Almost nobody shopping for a college cap scrolls that far.
The searches they needed were owned. New Era owned the category. Amazon owned the shelf. Lids owned the mall. Behind them sat heritage cap makers and licensed college retailers with years of trust from Google and far bigger budgets.
A store cannot outspend those names. It can out-match them. Buyers do not search for “headwear”. They search for their school, their team and the exact style they want: “UNC Hat”, “Villanova Hat”, “College Trucker Hats”.
The job was to give every one of those searches a page that answered it better than a giant’s catch-all page, then earn Google’s trust until it put The Game Caps above them.
What buyers actually type
Not “headwear”. The school, the team, the style.
(02) The results
Every search we track for The Game Caps, from the whole category to single schools, and where Google put them in the screenshots captured on 19 August. Five sit in the top three. None sit below #8.
The page-one board
Top 3#4 to #8
Original Bar Snapbacks
#1
College Hats
#2
Shop Schools Hats
#2
UNC Hat
#3
Villanova Hat
#3
Georgetown Hoyas Hat
#4
College Trucker Hats
#4
University Of Tennessee Hats
#5
College Caps
#5
College Sports Hats
#6
Virginia Tech Hat
#7
College Baseball Hats
#8
Position on Google for each search, from the screenshots below. A longer bar is closer to #1.
Google’s AI Overview
“The Original Bar Snapback by The Game Caps is a retro college sports hat.”
That is Google’s own AI answer, word for word, with The Game Caps’ site as the source it cites. For “Shop Schools Hats” the AI Overview names The Game Caps first, ahead of SpiritShop and Etsy.
Both shown in the screenshots below.
Who they now sit above
New Era, Amazon, Lids, 47 Brand, Branded Bills, No Rivals, BigHatStore and hatstoreworld, on searches from “UNC Hat” to “College Baseball Hats”.
(03) The screenshots
Captured on 19 August. The green frames and yellow highlights were added to the screenshots to show where The Game Caps sits. They are not part of Google.
The search and the AI answer
“Original Bar Snapbacks”: #1, and the product Google’s AI Overview describes
The AI Overview names The Game Caps, the price and the details, and cites their site.
A single school
“UNC Hat”: The Game Caps at #3, New Era at #5, Amazon at #6
Branded Bills sits at #4. The Game Caps is above all three.
The AI answer and the search
“Shop Schools Hats”: named first in the AI Overview, and #2 below it
The AI Overview lists The Game Caps ahead of SpiritShop and Etsy.
The whole category
“College Hats”: The Game Caps at #2, above Lids
Above hatstoreworld and No Rivals too.
A single school
“University Of Tennessee Hats”: #5, above New Era and 47 Brand
The search
“Georgetown Hoyas Hat”: The Game Caps at #4, above 47 Brand and Mitchell & Ness
The search
“Villanova Hat”: The Game Caps at #3, above New Era and 47 Brand
The search
“College Trucker Hats”: The Game Caps at #4 for a whole style of cap
The search
“College Caps”: The Game Caps at #5 for the category, in its plainest words
The search
“College Sports Hats”: The Game Caps at #6, above Rally House and No Rivals
The search
“Virginia Tech Hat”: The Game Caps at #7, on page one for a single school
The search
“College Baseball Hats”: The Game Caps at #8, above BigHatStore
Read the screenshots
Each screenshot is one Google search. The number to the left of each result is its position, and the result in the green frame is The Game Caps. On a phone, each screenshot fits the screen; zoom in to read it.
The position matters. What matters more is the names underneath it. On search after search, a Shopify store sits above brands and marketplaces many times its size.
(04) How we work
A giant has a bigger brand. A focused store can have the better page. We build the store around the exact way buyers search, then earn the trust that lets those pages rank above the names everyone knows.
One shop-by-school hub, a collection for each school buyers search, and every cap one click below.
Step 01
A collection for every school
Buyers search school by school. Each school and each style gets its own collection page that matches the search, from “UNC Hat” to “College Trucker Hats”, instead of one catch-all page trying to rank for all of them.
Step 02
Titles in the buyer’s words
Collection titles and descriptions use the words fans actually type: the school, the team name, the style. “University of North Carolina Hats, Snapback, & Tar Heels” is what Google shows for “UNC Hat”.
Step 03
One hub that links them all
A shop-by-school page links every school collection, so Google can reach each one and the trust the store earns flows down to them. That hub ranks #2 for “Shop Schools Hats” on its own.
Step 04
Product detail AI can quote
Clear product pages with the details buyers ask about, the shape, the fabric, the under-visor, the price, plus links from real, relevant sites. That is the detail Google’s AI Overview repeats for “Original Bar Snapbacks”.
Two guarantees in writing, and no fine print under the brim.
Guarantee 01
20days
If you don’t see visible improvement in your key metrics within the first 20 days, we refund $200 on top of returning your payment for that period.
What we measure: your traffic, what that traffic is worth, how much authority your site and its pages carry, and how many other sites link to you, against the day we start.
Guarantee 02
60days
If your qualifying keywords aren’t on the first page of Google within 60 days, we keep working for free until they are.
What counts: at least one high-value search for your business on page one of Google.
No long-term contracts. Results keep you here. Paperwork doesn't.
Your next step
A free 30-minute strategy call on Google Meet. We run the searches your shoppers type, show you where your store sits today and which brands Google puts above you and why, and tell you what we would do first and what it costs.
Bring with you
We search your market live
The way your customers do, in the towns you serve.
We show who's above you, and why
On Google, on Maps and in the AI answers.
You leave with a road map
Yours to keep. If we can help, we'll invite you to work with us.
For established businesses doing at least $20,000 a month.
Straight answers
When we started, The Game Caps sat around page five of Google, or did not show at all. Now all 12 searches we track are on page one: #1 for “Original Bar Snapbacks”, #2 for “College Hats” and “Shop Schools Hats”, #3 for “UNC Hat” and “Villanova Hat”, and the rest between #4 and #8. The screenshots on this page show each one.
From Google itself. Each screenshot is a Google search captured on 19 August, with a green frame added to show where The Game Caps sits. The names below them, such as New Era, Amazon and Lids, are in the same screenshots.
By answering the search better. A giant builds one big page for a whole category. A focused store can build a page for every school and style buyers search, written in their words, and earn the trust that lets those pages rank first. Google ranks the best match for the search, not the biggest brand.
Yes. The Game Caps runs on Shopify. We work on Shopify collection pages, product pages, titles, descriptions and internal links, and we work on other ecommerce platforms too.
Yes. AI search is included in every plan at no extra cost. For “Original Bar Snapbacks”, Google’s AI Overview describes The Game Caps’ product and cites their site. Clear product pages that answer what buyers ask are the pages AI answers tend to quote.
Collection and category pages, often more than single products. They match the searches shoppers type, like a school name plus “hat”, and they link down to every product. For The Game Caps, the school collections and the shop-by-school page carry most of the rankings.
Yes. We work with ecommerce brands across Canada and the United States, from single-category stores to national catalogues.
Organic SEO runs between $1,497 and $5,000 a month. Your number depends on how many collections and searches you want to win and how strong the sites above you are. We work with businesses doing $20,000 a month or more and take on 15 new clients a month. You get your number on the strategy call.
If you don’t see visible improvement in your key metrics within the first 20 days, we refund $200 on top of returning your payment for that period. If your qualifying keywords aren’t on the first page of Google within 60 days, we keep working for free until they are. There are no long-term contracts.
