Quantum Sails builds high performance sails for serious sailors. Their reputation on the water was strong. Their website was not keeping up. Traffic was down, conversions were weak, and the site was attracting the wrong crowd: trivia readers and casual sailing fans instead of buyers who were ready to spec and order sails.
Hickory Grove came in as a fractional CMO and Web And Digital partner to answer three questions:
Who is actually finding this site today
How many of them are real buyers versus low intent visitors
What has to change in search, content, and experience so the site becomes a revenue driver instead of a digital brochure
This case study walks through how a deep SEO and analytics engagement aligned Quantum’s site with its sales funnel, improved Core Web Vitals, and put a dollar value on the upside.
The Challenge
Quantum knew the site was underperforming, but the reasons were vague. Internally, feedback sounded like:
Traffic is down and feels lower quality
Less than 1 percent of visitors are filling out request for quote forms
The site feels slow and clunky, especially on mobile
Content attracts readers, but not always buyers
They had no clear picture of:
How much traffic was truly relevant
Which parts of the site were helping or hurting
Where to invest to move revenue, not just visits
Before we proposed any tactics, Hickory Grove treated this as a Strategy Consulting and Web And Digital alignment problem: get the facts, quantify the gaps, then design a focused plan.
Deep Dive Analytics And SEO Audit
We started with a full analytics and SEO audit. No new content, no redesign advice yet. Just truth.
Key findings:
The majority of organic traffic came from low intent queries. Many visitors were searching for general sailing information, definitions, or trivia, not for products or services.
Less than 1 percent of visitors completed an RFQ (request for quote) form, well below industry benchmarks for complex B2B products.
Technical issues were hurting performance and indexation. Many URLs failed Core Web Vitals checks, and site speed was lagging on key templates.
We also looked at:
Which pages attracted meaningful engagement and led to RFQs
Where users dropped off when they started but did not finish a quote or contact flow
How the site performed across devices and regions
This gave Quantum and Hickory Grove a shared view of the problem: the site was doing a decent job of entertaining sailors, but a poor job of supporting serious buyers.
SEO And Content Strategy Rooted In Buyer Intent
With the data in hand, we shifted into Web and Digital, SEO, and Audience Growth mode.
The core of the strategy was simple: stop optimizing for general sail curiosity and start optimizing for people who were actively researching or ready to buy sails. We:
Mapped content to each phase of the funnel, from early research to ready to buy
Identified high intent topics and queries such as specific sail types, performance goals, and location or boat class modifiers
Grouped keywords into semantic clusters that reflected real buying journeys instead of isolated phrases
From there, we:
Pruned or consolidated underperforming pages that drew in low intent visitors without contributing to RFQs or meaningful engagement
Reworked navigation to surface high-value categories and help serious buyers find the right sail paths faster
Updated on page content to better match searcher language and intent, while still reflecting the brand’s expertise
The keyword strategy shifted from broad, informational topics to more transactional and commercial intent queries. In plain language: fewer people looking to read about sails, more people looking to spec and buy sails.
Technical SEO And Core Web Vitals Improvements
Technical SEO And Core Web Vitals Improvements
Content and intent are only half the story. If the technical foundation is weak, search engines and users will both feel it.
As part of the engagement, Hickory Grove led a technical SEO and performance improvement effort alongside Quantum’s development team.
We focused on:
Reducing page weight and improving load times on templates is critical to the quote and product discovery experience
Cleaning up redirect chains, broken links, and duplicate content issues
Fixing Core Web Vitals issues on key URLs, especially those that support RFQ flows and high-intent content
Over a few months, the share of URLs in good health by Core Web Vitals standards jumped from essentially 0 percent to 86 percent. That is a dramatic shift in how search engines see the site and how fast buyers experience it.
UX, RFQ Flow, And Marketing Operations
Hickory Grove treats conversion work as part of Marketing Operations, not just UX. We want the process to be trackable, repeatable, and easy to improve over time.
For Quantum, we:
Simplified RFQ forms by removing non essential fields and clarifying what information was needed and why
Added clear, contextual calls to action on product and content pages, matching ask level to intent level
Ensured analytics tracking for RFQs and micro conversions was accurate so the sales and marketing teams could see which pages and campaigns produced real opportunities
The combination of intent aligned content, cleaner navigation, and streamlined RFQ flows improved marketing qualified lead rate and made the sales handoff smoother. Marketing could finally see which parts of the site generated real pipeline, not just clicks.
Outcomes
This was not a vanity project. It was a measurable shift in how Quantum’s digital presence supports the business.
Key outcomes included:
Page health improvements: site health by Core Web Vitals rose from 0 percent good URLs to 86 percent in a matter of months
Projected revenue growth: based on new search visibility, conversion rate improvements, and existing sales performance, targeted SEO refinements were projected to drive between 100 thousand and 500 thousand dollars per year in additional revenue
Better lead quality: more visits came from buyers looking to purchase sails, not just read about them, and RFQ usability improvements raised the odds that those visitors would complete a quote
Perhaps most importantly, Quantum’s leadership team now had a clear line of sight between SEO work, site changes, and revenue impact.
Why This Matters For B2B And Complex Purchases
Quantum’s situation is not unique. Many manufacturers and B2B brands have:
Strong products
A decent amount of content
A website that entertains more than it sells
Hickory Grove’s work here shows what happens when you approach SEO, web, and marketing operations as one system:
Strategy Consulting aligns everyone around the right outcomes and metrics
Web And Digital strategy reshapes content and navigation around real buyer journeys
Marketing Operations ensures the flows, tracking, and dashboards reveal what is actually working
For Quantum, that meant moving from passive marketing to a proactive, scalable growth engine. The website stopped acting like a static brochure and started functioning as a revenue driver.
If you are seeing traffic but not seeing the right kind of demand or quotes, this is the kind of engagement Hickory Grove can lead with you.
