# Hey August Co — Recommendations Ordered by (impact × confidence) / effort, in three tiers. Every item names the measurement it fixes and, where relevant, the competitor precedent from the verified reference set (Brave Little Ones, SUNDAY & CO., Tenth & Pine, Free Fly Apparel — all confirmed live 2026-09-27, see References doc). --- ## Tier 1 — cheap, high confidence, do these first 1. **Add a real H1 headline to the homepage.** Currently the H1 is the logo wordmark (`

`) — the page has no actual headline reinforcing the brand promise. Fix: a short, specific headline over the hero (redesign mock uses "Caps built for the whole crew" — free to change, the point is that *something* real needs to sit there). Near-zero effort, direct SEO and conversion benefit. 2. **Fix the meta description.** Current: "Made for everyday kids." (4 words). Write a real ~150-character description naming the actual product categories and the UPF/adventure angle once confirmed. Five-minute fix in the Shopify admin. 3. **Fix the title tag HTML entity artifact.** `HEY AUGUST CO – Hey August co` renders the literal `–` string in some browser tab contexts and duplicates the brand name. One-line theme fix. 4. **Add `alt` text to product/lifestyle images.** 87.5% of homepage images (21 of 24) have empty/missing alt text. This is both an accessibility failure (fails Lighthouse `link-name`-adjacent checks) and a lost SEO channel — Google Images cannot index untagged photos, and this brand's photography is a real asset worth surfacing in image search. 5. **Fix the heading order (a11y).** Lighthouse flags `heading-order` as a binary failure — headings skip levels. A mechanical fix (h1→h2→h3 in document order) with no design change required. 6. **Investigate the mobile LCP (10.9s).** This is the single largest number in the whole audit. Likely contributors per Lighthouse: 253 KB of unused JavaScript (app/tracker bloat — 60 third-party requests is high for a 47-product store) and 220 KB of unoptimized images. Start with a Shopify app audit — many small stores accumulate installed apps (upsell widgets, trackers) that are never removed and each adds render-blocking JS. This alone could move performance from 52 toward the 80s. ## Tier 2 — moderate effort, real conversion impact 7. **Surface real review counts, not just a 1-review widget.** Judge.me is installed but barely used. Every verified reference site (Brave Little Ones: "5,100+ five star reviews" headline claim + per-product counts on the grid; Free Fly: inline star ratings on collection cards) treats review volume as a primary trust signal, shown at the grid level, not buried on individual PDPs. **Action, in order**: (a) confirm with the client how many total reviews exist across Judge.me/other channels — if the true count is meaningfully higher than what's rendering, there may be a display/sync bug worth fixing before anything else; (b) if genuinely low, run a review-request email campcampaign to past customers before publishing a review-count claim. 8. **Add a real material/safety claim section if one is true.** Zero UPF/SPF claims exist anywhere on the site despite selling sun hats — this is the single most relevant purchase-decision fact missing for this product category. **This is squarely a "must confirm with client" item, not something to invent** (see below) — but if a real UPF rating exists (even an industry-standard fabric-type claim), it deserves its own dedicated homepage section, following the pattern all four reference sites use (Free Fly's "giving parents peace of mind" framing, Tenth & Pine's 4-icon "Difference" row, Brave Little Ones' 3-item trust bar directly under the hero). 9. **Differentiate CTA labels.** Exactly one CTA variant ("Add to Cart") exists site-wide. Real reference sites pair a primary action with a secondary, lower-commitment one (Free Fly: "Free Returns & Exchanges" reassurance banner near every CTA; Tenth & Pine: rewards-program messaging in the top ribbon). Even a simple "Shop best sellers" / "See sizing guide" split gives buyers a second path besides straight-to-cart. 10. **Clean up duplicate/overlapping collections.** 19 collections for 47 products, with clear duplicates: `beanies`, `beanies-1`, `beanies-2`, `beanies-for-kids`, `beanies-for-adults`; same pattern in caps. This dilutes SEO relevance (multiple pages competing for the same search intent) and confuses on-site navigation. Consolidate to one clean collection per real category, following SUNDAY & CO.'s 7-item top nav (NEW ARRIVALS / BOYS CLOTHING / SWIM TRUNKS / SNAPBACK HATS / BEANIES / ACCESSORIES / OUR STORY) as a model for a small catalog kept legible. 11. **Fix the anomalous $999.99 / $150.00 price values.** Found in a related-products module scan. Almost certainly a Shop Pay installment-plan threshold artifact, not a real SKU — **must be confirmed with the client**, not asserted as a bug here. If it is a display bug, it's a real trust risk (a parent seeing "$999.99" near a kids' sun hat is a red flag even if it's backend plumbing, not a price). 12. **Add urgency/scarcity where genuinely true.** Brave Little Ones' grid badges ("Restocked!", "Last One!", "Almost Gone!") are confirmed live and real inventory-driven, not fabricated urgency. If Hey August's Shopify inventory data supports it, the same badges are a low-effort addition — but only where true; never manufacture false scarcity. ## Tier 3 — bigger swings, real but slower 13. **Revive the blog or retire it.** `/blogs/news` has been dead since 2021-05-23. Either commit to lightweight seasonal content (Tenth & Pine's "The Nest" blog anchors each homepage refresh to a season) or remove the dead link from navigation — a five-year-stale blog is worse for trust than no blog. 14. **Organize by activity/adventure, not just product type.** Free Fly merchandises kids' gear by activity (Fishing, Surf & Swim, Toddler Hats & Accessories) rather than flat product-type categories. Hey August's "adventure cap" branding already gestures at this — a genuine content/collection restructure (not just new copy) would let a 47-product catalog feel intentionally curated rather than generic. 15. **Add a seasonal capsule anchor to the homepage.** Tenth & Pine's "Made for Fall Memories" hero ties the whole homepage to a season with urgency and editorial voice. A twice-yearly refresh (summer sun-hat push, winter beanie push) gives a small team a repeatable content cadence without needing new photography every time. --- ## MUST CONFIRM WITH CLIENT — do not invent any of these The redesign mock deliberately labels every item below as `[Illustrative]` or `[TBD]` rather than asserting it. None of the following may be invented or guessed at when this moves from concept to real build: - **UPF/SPF rating** — does one exist? If so, what's the actual number and is there test documentation? This is the highest-leverage missing claim in the whole audit, but it must be real. - **Shipping threshold and policy** (free shipping over $X, exchange window) — not stated anywhere findable on the current site; needs the real policy, not an invented number. - **Total review count** across all review channels — is the 1-review PDP sample representative, or is there unsynced review data elsewhere? - **The $999.99 / $150.00 price anomaly** — confirm this is a Shop Pay artifact, not a real display bug affecting live prices. - **Real category/SKU counts** per collection (the redesign mock shows `[count TBD]` rather than a guessed number). - **Any certification, safety, or "Made in ___" claim** — none currently appear on the site; do not add without the founder confirming what's actually true. ## What NOT to chase - **Don't fabricate urgency.** Brave Little Ones' scarcity badges are real inventory signals — never add a "Only 2 left!" badge that isn't backed by real stock data. - **Don't over-rotate to a "premium minimalist" redesign that erases the brand's actual warmth.** The founder story (mom, named the brand after her son) and the real, un-styled family photography are genuine assets — a redesign that replaces them with generic stock imagery or an overly serious tone would be a regression, not an improvement (this is a standing lesson from prior POC work on this account: over-correcting generic "AI slop" into cold minimalism can delete a brand's actual personality just as badly as the original genericness did).