Sneaker Bar Detroit Content & Traffic Analysis

Industry Overview

The collectible sneaker industry has been around for a while, but it wasn’t until 2005

when it really kicked off (Flores). In 2005 Flight Club opened, which is an online and physical

store for sneaker resellers to buy and sell shoes (Flores). StockX is a popular website that resells

sneakers. This past year was rough for everyone. In May and June of 2020, StockX had record

breaking sales (Dunne). Just from the shoes they sold the got $25 million and selling out of

40,000 pairs of the “Flint” Jordan’s (Dunne). Unfortunately, sneaker brand Nike did not do so

well. In June 2020 Nike made a comment on how the lost $790 million from its previous quarter

(Dunne).

I think the most important aspects of the sneaker industry is how diverse the group is. In a

recap of the Michigan Sneaker XChange, author Rashone Bryant talks about how diverse

sneaker heads are. He mentions that there were young people, old people, people who looked

like they walked out of a rap music video, and how there were suburban kids with their parents

(Bryant). They were all in this place to do the same thing, and that’s to get deals on sneakers,

whether you’re buying or selling. I also think this what attracts sneakerheads to sneakers.

Anyone can have a love for sneakers no matter what you look like. After reading Bryant’s recap,

you can tell how excited and passionate they are for sneakers. Being able to make a living out

something you love too is also a plus for sneakerheads.

Company Information

Sneaker Bar Detroit is a sneaker website that gives sneakerheads a look at all things new

with sneakers. SBD gives daily news and information about new sneakers coming out, release
dates, reviews, and much more (Briguglio). SBD also provides “breaking news” from around

their state of Michigan (Briguglio). The company is small, consisting of three people. Mario

Briguglio is the Founder and Editor in Chief for SBD. Alin Tiniuc is the Managing Editor and

works with advertising and tech. Last, but not least is Rashone Bryant, also known as Afrikan

Caesar, is a podcast host and editor.

Sneaker Bar Detroit has a few things that sets itself apart from other sneaker websites.

After looking at a few competing websites, KicksOnFire.com, Sole Collector, and Hypebeast,

SBD is the only website that has a podcast. In an interview with Afrikan Caesar, he stated

Sneaker Bar Detroit was one of the first sneaker websites to have a podcast. Each of these

websites have news coming out daily. One thing that makes SBD stand out from Hypebeast is

SBD is strictly sneaker news, when Hypebeast has news on art, fashion, shoes, and more. SBD

you get shoes, shoes, and more shoes. KicksOnFire.com and Sole Collector have an app that can

be download from the Apple App Store and Google Play, this is something that sets SBD apart

from other sneaker websites. Another thing that sets them apart is not having a shop section on

their site. All three of the competing websites have shop section, where you can buy shoes and

their merchandise from their websites.

Brand Trust & Authority

Contributors: Mario Briguglio is one of the main contributors to Sneaker Bar Detroit, which

makes sense, because he is the founder of the website. Mario has posted 34,163 post throughout

the SBD website. That is a lot of writing Mario has done over the years about sneakers. Having

this many post, leads me to believe that you must know a lot about sneakers and knowledgeable

in this topic. Afrikan Caesar is another contributor to SBD, he has made 345 post on the website,

278 of them are podcast. The SBD podcast is one of the first sneaker podcast created, having 278
podcasts dedicated to sneakers shows they know what they are doing to draw in viewers. In an

interview with Afrikan Caesar, he stated that the podcast gets 70,000 downloads a month, which

plays a big part in their company, considering it is on the smaller side.

Social Presence: If you only look at the metrics between Sneaker Bar Detroit and

KicksOnFire.com, KOF would have more of a brand authority. SBD has 97 thousand likes on

Facebook, when KOF has 1.3 million likes. KOF has a big following on Instagram with 3

million followers, with SBD having 330 thousand followers. The post on Instagram are close

though, with KOF having 17.7 thousand post and SBD having 18.1 thousand post. The numbers

between the two websites on Twitter KOF has 967 thousand followers when SBD only has 46.8

thousand followers. KOF surpasses SBD again on YouTube having 94.3 thousand subscribers

versus 5.38 thousand subscribers. Looking at these numbers KOF has a much bigger social

presence than SBD, which would lead to thinking they are a more trusted and liked sneaker

website.

News Coverage: On Hiconsumption Sneaker Bar Detroit was listed as one of the best 15 sneaker

blogs. Hiconsumption mentioned keeping up with SBD’s news would be a full-time job

(DiGiovanni). The site also gives a link to SBD to check them out. Sneaker Bar Detroit landed

on Complex’s “The 25 Best Sneaker Blogs Right Now”. Complex put the blogs from 25 to 1

with 1 being the best, SBD landed at number 19 (Engvall). Complex mentioned how SBD was

best at releases and news “in the most nondiscriminatory way”, which is good in the sneaker

world (Engvall). Being named on two sources that you are one of the best sneaker blogs, with

information to why, gives a good reference to you being an authority site.

Competing Site
 KicksOnFire.com is a competing website with Sneaker Bar Detroit because they are also

targeting sneakerheads with their content. Looking at KOF’s content compared to SBD it looks

like the same format. When looking at the Bathing Ape Bape Stas and the Nike Air Max 90

“Beige Snake” sneakers the information is similar. KOF seems to put a little more fluff in their

writing, to make their article longer. Both websites put the release date and the price, but SBD

also puts it in a big red box, so you won’t miss that information. KOF you must read the article

to get the information, rather than knowing it will always be in a red box. KOF covers more

brands than SBD like Saucony, Supra, and Under Armour. Just like SBD, KOF also made it on

Complex and Hiconsumption’s list of best sneaker blogs. KOF made it at number 14 on

Complex, being ahead of SBD by five spots (Engvall).

A few more things that jumped out were the price guide and the app you can download.

In the price guide it has picture of shoes with their market price and a price in a green or red box.

The green box indicates the market price increasing from the previous evaluation date. The red

box indicates the market price decreasing. When you click on the green or red box it will turn

into a percentage so you can see it in that way as well. If you click the on a sneaker it takes you

to a page that has general information on the shoe, but also a line graph that shows the

flocculation in price. This is something that SBD doesn’t have, which sets KOF apart from SBD.

KOF is also being different by putting themselves out on different platforms, with being able to

download their app from the Apple App Store and Google Play. It’s easy access to their news

content.

Quality Content Assessment

Content Overview: Sneaker Bar Detroit has all different types of content on their website, most

of which are press releases. On all the post that are made each have text from the press releases
to the podcast. The podcast post isn’t just a link to the podcast but it is imbedded into the post so

you can listen to it from right there. You can listen to it in a new window or download it to your

computer. All the post also includes pictures. I scrolled through the site, randomly stopped five

times, and counted how many pictures each post had. The first one was a detailed look at a

sneaker, and it had 16 photos of the shoe. The second one I looked at was a press release of a

shoe, with five photos. The third post I looked at was a sneaker vs sneaker with nine photos. The

next one had 16 photos for a new sneaker. The last post I looked at was a normal press release

with eight photos. I never found any charts or graphs on SBD’s site. SBD doesn’t have a lot of

branding on their site besides the top left corner and the bottom right corner of their page.

I went through SBD’s post and counted how many posts they posted in January and

December. The highest amount of posts that were made in January was 23 on the 28th. The

lowest amount of post in January was three on the 3rd. I calculated the average amount of post

being 13 and the total being 412. The highest amount of post that were made in December was

18 on the 14th. The lowest amount of post in December was two on the 27th. The average for

December was 12 and the total post 389. Between January and December there’s only a 23-post

difference, which isn’t as much as I thought it was going to be from looking at my list of

numbers.

Credible Content: Unique content is content where there is none like it. To find unique content

on Sneaker Bar Detroit I took different articles, copying their first sentence in Google to see if

any other website had the same thing. The first article I chose was “Trophy Room Confirms Air

Jordan 1 High OG Release Date”. On Google’s first results page four other websites had the

same wording as SBD. The next one I chose was the “Adidas 4D Fusion Releases with a Purple

Futurecraft Sole”, this one only had one duplicate on the first page of Google’s results. I also
checked the next page and there was nothing on it either. The next one I looked at was “How the

Nike SB Dunk Low “Gulf” looks on feet”. When pasting it’s first sentence in Google only two

results pages came up and there were no duplicates of this article. This article would be an

example of unique content because there is none like it. When searching the first sentence of

“Trae Young Releasing Own Adidas Top Ten Hi” only one other duplicate came up and it was

the same as the one before being Sneaker Cartel.

I did the same thing for KicksOnFire.com. The first article I looked at of theirs was “An

Easter Colorway of the Nike Air Max 2090”. There were two duplicates of this, one being Reddit

and Sneaker Cartel. The next article was “Air Jordan 5 Anthracite”, this one came out with no

duplicates. The third one I looked at was “Are You Copping the Air Jordan 12 Low Super

Bowl”, coming up with three duplicates. The same two from before and another site called Dope

Timez. The last one I looked at was “Air Jordan 1 Mid Pays Tribute to Coaches”, with four

duplicate content. After going through different post and pasting them into google, I was

surprised with how little number of duplicates there were. I was thinking how many ways can

these blogs rewrite the words that they all were possibly given? I figured there would have been

more than 4, I was thinking a whole list of websites would come up.

Traffic Analysis

 Visit Analysis

SneakerBarDetroit.co KicksOnFire.co
m m
Visits 2.7M 1.2M
Unique Visitors 1.4M 699.3K
Visits Per Unique Visitor 1.93 1.72
o Definitions: In the chart above is the data from Sneaker Bar Detroit and

KicksOnFire.com from the month of January. The “M” in this data represents

millions and the “K” represents thousands. A visit is the number of times a visitor

visits a site in a month. Unique visitors are the number of devices the site has

been visited on. Visits per unique visitors is the number of visits divided by the

number of unique visitors.

o Comparison: In January 2021 SBD had 2,700,000 million visits on their site,

which is a little over two times as much as KOF with 1,200,000 million. SBD’s

visits increased by 22.55% since December 2020, and KOF decreased by 3.79%.

SBD’s unique visits also increased from December 2020 by 17.03% and KOF

decreasing by 10.79%. Things are going up for SBD, it’s also good that KOF is

decreasing in numbers. This means that SBD is doing better than the competing

website and is increasing their visits. I think SBD has more visits, because of their

podcast. Their podcast alone gets 70,000 views a month, those viewers could be

going directly to the site to click on the podcast. KOF has a good number of visits

on their site, but I think that’s because they sell shoes, where SBD doesn’t. I think

it gives them a little advantage over SBD. If I were looking for a certain shoe and

knew KOF and SBD both covered it, but I could buy directly from KOF, I would.

It’s convenient for sneakerheads.

o Returning Visitors: Visits per unique visitor is the amount of times a person is

visiting your website. SBD’s visits per unique visitors is 1.93 meaning visitors

visit their website almost two times. Most of their people are coming back to their

site which is good, it means people are enjoying their content. KOF’s visitors is
 1.72, which isn’t too far off from SBD. For a sneaker blog you want people to

come back to your site, to see what new sneakers are coming out. If you are also

selling sneakers you want returning visitor to buy more.

 Engagement Analysis

KicksOnFire.co Web
SneakerBarDetroit.com m Averages
Bounce Rate % 66.48% 61.54% 40-50%
Pages Per Visit 2 2.72 4.6
Avg. Visit
Duration 7:15 4:29 3.1 min.

o Bounce Rate: Bounce rate is when only one page is visited before the visitor

exits your site. January 2021, Sneaker Bar Detroit’s bounce rate was 66.48%

and KicksOnFire.com’s bounce rate was 61.54%. These are both higher than

the web averages of 40-50% for a bounce rate. For KOF this is good because

their bounce rate went down 5.08% from the month before. SBD went up

1.63% from the month before, which isn’t a big percentage, but it is still

taking us away from the average.

I don’t think the rates for either one of these sites are bad. Both SBD and

KOF do a lot of tweeting with adding links in those tweets. The main

contents for both websites are press releases and articles. If either one of

these sites just wants a person to click on that link and only look at that

one article, it makes sense why their rates would be higher than the

average and higher in general. I know when I click on Twitter links, I just
 stay on the page it takes me to, because I am interested in what I saw on

Twitter.

o Pages Per Visit: Pages per visit is the average amount of pages that are

visited on a site. January 2021 SBD’s pages per visit was 2 when KOF was

2.72. From December 202 to January 2021 SBD’s pages per visit went down

5.35% and KOF’s increased by 14.8%. The web average for pages per visit is

4.6. Again, both are lacking compared to the web average. It is easy to tell this

is not good for our site, when the competing site’s pages per visit went up.

When looking at the numbers it doesn’t look like that big of a difference, but

KOF has people looking almost three quarters of another page than SBD.
 I think this is because sneakerheads already know what they are looking

for in the content, wanting their information fast. I do think KOF’s shop page

gives them a little gain here as well. When I was checking out their website, I

thought it was interesting that you could buy shoes straight from their site. I

was clicking around on all different pages, which I know I had too, but I also

think sneakerheads are doing the same on the site as well. SBD doesn’t have

this feature on their site, so I think the do miss out on page views because of

this.

o Average Visit Duration: The average visit duration is the average amount of

time spent on a website. In January 2021 SBD’s average visit duration was 7

minutes and 15 seconds, and KOF’s being four minutes and 21 seconds. For

SBD their average decreased by 5.02% and KOF’s increased by 2.67% from

December 2020. The web average for visit duration is 3.1 minutes. SBD and

KOF are not lacking in the duration department of their sites.

One thing that throws me off about these times are how they could line up

with the average pages per visit. Both sites don’t have that much content on one

page that it would take you that long to stay on. I also don’t know what the

visitors are looking at. I think for SBD the time would come from playing part of

a podcast before you listen to it in a different browser or software. Again, I think

the time for KOF comes from their shop page, you could be on it forever if you

wanted to looking at the shoes they sell.

 Value Content & Engagement Improvement Recommendations: There’s a few things

that I would like to add to Sneaker Bar Detroit’s website. The first one would be the price
guide that KicksOnFire.com has. I think it would be good for SBD’s visitors to see how

the prices of a certain shoe have been dropping or rising through. It also gives you basic

information on the sneaker as well, which is nice to see somewhere else from a press

release. The two pictures below are what KOF has on their site. The first photo is the

page of all the shoes and their market prices. SBD could do this by adding a tab on their

page that says “Pricing”. Once you click on that you are on the page of all shoes and their

prices. The second picture is when you click on a specific shoe you get the shoe details,

but most importantly this graph showing how the prices gone up or down on a shoe

through its life. This is something I would want to see as a sneakerhead, so I know when

to get the sneaker I want at the right price.

 Another thing that I would want to see SBD do is make an app, so their content is

just one click away on their visitor’s devices. A few of SBD’s competing websites have

apps, I think that would move them higher in the game. In the app they need a virtual

sneaker try on, so you know how good you look in that sneaker before getting it,

especially if they are a limited addition shoe that would sell out fast. These ideas would

help boost engagement for SBD, because most of their visitors return, so why not give

them a little more and app, so they will come back even more and tell others about it.

Having SBD in your pocket would be an easy access all the time to read about what is

new in the sneaker world. This would increase their average duration and pages per visit

because people like to spend time on their phones.

Popularity Analysis

No. of
Referrin Average No. of
Total g Backlinks per
Backlinks Domains Domain
SneakerBarDetroit.com 12,449,545 14,684 847.83
KicksOnFire.com 15,118,626 16,296 927.75

o Definitions: When looking at the popularity of a website you want to look at total

backlinks, number of referring domains, and the average number of backlinks per

domain. Backlinks are links that go to a different site. Number of referring

domains is the number is the web address/website. An example is

www.nwmissouri.edu, nwmissouri.edu is the domain. The average number of

backlinks per referring domain is the total backlinks divided by the number of

referring domains. It is important to know this number because it is the average

amount of links that one domain has for your site. For each of Sneaker Bar
 Detroit’s 14,684 referring domains, the average amount of links each of those

have is 847.83.

o Analysis of Link Quantity: Both websites are in close range of each other. I

couldn’t find what year either site started, because I thought maybe that is why

KOF had more links. KOF has a lot more contributors from all over the United

States, they can reach a bigger amount of people and websites. SBD is based in

Detroit, Michigan with three contributors. KOF also has a much bigger social

media platform than SBD, which puts them into links. KOF is a lot bigger than

SBD right now in a lot of things, but it is impressive to how close the numbers are

between these two sites.

o Analysis of Link Quality: When looking at Neil Patel’s list of backlinks, I was

kind of shocked. SBD was mention on forbes.com, which had a 95-domain

authority. They were also mention in looneytunes.fandom.com for the Air Jordan

Space Jam shoes, which has a 94-domain authority. A few of the links were even

from competing websites like KicksOnFire.com, Complex.com, and

Hypebeast.com, all with a domain authority between 80 and 90. SBD’s domain

authority is a 73 which is great to Neil Patel. KOF’s domain authority is an 81

which is amazing to Neil Patel. For a website that is lacking in things compared to

their competing sites, it is nice to see how close they are in rankings with data.
 Work Cited

Briguglio, Mario. “About SBD.” Sneaker Bar Detroit, 2 Feb. 2021,

sneakerbardetroit.com/about/.

Bryant, Rashone. “Event Recap: Michigan Sneaker XChange (MSXC) 2014: SBD.” Sneaker

Bar Detroit, 12 Aug. 2014, sneakerbardetroit.com/event-recap-michigan-sneaker-xchange-

msxc-2014/.

Caesar, Afrikan. Personal interview. 26 January 2021.

DiGiovanni, J.D. “The 15 Best Blogs For Serious Sneaker Heads.” HiConsumption, 27 Jan.

2017, hiconsumption.com/best-sneaker-blogs/.

Dunne, Brendan. “StockX Just Had Its Biggest Months Ever.” Complex, Complex, 13 July 2020,

www.complex.com/sneakers/2020/07/stockx-biggest-months-ever-may-june-2020.

Engvall, Nick. "The 25 BEST Sneaker Blogs Right Now." 17 Apr. 2020.

https://www.complex.com/sneakers/2015/10/25-best-sneaker-blogs-right-now

Flores, Gerald. “The Rise of the Reseller.” Complex, Complex, 9 Dec. 2020,

www.complex.com/sneakers/2019/11/rise-of-the-sneaker-reseller-in-the-2010s.