Lately I’ve been doing a lot of testing with my online boutique.
In order for me to increase sales – I need to increase traffic to my site. (Duh, right?)
As I test different things with my online boutique – I want to share with you what works and what doesn’t work for me.
For starters, I don’t rely heavily on google keyword searches just because there is so much competition out there that, say for example someone searches for “Faux Leather Leggings” – hundreds of other websites are going to pop up in google before mine. I feel like keyword search is going to be something that I focus on later down the road once I establish myself a bit more.
At Little L.A., I offer those trendy, “in the moment” type pieces. I like finding what is trending right now by looking at Pinterest and seeing what types of colors, fashion, moods, etc. that people are in to at the moment. So, when I am getting ready to buy, I am able notice these trends in the clothes or accessories and purchase items that are in line with those trends.
While I was uploading some “New Arrivals” on Facebook, I saw an advertisement for Keep.com and it piqued my interest. I checked it out and saw it was similar to Pinterest and Wanelo.com and I decided to “keep” (or pin) all of my product from my online boutique.
What happened from there got me truly excited! As I was monitoring the stats for my boutique that week – my visitors went up by 228% and the orders started rolling in daily! To say that I was happy was an understatement. 🙂
Those type of moments give me the confidence to know that I am choosing the right product for my customer and if I can get my product in front of my target customer then the sales will happen!
In the online world, I think that is really important to stay on top of what’s happening and what is coming next. So, when I see a new website that I can load my product to, I jump on it. I think that there is a huge growing trend for “social” online shopping and I’m really excited to see the direction that it takes in the coming years.
If you still haven’t started your online boutique yet, I would highly recommend signing up with Shopify. They have their “Build-A-Business” competition going on right now which means it’s a great time for you to start and get in on the competition. A $50,000 incentive isn’t bad either!
Have you found any great “social” shopping sites lately?
How do people find the things you keep? Is it based off of who follows you and then they re-pin it?
So do you just pin your items from Facebook to Pinterest? I don’t have many followers on Pinterest and when I try to search for my things they don’t come up.
I figured it out and you were so right! I had a huge increase! Thank-you so much!
Hi Shawn,
Sorry, for my delayed response to your comment – but that’s so exciting! I’m so glad that it has worked out for you too! Just in time for the holidays! Love it! 🙂
-Raquel
I know this reply is very delayed since the original post, but I just stumbled across this blog and had the same question. I’ve added all the products from my store, but I’m wondering how visible or searchable they really are on Keep and if there’s a way to increase the visibility. They have been on there a couple weeks without any increase in traffic or sales.
Thanks for any advice!
I have signed up for keep but I’m having trouble trying to figure out how to use it on my site. I used wix.com to build my site. Any suggestions?
Hi Kat,
On keep.com once you sign in in the left hand corner, you will see a drop down and a ‘keep it button’. Once you have the keep it button you can visit any site (including yours) and keep it to one of your boards in keep.
-Raquel
Hi Raquel thank you so much for the advise. How do you get sales and customers to come to your site? Did you advertise with them?
I have a question for you. I was able to load photos from my boutique but I would say that the item is sold out when in fact it is not. Is there a way for me to change that?
Hi Roni,
If you “Keep” the item directly from your website using the “Keep” button – it should show up correctly on keep.com. I haven’t experienced any issues doing it that way. Let me know if it works.
-Raquel
Hi Raquel,
I just had a quick question. I actually did sign up for KEEP for my online boutique and I must say I do truly enjoy it. Also I am experiencing the same issues with the item saying sold out after keeping it to my board. My question is this how do you get followers? are your products automatically made visible to the public?
Thanks so much for all your tips they are so helpful! I just checked out your site and its so cute! I love it! Would you mind if I emailed you with some questions???
Thank you so much! Of course – you can reach me at raquel(at)technical-designer.com
-Raquel
Hi, how did you download pictures from your website to keep. Am finding it hard to download pictures from my website. Thanks
Hello!
Thanks for your post, I’m happy to find this
I’ve had an account with Keep but wanted to know if I would need to email Keep to use this for my business. I cant find where to get started with posting or adding the keep button.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
You don’t need to email Keep. Just make a new board for the products in your online store. In the top left hand corner of the screen when you are on your home page click the three horizontal lines. A drop down menu appears and you can see Keep It Button click there and then follow the steps in the instructions to add the keep button to your browser. Then go to your online store and click on each of your products individually. Once your product is displayed you can click the Keep It Button and follow the steps to keep it to the established board for your business. I hope this makes sense and helps.
Thanks for your advice Jillian! 🙂
Hello!
Can you explain further what this is? Do you upload items from your boutique to Keep.com for people to shop through that site or is keep.com where you find items to sell at your online boutique?
Sorry I’m new to all of this!!
Hi Becca,
Keep.com is similar to Pinterest where you can “pin”(“keep”) items from online and then people can purchase from those “pins”. So you would not need to relist any products to the site, just “keep” them.
-Raquel
Decided to give it a try. I work nights in “real life”….so I’m hoping to see a significant different in my website traffic in the morning. What an awesome idea. Thank you for sharing 🙂
Hi CeeCee,
It never hurts to try many different avenues! Your website looks great by the way!
-Raquel
Hi !
I am now signed up with keep and I get the purpose and idea of keep. When I go to my website to upload photos or “keep” it says my product from website is “not a product” help!!!!
Hi Mae,
Make sure that your website follows the guidelines for stores for keep.com – here is the link
I hope that helps!
-Raquel
Can’t wait to check out keep and wanelo! So right about GOogle keyword competition and we’ve been selling online for 7 years!
hello is there any way that I can upload items that i want to sell on it?
Does this work with shopify?
Hi!
Yes, it works with Shopify. Just make sure your website follows the Keep guidelines.
-Raquel
Thanks. I just signed up and added my items to a collection. I hope this works 4 me too. This is my first time hearing about this site
Hello…not sure if you can help but I’m having an issue with products showing as out of stock and certain images are blurry when they aren’t on my site :-/ does anyone have any idea how to fix this?
Hi Raquel,
Love, Love, L❤️VE all your comments, advice and friendship to everyone. Very helpful and informative. So from me and everyone else in this competitive world, THANK YOU!! I am in the final stages of my website being built and trying to figure out how much inventory to start out with. I am only focusing on a certain age range and am unsure of the quantity for each age group such as style per size and much of each. Any suggestions?
Hi Brooke:
I am trying to decide on who to use to create my online boutique. After viewing your site I wondered if you could share. Thanks for your help…just starting to get involved in this world. 🙂
Hi
How do I put my products on keep that customers should purchase?
I’m giving this a go! I just opened my online store in January and will open our mobile boutique in May 2017. Interested to see if this works!
How can I add my products onto keep?
How to incress our business sale at fb and instargram ? Any tips for it ? I dont have web page for my online boutique
I don’t see a keep button or how I can keep my products. Do i have to have a separate website instead of my facebook group?
How much did you invest for inital start up? And roughly,in the beginning how much did u spend annually to have items ready for potential buyers?