How to Increase Site Traffic by 50% in One Quarter

Client: Pygmy Hippo Shoppe (Los Angeles)

Timeline: 5 months
Results: 50% online sales increase quarter-over-quarter, 50% traffic increase from baseline, Pinterest driving 10x more site traffic than Instagram daily, BEST SALES DAY OF THE YEAR on Nov 21, 2025! and… November = Best Sales Month of the Year so far!

UPDATE #1 (November 21, 2025): Best Sales Day of the Year

Since publishing this case study, Pygmy Hippo Shoppe hit another milestone: her best sales day of the entire year on a random Friday in November.

Not Black Friday. Not a holiday. Just a regular Friday where the systems we built—Pinterest discovery, SEO optimization, review automation—delivered her highest single-day sales of 2025.

To cap it off, the day ended with a $400 ONLINE SALE, first-time buyer from GOOGLE SEARCH, at 10pm.

UPDATE #2 (December 4, 2025): November was the best sales month of the entire year so far!

February (Valetine’s Day) and May (Mother’s day) are typically the best sales months of the year leading up to the December holiday rush. This year it was October! Then it was November! Truly peaking and firing on all cylinders with SEO and review automation and brand recognition going into the best month of the year!

This is what “clients while you sleep” actually looks like.

No paid ads. No daily posting. Just evergreen systems working 24/7 to bring customers to her store.

How We Hit This Milestone:

When the owner of Pygmy Hippo Shoppe first reached out, she was doing everything the internet told her to do.

Posting daily on Instagram. Running a Shopify store. Curating incredible vintage finds, cute home decor, and California-specific gifts that revealed forgotten local history. Her customers loved her. The aesthetic was singular, lovable, and fun. The vibe of her small business was chef’s kiss.

But online sales were flat. Traffic was inconsistent. And she was exhausted from the daily social media grind that didn’t seem to be moving the needle.

The diagnosis? She was playing a 2015 game in a 2025 world.

The Problem: Doing “The Basics” Wrong

Here’s what Pygmy Hippo had when we started:

• • Daily Instagram posts (1x/day, consistently)

• • A functional Shopify store with hundreds of products

• • Zero blog content

• • No meta tags or technical SEO

• • A Pinterest account sitting dormant. No activity in 8 years.

She wasn’t being lazy. She was doing what small business owners are told to do: “Just be consistent on social media and have a website.”

But here’s the thing nobody tells you: A Shopify without SEO is just a directory that no one can find. And Instagram’s algorithm in 2025 is actively hostile to accounts that only post once a day.

The result?

• • Old customers who loved her store 3, 5, even 9 years ago had simply forgotten she existed

• • New customers searching for “astrology gifts Los Angeles” or “cute home decor” or “unique and funny birthday cards” never saw her in search results

• • Her beautiful inventory was invisible to the exact people who would drive across the city to visit her store

The Strategy: Unlock Dormant Channels, Automate Discovery

We didn’t reinvent the wheel. We just… remembered Pinterest exists! It’s a massive platform with hundreds of millions of users that is a potential goldmine for discovery of small businesses like Pygmy Hippo Shoppe.

1. Pinterest: The Forgotten Goldmine

When we discovered she had a 13-year-old Pinterest account sitting dormant, we knew we had something.

What we did:

• • Synced her entire Shopify inventory through Pinterest’s integration

• • 100+ products = 100+ pins automatically created and updated

• • Created custom pins for collections, seasonal items, and recent arrivals

• • Tested video pins vs. static images (spoiler: video pins crushed)

The results:

• • 10,000-20,000 Pinterest impressions per day

• • Pinterest now drives 10x more traffic to her site than Instagram does daily

• • No additional daily effort required—new products auto-generate new pins

Here’s why this worked: Pinterest users are high-intent shoppers. They’re actively searching for gift ideas, home decor, and astrology items. Instagram users are passively scrolling, hoping something catches their eye.

Pygmy Hippo’s inventory was perfect for Pinterest’s search-first behavior. We just had to turn the damn thing on.

2. Technical SEO: Making Google Understand Her Inventory

Shopify stores are plug-and-play, which is great. But out of the box, they’re SEO nightmares.

What we fixed:

• • Wrote meta tags and descriptions for products and collections

• • Optimized product titles for search (not just aesthetic names)

• • Created collection pages that told a story about why these items belonged together

• • Implemented structured data so Google could properly index her inventory

This isn’t sexy work. No one’s going to see a meta tag and say “wow, great marketing.” But it’s the foundation that makes everything else work. We specialize in SEO for small business. We’re just small business owners who want to help our fellow small business owners thrive. And SEO is the engine that makes that happen.

3. Blog Content (The Lesson We Learned the Hard Way)

We created blog posts to help Google understand her niche:

• • Gift guides for specific occasions (graduation, Father’s Day, etc.)

• • Los Angeles and California-specific gift collections highlighting local history

• • Posts explaining why mystical and astrological items are lifestyle choices, not kitsch

Here’s the honest truth: She didn’t love the blog content. It wasn’t in her authentic voice, and that bothered her. We wrote it and she felt like she needed be the author. Even though she didn’t have the time to do weekly blogging… it mattered to her.

So we pivoted. We pulled back on blog publishing but kept the technical SEO foundation. The lesson? Blog content helps Google understand your niche, but authentic voice matters. Ultimately, we serve our clients. They tell us when to pivot, not the other way around.

That said, the initial blog posts did their job. They signaled to Google that this wasn’t just a product directory, it was a curated collection from someone who understood the culture and history behind the items.

4. Review Automation: Turning Buyers Into Advocates

We set up automated email sequences to collect customer reviews post-purchase. Open rates hit 85%, and while we’re still optimizing conversion (getting people to actually leave the review), the social proof is building. Pygmy’s gotten multiple 5 star reviews on google and yelp each month as a result. All she had to do was ask. Before we automated, she hadn’t gotten a single customer review on either platform in 12 months.

Reviews matter for two reasons:

1. 1. They boost local SEO rankings
   2. They give hesitant online shoppers confidence to buy from a small business they’ve never heard of

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Getting more reviews from your customers is the fastest way to improve your SEO. It helps you to get discovered by the right audience, and ultimately bring you more clients. We prioritize reputation management with our Client Magnet Lite plan and include it in our other plans (Leads Boost and SEO). It’s the foundational work for building your brand online.

The Results: Dormant Customers + New Discovery

By the numbers:

• • 15% traffic increase and 24% sales increase in the first 3 months

• • 50% online sales growth quarter-over-quarter (current)

• • 50% traffic increase from baseline

• • November 2025: Best sales month of the entire year—beating even Valentine’s Day (February) and Mother’s Day (May), traditionally the store’s top months outside of the December holiday rush

This last stat is critical. October isn’t a major gift-giving month. There’s no cultural mandate to buy presents.

The fact that October outperformed Valentine’s and Mother’s Day means the growth isn’t seasonal—it’s systematic. The SEO and Pinterest foundation we built is now driving consistent discovery regardless of the calendar.

When your best month happens during an off-peak period, that’s proof the flywheel is real.

The holy shit moments:

The most powerful result wasn’t the aggregate numbers—it was who was coming back.

Customers who hadn’t shopped at Pygmy Hippo in 3, 5, even 9 years started returning through organic search and Pinterest discovery. And when they came back, they came back strong.

These weren’t casual shoppers picking up a birthday card. They were true collectors buying multiple items, splurging on top-tier pieces, because they’d always loved the store and the vibe. They’d just… forgotten about it until SEO reminded them.

This is the part that doesn’t get talked about enough in marketing: SEO isn’t just about finding new customers. It’s about reconnecting with old ones.

When Pygmy Hippo came to me, their returning customer rate had dropped to just 8.9% – meaning 91% of customers bought once and never came back.

After implementing our SEO + automation systems, their returning customer rate climbed to 22.76%! A 169% increase.

Why does this matter? Because:

• Higher returning customer rates = predictable revenue
• It’s 5x cheaper to retain a customer than acquire a new one
• Returning customers spend 67% more than new customers
• It signals that you’re attracting the RIGHT audience, not just random traffic

This is what happens when you combine:

• SEO that attracts your ideal customers
• Automated review requests that build trust
• Email flows that keep customers engaged
• A seamless shopping experience

SEO isn’t just about getting found – it’s about getting found by people who become loyal customers.

If you’ve been in business for 5+ years, there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of people who loved you once and simply forgot you exist. They moved. They got busy. Life happened.

SEO brings them back.

The Takeaway: Your Website Should Work While You Sleep

The owner of Pygmy Hippo Shoppe runs her store solo. She doesn’t have time to become a full-time marketer. She needed systems that work without daily intervention.

That’s exactly what we built.

Pinterest: Auto-synced, evergreen discovery engine. New products automatically become new pins. Set it once, let it run.

SEO: Foundational work that compounds over time. Every optimized product page, every meta tag, every collection description is a permanent asset that keeps working.

Review automation: Emails send themselves. Social proof builds in the background.

The result? A “total flywheel”—self-sustaining growth that doesn’t require the owner to post daily, stress about algorithms, or burn out on content creation.

She focuses on running her store. We bring her clients on autopilot.

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What You Can Steal From This

1. 1. Check if you have dormant accounts. Pinterest, Google Business Profile, even old social media accounts you set up and forgot. They might be sitting there waiting to be reactivated.

1. 1. Shopify-Pinterest sync is one click. If you have a product-based business, this is the easiest high-leverage move you can make today.

1. 1. Video pins perform better. If you’re creating Pinterest content, prioritize short video over static images.

1. 1. SEO isn’t just for new customers. If you’ve been in business for years, there are old customers out there who loved you once. Make it easy for them to remember you exist.

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Want to see if your business has untapped channels like Pygmy Hippo Shoppe did?

We audit your current setup, identify what’s actually working (and what’s wasting your time), and build systems that bring clients while you focus on running your business.

No TikTok dancing required.

Get in touch today for a free consultation. Your success is our business.