How to Market & Sell Jewelry Online

Online Sales in Jewelry & Watches Were Down 11% in Q3

StanSavitsky — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:54:43 +0000

According to comScore, retail e-commerce sales growth slows to 6 percent in Q3 2008 versus last year and to 11 percent in the jewelry and watches segment, which was one of the weakest in the United States online retail market.

A review of monthly retail e-commerce growth rates helps to further depict the slowdown in the U.S. retail economy. So far this year, retail e-commerce growth rates have fallen from levels of 18 to 20 percent observed during Q4 of 2007 to a growth rate of only 6 percent in Q3 2008. Since April, we have seen five consecutive months of declining growth rates. September’s 5-percent growth rate is the lowest recorded by comScore since it began tracking e-commerce sales in 2001.

ComScore also noted a pessimistic outlook among consumers where only 26 percent felt that economy would improve during the next year and 82 percent said they were “more afraid about the economic future than ever before.”

“Consumers’ economic pressures continue to have a significant impact on retail spending, which is evident in the slowing growth rates in the online channel,” commented Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore.

Well, while the industry leaders - "the big guys" as they say, experience decline in sales most of my artisan friends who design and sell jewelry themselves say that overall sales are doing GOOD.

How this economy treats you?

Market Research with Terapeak

StanSavitsky — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:02:04 +0000

How exactly can I research if there is a market for a particular jewelry design idea?

original photo by Nic McPhee

I received quite few emails about my previous post asking the same question; so, I figured out that probably a lot of jewelry designers in some way do face the same problem.

It sounds like a good idea to check if a product that you are about to create does have a market and it may be sold in a reasonable period of time for a profit. Doesn’t it? But how?

The good news is that it’s so much easier nowadays to do the market research. You may have results in a matter of hours while without internet you’d wait months. As I mentioned already, poll is a good way to find out what majority of your customers might think about an idea or a product. That is easy if you have a lot of visitors at your jewelry web store and what if you don’t?

terapeak.com

There are several tools that may help you to analyze what people buy. One of the best is the web application called Terapeak that will help you to see what sellers list at Ebay and what happens with those listings.

For example if you will to got to Terapeak’s free selling report and search for a "jasper bracelet", you will see that there were 748 of them listed in last 7 days (in time of writing this article), 49.33% of them have been sold for an average price of $12.22.

You can further filter the data by category and price, take a look on particular items and get a pretty good understanding on how your idea or product matches with what people buy.

Free version has limited functionality and you have only up to 14 days of listings’ history and you will not be able to research on top sellers and see the trends, but it’s already gives you a lot of data to think about and a great analysis tool.

Deciding on your next product you must not guess.

Subscribe to this blog to get more tips on how to market and sell jewelry online.

Do You Know What Your Customers Want?

StanSavitsky — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:55:32 +0000

original photo by Oberazzi

No matter how big or small, the list of your loyal customers is and always will be your most important business asset.

You already know that.

Now, how do you decide what kind of jewelry you should design and sell next? Is it just an inspiration, a business decision based on market analysis or a combination of both? Guess which one's right...

But fist, let's review the basics.

As in any other business, when selling jewelry online you should have all three marketing components in place:

Leads generation system;
Efficient conversion tactics;
Customer retention strategies.

Although the first two are very important, focusing on them alone isn't going to be enough. I see jewelry website owners falling into that trap often.

They build their marketing around finding ways to attract visitors to their website and using every possible trick to make the site sell.

Concentrating only on finding new customers, they miss a simple opportunity to increase their sales.

If you sell jewelry online you should remember:

It is much easier to sell to your EXISTING customers then to find and convert new prospects;
People will most likely forget about your website if you don't REMIND them;
It's easier to UP-SELL to someone who already bought from you and appreciates your jewelry.
People buy not what they need, but what they WANT. So, don't be shy to ask them what that is.

One of the easiest ways to ask your customers what they want is to place a poll on your website.

It is not a problem if you don't have that functionality at your online jewelry store. Ask500People.com, for example, provides a way to setup your own poll in a matter of minutes for free.

When implementing your online marketing strategy, remember that it takes time and effort to build a solid relationship with your customers. Get creative, but do so wisely; your customers’ trust is the holy grail of your jewelry business.

Keep URLs Permanent If You Can

StanSavitsky — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:52:09 +0000

original photo by orangebrompton

I had a great time helping a friend with an online jewelry store makeover last month. It was another chance to see how crucial it’s to have a marketing blueprint.

If you have a good understanding of your target market, a clear strategy and you do act on it every day, then you success is virtually guarantied. Try it and you'll see you business grow even in slow economy like we have now.

When implementing your online marketing strategy, though, remember that if you have to redesign your jewelry website you should pay attention to few things in advance.

Here is one of them: if the URLs are going to be different, you should decide what would be the best way to handle it.

For instance, if you decided to use another shopping cart you most likely will have different page names (also known as URLs). That can result in broken links to your site. Your visitors (referred to old URLs by other sites and search engines) instead of product descriptions and categories will get an error message. That’s not good at all.

Although, solution to this problem is simple, I frequently hear: "I see that Google Webmaster Tools complain about hundreds of broken links at my jewelry website. What should I do?" Try this:

If you had to change page URLs or move pages around, the safest option is to use "301 redirect". It simply means that a page was "moved permanently" and once Google, for example, will find that, it will “forget” the old URL and will use the new one instead. It's the most efficient and search engine friendly method for webpage redirection which should preserve your search engine rankings.
Make your "Not found page" useful. Instead of just saying to you visitors that there is no such page at you site, offer something. You can suggest trying search or simply apologize for the missing page and show list of your jewelry categories and your home page. In other words give your visitors a good reason not to click on the back button and leave your site.

And remember that you should think about URLs, I repeat, in advance.

It takes a lot of hard work to get quality inbound links and have you site ranked. If pages get lost so does the rank as well as your online marketing efforts.

Check How Your Website Is Doing In No Time

StanSavitsky — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:31:26 +0000

This reply, which I received yesterday on my list of 5 Most Common SEO Mistakes from a jewelry designer, did not surprise me:

Really good ideas. I need to work on my website more, but……so many things to do.

That's right. There is so much that we'd like to do, but we have no time. We can do some tasks, though, much faster that we used to.

by noheat.com

Here is a tool that will save a bit of your time and will give you valuable information on how your jewelry website is doing.

This wonderful free service at NoHeat.com will automatically analyze your site, get Google, Alexa and other ranks, check your site's inbound links and a lot of other things and it will represent all that information on a single page.

It's critical to be aware of what is holding you back and where you want to invest your time in your online marketing efforts.

It is nice also when it takes no time.

How to Make Your Descriptions Remarkable

StanSavitsky — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:20:40 +0000

www.madetostick.com

I just finished listening to the audio version of a great book called “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die…” and I feel obligated to share.

You should read it. You simply cannot afford not to.

You know yourself how hard it is to write creative descriptions for your jewelry. Don't you?

Now, be honest: do your descriptions actually sell your items?

What if I tell you that it’s possible to write descriptions for your creations that people cannot forget, those that get stock in their mind and make them talk to their friends about it?

Do you think that it would help your jewelry business to grow? You bet!

Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that “stick” and explain sure-fire methods for making ideas stickier ...

5 Most Common Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

StanSavitsky — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:27:28 +0000

original photo by Chazwags

Every website owner’s dream is to get to the first page of Google's search results.

That’s neither easy nor fast, but the good news is that there are simple guidelines that will help you increase your chances.

Here are the common mistakes that most jewelry website owners make, but you won’t.

1. Not Using Page Titles Properly

Please, do not make it just 'My Home Page' or 'My Jewelry Store' or simply putting your company name there. Remember that the page title must have relevant keywords to the content of the page and at the same time should be human readable, because it will be shown in the search engine results. It really is worth your time. You need to make it a headline, a pitch, a shortest possible ad for that page. Every page should have its own title and it should clearly state what that page is about.

2. Trying To Cheat

There are many ways to cheat. For instance, you might add a hundred of terms into the “keywords meta tag”. I am sorry to disappoint you, but it will not do the magic. Yes, there was a 'loophole' long ago, but it is gone for good. When adding keywords, aim to be relevant to what you present on the page. Do not repeat the same terms several times - it won't help. Try not to use the same terms in the title and in the keywords, instead of that - use synonyms.

Another way to cheat on search engines is to use hidden (not visible) content which regular visitors do not see, but Google does. Well, again, it may have worked for some time, but it doesn’t any more.

Once and for all - don't cheat. If Google catch that - your site may be banned and you will lose all the time you have spent. There are many legitimate ways to win Google's favor.

3. Having Invalid HTML Code

Use free W3C Markup Validation Service to make sure that all your pages have valid code. If you have errors in your HTML, your site will have lower rank on search engines, will be slow to render and may appear incorrectly in some browsers. Double check even when your webmaster is sure that everything is fine and grade your website.

4. Link Trading

Every inbound link is a vote that your site is important. The rule seems to be simple: more links pointing to your site – the better your search engine rank will be. There are some complications though:

Links should have your keywords. For example, I would use “How to Sell Jewelry Online” instead of http://howtoselljewelryonline.com
You want to have links from relevant websites. There is no sense in having a link from autoparts.com. It is not about jewelry, nor does it have a good rank itself. Instead you would want a link from something like NationalJewelerNetwork.com which is a popular site with a strong search engine rank.
Two-way linking does not work like it used to. Google seems to consider that as a link exchange and not as a real vote. That is why I do not require a link back when you submit your website to handcrafted jewelry directory. Most valuable links to your site are one-way links.

5. No Balance Between Text And Graphics

Yes, quality photos are critical to your success in selling jewelry online. At the same time search engines can’t see how wonderful your jewelry designs are. So, first you need to make sure that you have enough text, so that Google will be able to index your site properly. Secondarily, be aware that once Google sends you a visitor, you have about 10 seconds on average to get his/her interest and in that case it’s true that a good picture is worth a thousand words. Finding the right mix of both is the key to your jewelry website’s success.

Search engine optimization is an important step in every online marketing plan. You can get paid traffic using an online advertisement program, but if your site appears at the top of the first page of Google's search results that can bring you more customers that you can handle. Now imagine, how would you enjoy having that?

How to Complete Your Marketing Triangle?

StanSavitsky — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:35:02 +0000

original photo by Yui KuboMost of major companies leverage the marketing triangle principle to reinforce brand recognition.

"Marketing Triangle" simply means having your company name (or at least main part of it) to match the name of your website and your phone number.

For example a company called "Best Buy Co., Inc." has a website bestbuy.com and a phone number 1-888-BEST BUY. The same way, a company called IBM has a website ibm.com and we aren't surprised to see 1-800-IBM-4YOU as their phone number for general inquiries.

For a long time vanity numbers were used by big businesses.

That increases:

the chance that your customers remember you;
your credibility;
response rate to your marketing message.

There are several companies providing such service and Ring Central would be a good start to check. For less then $30 a month (in time of writing this article) you can have your own toll-free number, dedicated fax number, phone extensions and much more to impress your customers.

Modern technology made it available and affordable even for small business owners. Now you can have your own toll-free vanity number for a fraction of what it used to be and complete your marketing triangle.

How to Keep Up With All The News When You Have No Time

StanSavitsky — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:00:42 +0000

Would you like to know my recipe for keeping up with a lot of information? It is as simple as it really is:

Use RSS!

It was made for everyone who has a lot of things to keep up with but no time to do it. That is all of us. Right?

Imagine that instead of looking through 5 multiple newspapers you would select your favorite columns and then you would daily receive just one newspaper with the only type of information that you have pre-approved. That would be quite similar to what RSS can do for you.

Now, how you would leverage that technology to save time?

Go to http://google.com/reader/ and sign up for a free account.
These two news channels would be a good start:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/NationalJewelerNetwork-LatestNews
http://feeds.feedburner.com/NationalJewelerNetwork-FashionNews
National Jewelry Network is a very good source of current news stories on jewelry trends, jewelry marketing, and retailing.

Should you remember just one thing about RSS - then it's all about you getting news on your terms, the way you want them in one easy to read interface and without all that distraction that we face online.

If you are ready to jump right in and want more information here is a good video that explains what RSS really is:

Here is another good video explaining Google RSS Reader:

Now try it yourself and do not forget to subscribe to this blog.

Erayo is on a Mission to Connect Independent Jewelry Designers and Retailers

StanSavitsky — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:11:50 +0000

original photo by Roger SmithA new website is on a mission to connect emerging and established designers with independent boutiques and retailers worldwide.

Mentioned at Forbes in an article about costume jewelry, Erayo for the moment features 77 wholesale jewelry designers presenting 2135 products.

If you are looking for wholesale opportunities and ready to compete globally, try their Web 2.0 platform to distribute your creations to thousands of independent retailers around the world as well as to learn, network, communicate and be inspired by another designers.

In the time of writing more than 5,500 buyers from 55 countries registered with the site.

On top of all that, Erayo provides counseling on business issues such as pricing, branding and marketing.

Art & Craft Galore at Virginia Wine Festival

StanSavitsky — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:11:07 +0000

September 27-28, 2008

"The Virginia Wine Festival is the oldest wine festival on the east coast, now in its 33rd year. This event has a solid track record of attracting a very large, affluent DC metropolitan audience with an interest in wine, gourmet products and fine arts & crafts. This is the ideal venue to market wine and gourmet products, fine arts & crafts, giftware, gourmet kitchen items, home improvement services and other "finer things in life" products."

If you live in Washington DC metro area do not miss this coming opportunity to present your jewelry. They welcome artisans and crafters and are going to attract over 20,000 guests this year.

Art/Craft Space (products handmade by exhibitor) is 10’x10’ space on grass for artists own canopy a bit pricey - $400.

See you there.

Online Jewelry Store Makeover

StanSavitsky — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:28:39 +0000

I recently spent couple of days helping a jewelry designer with a website makeover. I hope these few things may be useful to share since I see them very often.

Email Newsletter Subscription

Why don't you have an email newsletter subscription at your website? If you do, why it is down there at the bottom of the page where nobody can see it? Even if it's easy to find, why do you think people will subscribe if you offer nothing in exchange?

Give your visitors a reason to share an email with you and your list of potential customers will grow faster as well as your business.

Search Engine Optimization

Making sure that your website is search engine friendly do not forget that, after all, we create websites for humans. Do not go extreme with SEO. We create jewelry websites not to trick Google but to serve people. Your website should be all about that.

Make Your Business Stand Out

Google returns almost 2,000,000 results for "handmade jewelry". Most of them make the same handcrafted (unique, handmade, artisan, custom, you name it..) jewelry. Ask yourself: how am I different from everyone else? I believe that you are special but here is the challenge: can your website visitors find that out in 10 seconds or less just looking on your front page? If they can't - they will go somewhere else rather quickly.

Choose Original Web Design

Try hard not to make yet another Overstock.com. If you have less then 100 items, you do not really need a full-scale e-commerce solution. If your jewelry website looks as a discount online retail store, your visitors will expect a lot of products to choose from and low prices. Is that what you try to do? In your case, original and stylish online boutique may work better.

Multi-Channel Selling

Your online store is just one of many possible channels to sell your jewelry. Do not forget about eBay.com and Etsy.com and stay alert for craft shows around.

Networking

Meet new people and make more friends. Remember that nobody buys from a stranger. These days a lot of people network online. You should consider using social networks like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Be Patient

Nobody can make a successful online jewelry store overnight. It takes time. Make sure that you have a good plan and a right mindset. Then stick to it and act every single day.

Is Your Email Signature Up to Date?

StanSavitsky — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:12:22 +0000

Guy Kawasaki pointed out a link to The Social Media Email Signature at Web Market Central.

That perfectly matches to what I use:

original photo by Vu Bui

Stan Savitsky
blog: http://HowToSellJewelryOnline.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/StanSavitsky
digg: http://digg.com/users/stansavitsky

I see more and more people who do specify several ways to reach them and that works.

Although, most jewelry designers that I know don't do that yet.

May be they should...

Why Do People Leave My Website?

StanSavitsky — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:27:15 +0000

There are many possible reasons, but I would point out two of them:

You do not have relevant traffic. In other words, you get visitors that seek something different from what you offer;
You have relevant traffic, but you have usability issues. For example, somebody came to your site looking for an accessory, but couldn’t find the right one even though it was right there.

original photo by CayusaTo solve the first problem you need to get traffic analysis for your website. There are many free tools available, but I prefer Google Analytics over the others. Using that you can see where people are coming from, where they "landed" on your website, how much time they spent there and from which page they left. You will have a lot of information to think about and that alone may help you realize what is wrong.

The second problem is more challenging, because you can't see how people actually behave when visiting your website. Fortunately, there is a simple and very affordable solution for that. You can try a low cost usability testing. You will receive a video on how a real person would use your website for only $19.

When building your website try to think from your customers' perspective instead of focusing on what you offer.

You Cannot Outsource Marketing

StanSavitsky — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:15:04 +0000

I am often asked: can you do the marketing for me?

original photo by pshutterbug

No, I can't.

There is no way you can outsource your marketing to anyone. At least not in the way that I feel marketing should be done.

For example: you can get a babysitter for your child, but can you outsource being a parent?

Same here - there is only one person who really cares about your business, and that is YOU.

In order to succeed you need to know:

marketing is not the same as search engine optimization;
marketing is not having a website;
marketing is not advertising;
marketing is not the many other things that people tend to believe it is.

Marketing is a STRATEGY. Only you can decide how you are going to design your products and services, build your brand and reach the right audience. That is your true plan - the blue print for your business.

You can seek advise, you can outsource most of the individual tasks to certain professionals and have them do some of the heavy lifting for you, but never let anybody decide what should you do with Your Business.

Grade Your Website

StanSavitsky — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:28:33 +0000

There is a very useful service called Website Grader.

"Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective."

You may have a FREE detailed report in a few seconds, which usually costs few hundred if you hire an expert. Skilled professional, though, may do a better job then the Website Grader but it is a very good start to check your jewelry website.

Are You Passionate Enough?

StanSavitsky — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:31:00 +0000

Accidentally I got across Benjamin Zander's talk on Ted.com.

It is amazing. He will make you love classical music even if you don't.

Now here is a question for you - are You THAT passionate about what You do?

Just imagine how differently you could influence other people if you would have such an obsession yourself.

Shouldn't we all really surrender to our dreams to have a never-ending source of energy and inspiration?

Get Yourself a Blog

StanSavitsky — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:48:57 +0000

If you think about creating a web store for you jewelry business but did not make it happen yet then I'd like you to consider an alternative way to extend you brand to the online arena and have a web presence today.

You can easily start from having a jewelry blog to share what you create and already start building you list of followers. Who knows, may be on you web store opening you will have a bunch of ready to buy customers waiting in line. Sounds good? Get to work then.

It especially a shame not to have an online presence when nowadays it is free. If you feel that you have no budget for your blog yet - go to Blogger or Wordpress, compare their features and get a free account. You may have your blog up and running in few hours if will start NOW.

I hear you saying that you already talk about your jewelry designs on an online forum and people like them. That is all right but in that case you work to promote some other website. Would you rather like to have your own popular website? Of course you do and the good news are: it costs very little or nothing and it is very easy.

But do not take only my word on this. See what a jewelry designer has to say about blogging.

How to Make Web Address Short?

StanSavitsky — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:22:01 +0000

Figaro made a vivid example that it is going to be a bit challenging to serve two masters. So, it is.

To promote our business online we make our web pages "search engine friendly" and, along with other techniques, we use "clean URLs". In Plain English it means a human readable web address without any special characters.

Here is one:

http://copperreflections.com/handmade-jewelry-blog/2008/08/how-to-market-handmade-jewelry-online/

and that is how it should be.

However, when it comes to micro-blogging it becomes a problem because there will be not enough space left for your message if you want to include that web link.

So, same time we want the address to be long and self-explanatory and we do not.

That is exactly where free services like is.gd and tinyurl.com come in handy. This link http://is.gd/2xPM points to the same page. It is much shorter and easier to use when you tweet.

Do You Use Twitter?

StanSavitsky — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:29:43 +0000

Why not? There is a good chance that some of your clients love and use Twitter. There are almost 3 millions of `twitterers` out there. Do you know how many of them are your potential customers or may be your future partners?

What is Twitter?

Twitter is many things to many people and may work incredibly well as a marketing tool and help you to build your community and keep in touch with your loyal customers.

Wikipedia says, “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), ...” while Twitter itself says that it is ".. a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"

In short, the main ideas as I see it is this: Twitter is a real time broadcasting medium, which designed to help people to feel connected.

Unlike email you can easily ignore all the noise in Twitter if you choose to. On the other hand, if you have people following you, write a message regularly. Every time when you write a tweet - all you followers will immediately see it. You even can link your Twitter account to you cell phone, so, you could send and receive updates on go.

How Can Twitter Help My Business?

Twitter can help you stay in touch with your clients.
Twitter can help you instantly inform your customers about new products or your new design ideas (although, I should mention, try not to look like a direct seller and do not be too noisy nor be silent or you may loose your followers).
Twitter can help you to look `more human` and thus improve your connection with your clients.
Twitter can help you network with other jewelry designers.

If you have 7 spare minutes and want to learn more about using Twitter for Internet Marketing - here is a good video tutorial by Ed Dale.

OK. Give Me a Quick Tip

Be wise on how do you use "Bio" line in your profile. You can put up to 160 characters in there, so you should get creative. If you sell jewelry online and you interested in building a list, you might try to mention that you have a coupon or a free gift for your new followers. Think about your clients - what might catch their attention? We all should not try to impress the wrong people, so do not try to write that message for everyone.

Try it yourself and let me know how it works for your business.

Are we doing the smart thing for our business?

StanSavitsky — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:42:26 +0000

They say: "Before you do something you always have to do something else".

By all means - stop it. The only way to succeed is to focus on what will make a real difference and move you closer to your goal.

We should be clear on what our goals are and we must act on them. Every single day. Try to start your day by doing what is the most important for your buisiness and see what will happen and how you will feel at the end of that day.

In this regard, although it may be oversimplified, it is very easy to determine if I am being smart. Obviously, if I do something that brings me closer to one of my goals, I am doing a smart thing. Otherwise, I am being stupid.

Looking back, I have to say that I could have been much smarter. What about you?

Don't you trust your techie friend?

StanSavitsky — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:04:53 +0000

"I trust everyone. But I don't trust the evil in them".

I do not remember the name of the movie where I heard it for the first time but it is very true. Of course I believe that you should trust your friends and that is why we call them so and we expect them to help us out when we are in need. The thing is that not every advice, even one meant for good, is what will make your business better. Why did I say "techie friend"? Well, because I know from experience that techie friends are special. I myself have fallen into that trap.

original photo by David Cornejo
Let us say, for example, that you found a special niche for some extravagant bracelets and came up with several designs. Now you want to put them online to test to see if somebody is interested. You go to that friend of yours who works as a software engineer (or something like that) building sites for an XYZ company and ask "What should I do?" The odds are that you may end up spending a bunch of money and 3 months later you might have an e-commerce website which is able to handle half of the Amazon. You will ask yourself "Do I need all this?" And your techie friend will tell you "Of course. What will you do if you suddenly have a lot of traffic, but that cheap website that you've been asking for simply cannot handle it?" I'd say - party. You'd love to have that kind of trouble - that means that your product works. However, ask yourself should you spend a lot of money and time in advance, while these days you can test your ideas overnight and virtually free? Think about that.

How do I get more visitors for my jewelry website?

StanSavitsky — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:35:42 +0000

That is the most frequent question that I receive from handcrafted jewelry directory members.

It usually goes like this: "I spent $X,XXX.xx and I have my lovely website/shopping cart up and running for several month by now and this whole online thing DOES NOT work. Nobody bought anything except couple of my close friends. What should I do to make it really work?"

Well, I am not sure that I can answer that in one single post and that was the reason for me to start this blog and talk about strategies and techniques that we can use to sell jewelry online.

The short answer is this "make more friends". Let me stress it little more - make a system, which will help you to make more and more friends. And there is a very simple reason to do that - people do not buy from complete strangers. Not a website nor a shopping cart will make your jewelry business successful but long and lasting relationship with people will.

You may say: "But I do not want do all that marketing stuff - I just like to make jewelry". Well, nothing wrong with that. You simply have a choice. If you just like beading or wiring gemstones then it's wonderful if that makes you happy but it usually called a hobby. If you want to be in business you should be ready to do what's necessary to produce a good product and then put it in front of interested people. And that is going to take time and effort to learn and act. Fortunately it is not that hard, long and complex as you may think.

If you just starting out with a web presence for your jewelry creations I would suggest you to start from building a community of people who likes what you do. And it is so easy nowadays when we have all this easy to use technology in our hands. Build and grow that community. Find a way share your achievements, products, thoughts, expectation and experience regularly to keep and improve that connection. Make it possible for you community to talk back to you and let you know what they think and learn to listen. Thus, you can find out what people want and what they would buy from you. What is also important that once you figure out a right product you will already have a crowd that knows and trusts you.

I see that most of the jewelry sites' owners do it exactly the other way around. They create a product and then they crave for buyers. This `traditional` approach to business, in my opinion, is responsible to the common saying that "9 out of 10 businesses fail". That is because people bet and create products "out of the blue" instead of finding a market first then ask what the market wants and then create just that. This way works every time if have enough guts and patience to follow all the way through.

Well, which way you do it?

Should I care about page titles?

StanSavitsky — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:25:47 +0000

Oh yeah. Your really should.

It is not really a marketing tip, but since we are talking about selling jewelry online we should make sure that we do optimize our product web pages for search engines like Google.

For those who are not familiar with what is a page title - it's a text, which you will see at the very top of your browser window when looking at a web page. Inside of the html you will see something like this: <title>My Page Title Here</title>.

The same text Google searchers will see when they will try to find your products. Try this search for yourself jasper bracelet. As you can see in the Google search results it is a really good idea to have for your page with jasper bracelets a title like this: "Jasper Bracelets | Your Site Name Here". Not diving into search engine optimization details too much (btw: let me know if you want me to), you should have a title which is very relevant to the page content and which is really easy to catch while eye-scanning search engine results. Thus you can improve your Google ranking for the page because it will be very easy for Google to find out what is the page about. Remember - title of your page is one of, if not, the most important thing, that can give you a huge improvement in search engine ranking.

I know that all of you spend a great deal of time making sure that you have best possible pictures for you products and of course that is really important. But search engines like Google cannot see how wonderful your photos are. It is absolutely required for you to follow certain rules if you expect Google to send you new clients.

An ideal title should have keywords that describe that particular page best and it should be 70 characters or less. Title longer then 70 characters will be cropped by Google and will look less catchy in the search results. Try to start from the phrase that explains what is on the page and you may add name of your site at the end. "Black Onyx and Moonstone Pendant | Creative Jewelry Designs" may be a good example.

And remember that usually more then 90% of people will not buy at the first visit on a new website. Analyzing sites at handmade jewelry directory I see that majority hope that visitors will come and buy. It is not that simple. Consider having a newsletter subscription. Let your existing customers know about new things regularly, so, that they will have a chance to get back to you and enjoy your products.

Yet another blog?

StanSavitsky — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:14:22 +0000

It's been a few months now for me resisting the temptation to start this blog. The opportunity knocked my door long ago when I realized that I have more then one friend who sells jewelry online. I find myself answering the same questions again and again. And it happens more often now as handcrafted jewelry directory grows. So, to make it more convenient for my friends at handcraftedjewelrydirectory.com I am going to publish online marketing tips that I hope will help you succeed with you jewelry business online. Do YOU have a question about promoting you jewelry website? Ask now then.