Jewelry Business Insider:
Rena’s Exclusive Interviews with the Experts
Interview with Yuwanda Black by Rena Klingenberg
RENA: What is search engine optimization (SEO), and how can it help an online handmade jewelry business?
YUWANDA: In plain English, search engine optimization is all about understanding how people search for stuff online in order to optimize website performance.
You see, once webmasters know why and how people search for products and services online, they can then parse that data and do some concrete things to their sites/blogs to drive more traffic to it.
“Just what are some of these things,” you may be thinking. Well, whole books have been written about it, but it all starts with keywords.
Keywords are simply the actual words (and phrases) web surfers type in to find stuff online.
To use jewelry as an example, let’s say you were thinking about buying your mom a silver turquoise ring for Mother’s Day.
So, you hit the web to do some research on price, quality of stone, etc.
What are some likely words you’d type in when you log onto your favorite search engine (eg, Google, Yahoo!, Bing)?
Following are a few:
Examples of Keyword Phrases
Women’s turquoise rings
Women’s turquoise jewelry
Women’s turquoise silver rings
All of these are keyword phrases. Once you typed them in, then you’d hit the enter button and start your research. This brings us to . . . .
How SEO Can Help an Online Handmade Jewelry Business
If you owned an online store that sold this type of jewelry, you’d want your site to pop up in search results, right?
Conventional internet marketing wisdom is that web surfers rarely click past the third page of results; so ideally, you want to “SEO” your site so that it pops up on the first three pages of results that are returned by search engines.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to write informative content containing the keywords that users type in when they conduct searches for the type of product/service you’re promoting.
This brings us to the second question, which is . . .
RENA: What kinds of content should a jewelry artist consider creating for SEO purposes – is it enough to have just product descriptions and photos?
YUWANDA: Google (which is the leading search engine by far) likes “informative” content.
Now, while this can be very subjective, you can take it to mean that it DOESN’T want spammy, keyword-stuffed content.
So, produce content that helps your potential buyers make a decision.
Using the silver turquoise ring example, you might explain what turquoise (or silver) is, how it gets its color, where it originates from, what types of skin tones it looks best on, what cultures are known for using turquoise, why it’s such a popular fashion stone, etc.
The topics are endless – especially as it’s fashion. Keep in mind when producing copy that you want to push the customer along the sales funnel (ie, to make a purchase).
BUT . . . not at the expense of the customer. Sometimes, saying something “negative” (eg, telling the truth about a product/service) can work in your favor. How?
Well, it instills trust.
So, for example, if you found out that turquoise has been proven to cause breakouts in those with Type A blood, then you’d want to warn your customers about that.
See what I mean? When customers trust you, they are much more likely to buy from you.
The trap that many shopping sites fall into is not having enough content. So no, it’s not just enough to have product descriptions and photos.
In my opinion, a site always needs content over and beyond this. Proof?
Last spring, I had a client – a large gift card retailer – contact my firm. Their site mostly consisted of product descriptions and photos.
He consulted with my SEO writing company, wanting us to “beef up their content,” which included rewriting their product descriptions so that they read more like short blog posts (eg, were at least 250 words).
This is because they lost rank after one of Google’s algorithmic updates (Google Panda).
So, keep this in mind.
RENA: If you were a jewelry artist, what specific action steps would you take right now to get your jewelry products and / or business found in the search engines?
YUWANDA:
a) Pay attention to product descriptions: Beef them up, as discussed just above.
b) Rename photos: Many sites name photos like photo1.jpg, photo2.jpg, photo3.jpg, etc.
This tells search engines nothing about what the photo (and your site) is about.
So, DESCRIPTIVELY name photos. For example, if it’s a woman’s silver ring with a turquoise stone, then name the photo something like silver-turquoise-ring-woman.jpg.
c) Blog: Why? Years ago, I used to do some modeling. One of my instructors always alluded to the fact that most people have the fashion sense of a gnat.
The lesson: You have to lead prospects to the fashion waters, so to speak, because most don’t have a clue as to how to put stuff together.
So, tell them what looks good with what, why, what’s in season, what works for certain skin tones, when to wear what piece, how to mix and match certain jewelry pieces, etc.
All of this is great fodder for blog content.
A blog feeds search engines content – and search engines love fresh, informative content.
Don’t forget to write for humans, but use SEO writing rules and guidelines at all times.
FYI, I advise blogging at least once a week for it to be effective.
d) Start a Newsletter: This way, you can start to build a loyal clientele you can market to directly, eg, by sending special deals, new arrivals, holiday discounts, etc.
Final Tip
Learn SEO!
If you do business online, knowing the fundamentals of search engine optimization is no longer an option; it’s a must.
A good way to start is simply by doing some industry reading on technology sites like WebProNews.com and SearchEngineWatch.com.
BTW, if the industry phrases used in this article (eg, keyword stuffing, Google Panda) are confusing to you, use your favorite search engine (or head on over to SeoWritingJobs.com) to locate – and read up on them.
Hope this insight into how search engine optimization (SEO) can help online handmade jewelry businesses succeed online has been informative for you.
And, good luck marketing online!
About Yuwanda Black
Yuwanda Black heads New Media Words (NewMediaWords.biz), an SEO writing company. She’s the author of numerous ebooks on the subject, eg, her downloadable How to Write SEO Copy That Sells as well as the creator of one of the leading SEO copywriter training courses online. The course teaches everything you need to know about not only how to write SEO copy, but how to make money in four different ways from this skill as well.
Thank you for sharing. This advice was right on time! I am going to rename my pictues and redo my product descriptions immediately 🙂
Thank you for sharing this! I learned some new things that I should be doing that I never even though of!
Great advice here. I spend so much time making my jewelry, photographing, editing those photos and listing my items that by the time it comes to descriptions, I’ve had it. My mistake. Off to work on my descriptions and keywords.
Thanks for this great interview.
Great article!! Very good information.
Thank you for this very informative and helpful article! I love this site and all your posts!
Thanks for sharing. I so needing to hear this.
I work for a company that has its own people dedicated to SEO, so I can definitely confirm all of these tips are important to implement. One thing I would add is to add videos, it may be only my industry, but I think it applies to others. My suggestion of an interesting video would be one simple technique, or perhaps instruction on how to fix an older piece of jewelry.
This was helpful. In general, I think SEO is such a large topic that it is difficult to cover in such a short post. Maybe this is a topic that it would make sense to do a series on?
Also, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t always tag my photos (or rename them) to something more descriptive because I don’t want other people to use my photos. It seems like that’s what can happen once a search engine gets a hold of them. Can anyone give feedback on whether or not that’s true?
Lisa
Thanks everyone. I’m glad you all found these SEO tips useful for your jewelry sites.
@Melissa: EXCELLENT tip Melissa. Because I’m still behind in using video for my sites (bad, bad SEO expert, I know!), I totally forgot to add this tip.
But everyone, she’s absolutely right — YouTube IS a social media site (much like Twitter, Facebook, etc.). It gets googobs of traffic. And, as Google (the #1 search engine) likes to return “mixed media” results (eg, video, photos, articles), it’s an excellent way to pick up some immediate traffic.
@Lee: That’s very common Lee. I’m sure many who own fashion sites like jewelry makers feel the same way. But, it is a two-part process. You can have the most beautiful jewelry in the world, but if no one can find your amazing shop online, it means your hard work is not paying off fully.
So create it; then SEO it!
@Lisa Yang: Lisa, content theft (photos, vides, articles) is rampant online. SE’s can return your images in search even if you don’t tag them descriptiveley. Sure, it makes it harder, but it doesn’t mean that someone who comes across your site and sees your photos can’t steal them (unless you’ve made it harder by disabling the “Save As” feature).
So, my advice is not to cut off your nose to spite your face, so to speak. You could be missing out on thousands of visitors (and thousands of dollars in sales), by not doing this. The payoff vs. the potential drawback is too big, IMO, to ignore.
Good luck however you decide to proceed.
Finally, thanks Rena for so generously sharing your space with me. You have some lovely, and obviously very dedicated, readers.
Thank you for this great article. So many of us are so intent on creating and perfecting our craft that we are quite challenged in marketing our wares. Learning about SEO is absolutely essential for anyone trying to sell anything online. I will be checking out the links you’ve provided. I’m ready to learn.
This article was very helpful to me, since I am in the process of building a new website in Freeway. Actually, I have a description under each picture of my pendants. But there is still a lot to learn and I would like to look forward on more posts about SEO. I will be checking out the links you’ve provided.
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you for this information, I have an online jewellery shop and need to know as much as possible about how some of this info can work for me.
I will check out the links!
Thanks,
Best regards
Flo
Thanks so much for this great information. Once I’m ready to list a new item, I’m usually anxious to get it online and move on without as much thought to the description as it should have. This has really motivated me to beef them up.
Thanks so much. I’m an SEO beginner and found this information very good. It’s so important to understand the basics and you have presented it brilliantly. I and am going to start changing my web pages today.
Thank you so much for this article. I think my problem is that I’m so exhausted after taking photos and writing descriptions that I just want to hurry up and post my item for sale.
What I found is, to go back the next day and really study my tags and titles. You’d be surprised how many better phrases you can come up with by just “resting” for a day or two and then revisit your work. You can always edit and “tweak” those titles, etc
Ellie
very helpful. Thanks
I do have a question about descriptions. Is this the best way for unknown brands to add descriptions to get rankings? When I look at sites such as Anthropologie, they do not have descriptions and only one picture most of the time. Is it different when you offer such a range of products?
Thank you Yuwanda! You’re advice and information sounds great and so helpful. Easy reading too, it was as if you were just sitting down and “talking” with me! I’m going to put this to use right away. I sell jewelry on eBay (Chickenbonecharlie Jewelry and Gems). When I do get buyers they often message me with lovely compliments on my designs and what they bought. Problem is that buyers are so few and far between. I believe my items are nice and I always use the best quality findings I can afford. But for some reason my sales are like a slow dripping faucet, not even that much. I get so discouraged. But after reading this article and applying it to my store, I hope things will pick up. Your willingness to help folks like myself and others is a real Godsend. Thank you again, and wish me luck!