Image by turtlemom4bacon via Flickr

You have heard about social media marketing, but have you heard of social shopping?  At Websites for Jewelers we have been discussing social media marketing for your jewelry website a lot over the last several weeks.  We have urged our readers and our clients to create profiles of their businesses in social networking websites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and have detailed the myriad reasons that social media marketing is crucial for your business, like in our article titled, “Social Media Marketing is a Must for Jewelry Websites.” Today, we are discussing a new marketing opportunity to come from the huge business of social networking: social shopping websites.

Unsure what social shopping websites are?   As defined by Wikipedia, “Social Shopping is a method of e-commerce where shoppers’ friends become involved in the shopping experience. Social shopping attempts use technology to mimic the social interactions found in physical malls and stores.”  Where people use Facebook to connect with the daily lives of their friends and LinkedIn to maintain business relationships, people use social shopping sites to scout out the latest styles, the best deals, and consumer reviews, and share this information with their friends.  Imagine a new group of websites that have the sole purpose of exposing products and exchanging information about them!  This is creating a HUGE opportunity for the marketing of your jewelry website.

There are several types of social shopping websites: group shopping site, social consumer review sites, social marketplaces, and shopping communities.

Group Shopping Sites:  These are sites that allow people to come together and purchase large quantities of an item in order to receive a bulk discount.  Some examples are: Groupon, Kactoos, and BuyWithMe.

Social Consumer Review Sites:  Some of the most popular sites on the Internet have been consumer review sites that allow people to find out about the performance of various products that they want to buy, the most traditional being Amazon.  There is a new breed popping up that adds a more social aspect to the communication and users can not only read posted reviews, but also engage with other shoppers.

Social Marketplaces:  Social marketplaces are much like the website Etsy, where sellers can come together in an online version of a farmers market or bazaar.  Some small jewelry companies have been able to create a following through sites like Etsy, but eventually find that they need their own e-commerce site to continue to grow.  Social marketplaces are great for those that sell as a hobby.

Shopping Communities:  Largely dominated by the fashion industry (AKA great for jewelry websites) these types of social shopping websites provide consumers with the ability to create shopping lists, exchange information about products, styles, discounts, and personal experiences. Rena Klingenberg of Home Jewelry Business Success Tips has an excellent article on social shopping websites and recommends the following sites for those in the jewelry business: Polyvore, StyleHive, StyleFeeder, ThisNext, and Wists.  Kaboodle is another shopping community that we love to recommend.  It was launched in 2006 and has over one million users to date.  Kaboodle allows users to create an online personal catalog of everything they want to buy on the Internet and share this information with friends.  Users can also create gift lists, write a blog, and ask other’s opinions about items they wish to buy.

How can you harness these social shopping websites for marketing your online jewelry business?  Look for more information in our next post titled, “Marketing your Jewelry Website with Social Shopping Websites.”

Related articles

• 7 Social Shopping Sites that worth your time (seoservicesgroup.com)
• The rise of social shopping in 2011: 7 examples of where it is going (rossdawsonblog.com)
• 10 Social Shopping Sites to Watch in 2011 Shopper’s Guide (apartmenttherapy.com)

One of the most recent trends in retail technology will leave you in the online jewelry sales dust if you don’t jump on board quickly.  Your website may be easy to use via a PC or laptop computer, but can your clients navigate your pages via a mobile device? As we reported in a recent article titled, “Making your Jewelry Website m-commerce Friendly,” since 2008, more people are actually accessing the web through mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Android, than those that use actual computers!  If you have not acted already, mobile web creation services are something that you should engage this year.

Image via Wikipedia

What is a Mobile Web Browser Site?

As defined in Wikipedia, the mobile web, or a mobile web browser site is when people access the Internet via mobile devices, such as a Smartphone or tablet PC. Popular versions of these devices include iPhones, Droids, Blackberrys and iPads. Standard websites are designed to be viewed on larger screens and used with a keyboard and mouse, so when someone accesses the internet through a mobile device, often times these sites will appear very small and will be difficult to navigate.  A true mobile browser website is 100% viewable without having to enlarge the image by pinching and expanding the screen.

Considerations for a Mobile Web Browser Site:

If your website is your store, then your mobile website is your kiosk.  You can still focus on providing a wide range of products and information through your traditional website, but your mobile site, or kiosk, is a way for clients to grab a quick look and buy the most needed items.  Don’t think of a mobile site as an alternative to a traditional site, but as a supplement to what is already available online and a method communicating to and attracting more users.

Nielsen Net Ratings reported that in 2007, the average Internet session lasted for 56 minutes, while mobile web users typically spend less than five minute on a site.  This means that while someone sitting at a PC is pouring over the information provided, the mobile web user is just browsing.  Later, they may access your standard site for more information, based on the bits and pieces that they gathered from your mobile site. An effective mobile site will prioritize content, offering the most important information in an easy to navigate way.

The information you provide via your mobile site is crucial and so is the design.  The most important factor to consider when designing a mobile site is to keep it simple.  Your customers need to view your site on a very small screen, so less is more, but you can simplify your graphics and still have style.

Mobile Web Browser Creation Services:

All of the major websites have created mobile versions, including: Google, Facebook, WalMart, Fox, Best Buy, MSN, Flickr, and The Food Network.  Jewelry companies are also on board.  One of our favorite mobile browser websites in the Industry is the one we created for JB Star.  When you visit their site on a mobile device such as an iPhone or Droid, you are automatically presented with an alternative version of the JBStar.com website.  This version was designed to be 100% viewable on mobile devices and allows for easy navigation while also providing beautiful portrayals of the JB Star jewelry (something that is difficult to do on mobile devices).  If you compare JB Star’s mobile site with others, you will see that while we have kept the design easy to navigate and quick to load on a mobile device, it still maintains the beautiful graphics of JBStar.com, while others can look quite plain.

Contact Websites for Jewelers for a quote on our mobile browser website creation services and keep your jewelry website competitive in today’s market.

Related articles

• Opera Shows Mini Mobile Web Browser for iPad (pcworld.com)
• Gmail Priority Inbox For Mobile Browsers Now Live (androidpolice.com)
• Mobile template feature on Blogger (medicineandtechnology.com)

Has your website support team been hounding you to get active on the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter?  ‘Social Media Marketing’ is a huge buzz phrase in the world of Internet marketing, and it is not going away any time soon.  While you have certainly heard the phrase, you may be unclear about what Social Media actually is and how it can help you promote your jewelry website? First, a social networking site, as defined by Wikipedia is: “an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities.”  Social media marketing is when businesses use these social networking sites to increase their bottom line, and this can be a very effective way for jewelry websites to market themselves.

First lets start with a few statistics on this thing we call Social Networking sourced through Web Strategist:

-       75% of all the people on the Internet use social networking sites, which have increased 24% over the last year.

-       This past July Facebook reached 500 million users

-       People Tweet 600 times per second, reaching about 50 million Tweets per day

-       Facebook was the most visited site in 2010, surpassing Google.

-       A report from Airwide Solutions predicts that Social Networking will be a more popular method of communication than phone calls or text messages by 2015.

-       Social networking sites account for half of all the mobile Internet usage.

-       75% of business owners plan to make social networking a big part of their marketing strategy in 2011.

Image via Wikipedia

When marketing your jewelry website, you want to reach as many people as possible in the shortest length of time.  As you can see by these stats, social networking websites have become the fastest way to reach the most internet users, making this an excellent avenue for Internet marketing.  Not only are Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites excellent places to reach potential customers, theses sites are also excellent places to find paying customers.  Research has shown that hits to web sites via Facebook are actually more likely to turn into a sale.  Experts predict this is due largely to the fact that Facebook users are more engaged and the information they find while on a social networking site is more relevant to their wants and needs.  Because social networking sites have become experts at customizing information for each user, a client arriving to your jewelry website via a social networking site typically has more interest than one that may arrive via a search engine.

If you have not considered developing a Facebook page, participating in social bookmarking through Del.icio.us, engaging in the professional community of LinkedIn, or creating your own business reference page at Wikipedia, then make these goals for 2011.  If you have serious doubts about your technical skills or time in terms of social media marketing, contact Websites for Jewelers to handle the load for you.  We offer several levels of Internet marketing services and can customize a plan for your business’s unique needs.

Related articles

• Who Likes What: Social Media By Demographic (kissmetrics.com)
• Proof That Social Media Marketing Actually Works (businessinsider.com)
• The Opportunites Offered By Social Networking Sites To Businesses (ronmedlin.com)
• State of the Web 2010: E-Commerce Rebounds, Facebook Rises, Online Video Booms (gigaom.com)
• Marketing Strategies for Online Business (thinkup.waldenu.edu)
• E-Mail Usage Plummets as Teens Turn to Mobile, Social Networking (clickz.com)

Do you have effective product descriptions on your jewelry website? Jewelry companies often overlook the importance of product descriptions and focus entirely on the product images.  Unfortunately, writing copy takes time, and so many jewelry websites skip this step and settle for images with very basic product information.  Some only include the product title and price! Not only are these retailers missing out on a great opportunity to close a sale, but they are also damaging their search engine rankings.

There are two big reasons that written product descriptions are important to your jewelry website:

1.    They afford an opportunity to communicate the value of your product

2.    When incorporated with SEO they will increase your rankings in the Search Engines

High quality images are certainly crucial when it comes to selling jewelry online, but it doesn’t just stop there.  A customer may become enamored by your images, but they will then look to your product description for further information.  Here you tell them not only the basic facts such as size, materials, and perhaps cost; but also why they NEED this product, what benefits this product offers, and how buying it will improve their lives.  Without your written words detailing all the great things that come with buying your jewelry, you are leaving it up to your customer to decide all on their own, and truly missing a valuable marketing opportunity.

Believe it or not, but copy is one of the most important things in search engine optimization.  Headlines, or product titles, are important in terms of search engine rankings, and should also be carefully considered, but you need more than just bold titles.  Your copy is the most valuable asset your website offers in terms of getting the Google spider attention.  In your product descriptions you not only have the opportunity to sell, sell, and sell some more, but you can also strategically place keywords and phrases that will help your customers find you when searching for the perfect “diamond engagement ring,” or stunning “platinum diamond earrings.”  With keywords inserted in the right places, you are increasing the chance that shoppers will find your jewelry website.

Perhaps you are convinced that well written product descriptions are essential for your jewelry website, but who has the time to write all this copy and run a business? Professional writers are experienced in creating messages that get to the core of your client’s buying motivations.  At Websites for jewelers we offer copywriting services to our clients through our team of experienced writers that can not only grab the attention of your customers and effectively close the sale, but also take search engine optimization into consideration, giving you copy that is effective on multiple levels.

For those of you that want to attempt to write the copy on your own, stay tuned for the next article that gives tips on optimizing product descriptions.

Related articles

• What Exactly Is Search Engine Optimization or SEO? (cash-bandit.com)
• The Best SEO May Not Be Enough To Rank High In Search Engines, Content Is Essential (marketersdaily.com)

Websites for Jewelers is regularly advocating the optimization of jewelry websites because we believe that in order to successfully complete in today’s marketplace, every retailer must have a respectable web presence.  This notion is proven further with big box retailer JC Penny’s recent decision.

The national retailer is scaling back its brick and mortar retail business, and their catalogue business, in an effort to focus more of their company resources on selling their products online.  Earlier this week the Texas-based retailer announced that it would be shutting the doors of six locations they feel are underperforming.  These locations include: Duluth, GA, Morrow GA, Des Moines, IO, High Point, NC, Culpepper, VA, and West Dundee, IL.  In addition, JC Penny will also close all of the 19 outlet stores by the end of 2012, several furniture outlets, and the call centers located in Grand Rapids, MI and Albuquerque, NM.  While this has sadly left many Americans without a job, JC Penny is making a bold move to secure the company’s financial future.

“As we continue to position our company for the future, we determined that these steps are necessary to capitalize on the growth opportunities we see ahead while we ensure we are managing costs appropriately and continually enhancing the profitability of our operations,” said J.C. Penney Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Myron E. Ullman III.

JC Penny is No. 16 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, and as they look to the future, taking bold steps to make sure that they are a part of the new e-commerce and m-commerce market, retailers should look to them as inspiration for the direction of their own businesses.

We can’t ignore the direction retail is heading, websites for jewelers and other retailers are the way of the future.  Here are some staggering statistics from PRNewsweb:

Social Networks Continue to Grow

Across the board, social networking applications continue to grow. Leading the pack are Facebook applications (up 364% to 11,585 projects), followed by Twitter (up 85% to 3,066), YouTube (up 276% to 2,836), and build-your-own social network platform SocialEngine (up 279% to 1,224 projects). Social Networking as a category itself was up 75% to 8,572 projects. MySpace trailed the pack but was still up 59% to 1,144 projects.

Sell, Sell, Sell

Selling on the Internet is alive and well. eBay projects were up a massive 791% to 3,983 in 2010. Shopping carts were strong with Magento taking the lead as the most popular shopping cart (up 182% to 3,679 projects), osCommerce was up 312% to 3,473, and Zen Cart up 377% to 1,444 projects. eCommerce projects were up 169% to 8,618.

JC Penny has already become one of the first retailers to open an e-commerce store on the social media site, Facebook, and has continuing plans to use these types of outlets to market their company.  With the estimated first year of savings to be upwards of $30 million dollars, they will certainly have a wealth of capital to invest in online marketing, and it will be interesting to see other moves they make in terms of Internet marketing.

JC Penny is not a lone wolf.  There is a massive number of retailers making the move to e-commerce, so it is no longer enough to merely have a website; it must also be marketed.  This is where Websites for Jewelers comes in.  After we design a website for our clients, we also work to secure ranking in the search engines.  Like JC Penny, we harness social media sites like Facebook, engage your niche community via forums and blogs, write keyword focused articles for your site, and engage in other respectable SEO (search engine optimization) practices.

Related articles

• Emerging Tech: Social Commerce Fills the Shopping Cart (pcworld.com)
• The Rise of Facebook Commerce (penn-olson.com)

source: National Jeweler

Have you heard of the mobile web? If you have a jewelry website, you should know about this hot trend in e-commerce appropriately titled, m-commerce!  Perhaps you know all about the mobile web, but didn’t even realize it.  As defined in Wikipedia, the mobile web is used when people access the Internet via mobile devices, such as a Smartphone or tablet PC.  Since 2007, mobile web services have been expanding, thanks in part to the increased number of Smartphones and decreased cost of mobile web service.  In 2008 mobile web access actually surpassed computer based internet access, and today, most everyone has Internet access via his or her mobile phones.

Recently, National Jeweler released an article titled, “Study: More Consumers Checking email by Phone,” where they discuss the increased use of the mobile web.  According to their report, a new study from comScore (an internet marketing research company that tracks all internet data on its surveyed computers in order to study online behavior), while web-based email is declining (6 percent down in 2010), the number of people checking their email via a Smartphone or tablet PC has skyrocketed by 36%.

ComScore Senior VP Mark Donovan reported, “From PCs to mobile devices, whether its email, social media, IM or texting, consumers have many ways to communicate and can do so at any time and in any place. The decline in Web-based email is a byproduct of these shifting dynamics and the increasing availability of on-demand communication options.”

Why does Websites for Jewelers care about the mobile web?  In addition to more and more users accessing their email with mobile devices, studies also show that more and more consumers also are shopping via this way.  Many big name jewelry websites have created mobile web sites that function better than a standard website would on a Smartphone or iPad.  In addition, big retailers are also releasing apps that help shoppers easily browse through their products while using Apple’s iPhone or iPad.

Last year eBay anticipated $1.5 billion in mobile sales, according to a report by the ecommerce information site, InternetRetailer.  In fact, eBay launched three new apps in order to facilitate their expected sales and to coordinate with the release of Apple’s iPad last spring.

You don’t need to be as big as eBay to take advantage of the hot m-commerce trend.  If you have a jewelry website, an app or mobile platform may be your next step, but there are a couple things that can be done to your existing site in order to maximize your mobile web sales right away.  First, make sure that your pages are simple and clean, and don’t require too much data transmission, this way your pages will load quickly on your client’s mobile device.  Second, make payment options simple and secure, so that clients don’t have to fiddle with too many screens to make a purchase.  Lastly, while your pages should be clean and simple, offer innovative features that mobile device users will find appealing.

Follow these simple steps and your jewelry website will be m-commerce friendly.

Related articles

• Mobile Email Use Jumps 40% Thanks To Smartphones (informationweek.com)
• Email access trending away from web, toward mobile (creativedepartment.com)
• Augmented reality? Mobile’s next big thing (canada.com)
• Like Everything Else, Email is Going Mobile (marketingpilgrim.com)

Everyone in the Jewelry Industry has been hearing about Facebook for the last 2+ years. Some retailers have actively started to use Facebook to promote their companies. And even though most retailers and designers recognize that adding a Facebook link to their website is a good idea, many wholesale jewelers are not sure whether Facebook can and should be used in conjunction with their business.

In a recent meeting with a wholesale jewelry company, I was asked whether it made sense to use Facebook in their business. The President of this well known company questioned the value of Facebook and how it could possibly be used for his type of business.

My advice was that he should in fact use Facebook for his business. Here are the reasons why wholesale jewelers should use Facebook for their business:

1. One of the top priorities for a wholesale jeweler is to always look for new customers. Retailers can use Facebook to find new vendors.  Facebook can be used just like Google. Type in a term such as “wedding rings” and you will find retailers who may be potential new customers.
2. Search for big name designers such as Tacori and Scott Kay and you will find that these designers have many of their retailers listed on their Facebook pages. This is a great opportunity to obtain retailer names that you can potentially sell to.
3. Facebook is a very large community of people. People become “friends” of others by seeing relationships between other Facebook pages. Someone who visits your Facebook page and likes what they see will tell others about you. As applied to the retail end of the jewelry business, one retailer may tell a few of his friends about your business after finding you on Facebook and all of the sudden, you have new customers because of referrals via Facebook.

Whether you’re a fan of Facebook or not, Facebook is a great website to advertise your wholesale business and obtain new customers.

Related articles

• Why it’s important to set up a Facebook store (thenextweb.com)

When most companies hire a web design firm, they take it for granted that the design firm will give them a website with all aspects of the site built to correct standards. Unfortunately, many design firms either neglect to take care of certain items in the creation of their websites or these items simply get overlooked.

Here is a list of items you should check in your website.

Q: Can you get to your website by typing into your browser’s address bar “www.your-website-name.com” as well as “your-website-name.com (omit the www.)”?

A: Believe it or not, many websites cannot be reached unless you type the “www.” before the domain name. If you cannot get to your website by simply typing “your-website-name.com (omit the www.)”, there is a very good chance that you are losing potential customers.

Q: Does each page in your website have a “unique page title”?

A: Each and every page in your website needs to have a unique page title to differentiate each page in the search engines. How do you check this? When you go to your website, as you click and go to the different pages, look at the very top of your browser’s page. In Internet Explorer, for example, there is a blue frame at the very top of it and if you look in the upper left corner, you will see some text. This text is the page title.

Q: Does each page in your website have a “unique Meta description”?

A: Meta descriptions are used by Google and the other search engines to provide a description in search results. Search results are made up of a page title and either a Meta description or the first bit of text that the search engine can read. To check this, in Internet Explorer, go to any page in your website. There are two ways to check this. Look for the text at the top of Internet Explorer that reads “View”. Click this and then click “Source”. You can also look for the text which should appear in the upper right corner that reads “Page”. Click this and then click “View Source”. In either case, in the window that appears, look at the top of the page and look for the words “meta name=”description”. You should find a unique sentence or two there. If you do not, it is possible that your pages are not showing proper descriptions in the search engines. Without proper descriptions, how can someone know what is in your website?

Q: Does each URL (web page address) in your site have a short and concise address?

A: Google loves short and concise URLs. A URL such as www.your –domain-name.com/gold-engagement-rings.html is much preferred over www.your–domain-name.com/ jewelry.aspx?dep=1&cat=26&prod=9999.

If you find that any of these items have not been addressed by either your current website design firm, or they were never taken care of by the design firm that created your site, please contact Websites for Jewelers and we will be happy to immediately take care of these.