The World Wide Web is no longer the new frontier when it comes to business, and that includes jewelry as well. There are tons of sites out on the Internet these days selling jewelry, and since so many people are doing it, they must be making some kind of income, right? So, how can you get a piece of the web jewelry pie for your own small jewelry business? Here are a few tips to help you use the web for your own jewelry business needs.
- Look big even if you are small. Most designers run their jewelry business as a shoe string type operation. However, your web site should not look like you do. You need high-quality professional images of your jewelry, interesting content that describes your jewelry and yourself, and an easy way for customers to purchase your goods such as a secure shopping cart. If you don't have great pictures, then there is no way you'll sell much of anything because your customers must see what they are buying as they don't have the advantage of touching it or seeing it in person.
- Time is on your side. Yes, the song is true, but that's not always such a good thing when it comes to working on the web. It takes a good deal of time, months and months at least, to be seen on the web. You are one in an ocean of web sites out there. Like the tortoise and the hare, some will sink in the ocean while other will continue to paddle along and eventually, this will pay off. But there's no quick way to establish a web site really. So, keep this in mind. You won't put up a web site tomorrow and sell out the next day. Maybe six months to a year you'll become established, so you need to just hang in there.
- SEO is one trick to learn. While you can't make the clock move any faster for you, one trick to helping your site get noticed is something called "search engine optimization" aka SEO. This isn't a web analysis site and I'm not a SEO expert by any means, but as someone whose been on the web for about 10 years, I have learned some SEO tricks such as key words and regular updated content. One good resource to learn more about SEO is About.com's Marketing site.
- Become a PR pro.
- Many of the same principles off line work the same on line, and that includes becoming public relations savvy. Many jewelry designers who have done well have had previous experience in the business world. Tina Tang is a good example of this. She moved from the corporate world to the creative world, but her corporate background and contacts really helped her make her business a success.
- Regularly update your web site. Even if you don't have new jewelry to post daily on your site, you need to figure out a way to update your site as often as possible without driving yourself insane. This is actually an SEO trick. Search engines pay attention to web sites that are updated a lot. One easy way to do this is to integrate or link to a web log. They can be a wonderful way to inform your customers while also promoting your business.
- Consider other uses for your web site as well. One last tips is to remember that you can use a web site as a mere promotional tool for you off line sales, sort of an electronic portfolio. Then include information on your site about shops and galleries that sell your goods. If you do sell off line was well, you need to make sure you aren't competing with these other outlets any way, and many wholesale jewelry companies don't sell their products on line. Instead, they give information, shoe some samples, and then point interested customers to their retailers.