Design Yerself A Great Jewelry or Craft Website – And Even Sell Something!
Why is No One Buying From My Handmade Jewelry Website? Help!
How to design a jewelry website so that people find it, people like what they see, and stay long enough to even figure out if they want to maybe buy something.
Your Jewelry Website. Is it Selling? Why or Why Not? Could it be you haven’t designed it right?
I received a wonderful email from a reader the other day that set me off on a complete tangent. Before I knew it my whole schedule went out the window because I got all wrapped up in giving her some website tips.
Here’s the story. Audrey from Texas has a website that she started, oh, about 6 months ago, and she hasn’t seen any results.
She wrote,
Now if someone would start buying on the website I’d be a really happy woman. It’s been up since March and people haven’t found it yet, even with marketing, etc. They keep saying it takes time, but I’m really getting frustrated.
She didn’t come out and ask for a review, but she did say suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Before I knew it 2 of my precious free hours had passed as I gave a whole slew of tips and information. Then I started writing more! Whew! Today, we’ll tackle some tips for designing your website.
What Makes a Website Good?
A good website needs 2 things:
- To be found by customers (traffic)
- To be interesting to a visitor – a real human being
Let’s talk about the real human being first.
Remembering the Real Human Visitor
A jewelry website that sells needs some key elements- it needs to be inviting, and has to be about the customer (or the audience or reader if you like that better).
So what does an inviting website look like?
An inviting website talks directly to the needs of the customer rather than about you, the artist. Sad to say, nobody cares about you until you tell them what’s in it for them.
The key to selling is thinking like your customer. They are always thinking, “What’s in it for me?”. Not in a bad way. Everyone thinks like that. Don’t you?
One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned is to talk to your customer as if they were standing right in front of you. Websites often aren’t designed like that though.
Let’s look at how many jewelry websites are set up. They often talk about the designer front and centre, don’t they? Who they are, where they live, how they would love to make you something, and how people tell them how great they’re jewelry is.
But think about it. Do people care where you’re from? Maybe, but if you think about why they care you’ll see that even that is about them, not you. Put yourself in the shoes of your visitor. What do you look for when you’re shopping. Why do you care where they’re from? You might want to know how far away it is from them because of shipping costs, because you like to shop local, or because there’s some sort of prestige or “specialness” attached to buying from say, Paris.
We’ll talk about the “copy” or text on your website in an upcoming post about Writing Jewelry Stories and Descriptions.
Elements of an Inviting Website
So back to your jewelry website itself.
So what makes people want to stick around a website? Other than the content I mean. Think about your own self. Do you tend to hang around sites that have a ton of stuff on them, or do you like sites that are more simple? Are there websites that make you feel overwhelmed and make you click that back button pronto?
The biggest problem I see with most sites is that there is just too much going on. The trick is to cull mercilesslessly.
Two of the most popular websites are The Google Site and the Apple Site. I think they’re well-designed – they’d better be since they hire the top web designers in the world, right? So what do they have in common?
- * Clean
- * Simple colors and design
- * Lots of white space
- *Goal oriented/ purpose driven
- * 1 focal point
- * Easy to understand navigation
Apple/ Ipod Site
Here’s a tip for analyzing your own website. Load it up and squint. How many focal points can you count. Does your eye automatically go to one place? Or does it bounce around all over the place?
And take a look too – if your eye does go to one place, is it the place you want it to?
Is the purpose of your site obvious? Does it look like your purpose is to please the customer? Or is it all about you?
How easy is it to get around? Do you have a search box? Is it obvious where to click first? Does it look like you’re just out to “sell” them stuff, or does it look like you want to help them find what they need? Once again, it goes back to the customer.
Photography
On the web, great photographs are not just important, they are paramount! Jewelry is the type of thing you like to touch, feel, and try on. You can’t do that on a computer screen so you have to do the next best thing. Describe it thoroughly and enticingly, and have lots of great pictures. And lots of different views of the same piece.
To get some ideas on presentation, I like to look at what other people are doing. There are some great Etsy shops with beautiful pictures. Doing some research there will likely give you lots of ideas.
I’ll be talking more about taking jewelry photographs in part 2 of this series.
Good Copy
What’s copy? Copy is just the words you use on your website. The best copywriters in the world get enormous sums of money because they get results. They know what people want.
Here are a few things people want:
- Not to be “sold” to
- Solutions to their problems
- Fast, easy, convenient
- To be priority number 1
I often see websites that say something like, “I’d love to make you a custom bracelet”. But if you were shopping, do you care how someone would love to make you something? Or do you think, “Yeah, so what, everyone selling something would love to sell me something?”
So as a shopper what do you want? You want to know WHY you should buy from them. Marketers sometimes call this your USP or “Unique Selling Proposition”
As a shopper, you have a bunch of things that might be motivating you. You want to feel special. Some kind of “wow” factor that you can tell your friends about. Often with jewelry this comes down to some story they can tell. For example, if you make jewelry in your rustic barn studio using a cutting edge technique that few know how to do, that might be something that would make an interesting side story.
Another great way to get into the mind of your customer is to use the problem and solution strategy. Instead of “I’d love to design your bridal jewelry”, maybe something like “Your special day is all about you, the bride. You want to look like the most beautiful woman in the room. Imagine yourself, walking down the aisle, flushed with excitement, your handcrafted custom designed swarovski crystal princess length necklace, tiny matching earrings and 3 strand bracelet are sparkling like diamonds, and all eyes are on you. Wouldn’t you love your jewelry to sparkle like diamonds on your most special of days?”
We’ll talk more about talking so your customer wants to hear you in an upcoming post about writing great descriptions.
Getting Traffic
Remember the other good website must-have? Traffic! People need to find you.
How do you get traffic? Marketing!
There are lots of ways to market to bring traffic to your websites.
Of course everyone hates marketing. We all just want to build it and have people come. Well, I’m not going to sugarcoat it – if you want traffic you have to work at it. So suck it up.
I’ll write some more about these in upcoming posts, but here are some ways to bring targeted (i.e. people who are actually interested in your website, not just miscellaneous surfers) traffic to your site:
- Article marketing: write articles and submit them to article directories, magazines, and other websites
- Search engine marketing: make sure you are search engine friendly
- Pay per click marketing: Use a service like Google Adwords to get traffic
- Social media marketing: Use social sites like Twitter, Stumbleupon, Facebook, Youtube, I-Tunes, Hubpages, and hundreds of others to strategically spread word about yourself
- Forum marketing: Participate in forums by offering USEFUL answers. Don’t spam. Sometimes people will follow your “sig” back to your site.
- Newsletter marketing: Get your customers on a mailing list (make sure you ask first!) and send them interesting news and updates. Repeat customers should be your bread and butter.
- Other Marketing: business cards, ads if applicable, do craft shows, trade shows, put your website on all your packaging
I could go on and on – and I guess I have – sorry. Now get started on fixing your own websites. I want to see you shine!
Resources
Books for Web Design Help:
This book was recommended to me and after reading it, I saw the world in a whole new way. I think this has got to the most useful, easy to understand book I’ve ever read. I can’t recommend it enough for anyone who writes anything.The Non-Designer’s Design and Type Books, Deluxe Edition
Here’s another great, easy to read book full of practical usable advice. Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug. This is the type of book you can blow through in a couple of evenings. But despite its conciseness, it will give you an expert’s ability to judge Web design.
Free Web Design Tools:
Free logo creator: Here’s a neat free service – Every company or website should have a logo right? And you know those 125×125 logos for putting on directory sites? You can easily make one free here at free125cards.com
Free menu creator: An article linking to free tools for creating menus for your website.
Online Articles:
Is Your Website being Read? Why people Don’t Read Your Web Page
Using Goals in Web Site Design: If visitors’ goals aren’t fulfilled, they may give up, they may click back and go elsewhere, and they are certainly unlikely to recommend a site to others.
Elements of a Good Small Business Web Design Easy navigation is also a significant tool for a small business web design. Therefore, make sure that your visitors will be able to view the information that they want easily.
Create a web page tailored to your visitors :All websites are designed towards your visitors, but how many sites are actually designed towards the visitors specific? Very few…
Possibly Related posts:
I just found your site the other day and already I have learned several things I have been doing that are not recommended. I am looking forward to being sucessful as I learn more each day. Thanks!
Your welcome Penny