You know, it never hurts to be able to tweak a few things on your blog or your website.

Maybe you'd like to be able to make a clickable hyperlink in HTML.   Or maybe you want to make a "buy now" button that looks prettier than the one Paypal gives you.

Or maybe you're a little geekier, and like me, you too love the challenge of making a website look the way you want, learn how to do some simple coding, play around in photoshop, and attempt to make some general coolness.

I'm generally an advocate of outsourcing anything that will suck huge amounts of time, but as sweat equity is relatively free, and outsourcing can be a frustration in itself sometimes no matter what your budget is it's nice to be able to tweak a website yourself.

It's even nicer to find free generators to help you do it.

If you're relatively new at website building/ tweaking then you may not even realize the world of free code generators, icon libraries, and other coolness to cut your sweat in half, and make it so much easier to get the effect you want the first time.

If that's you, prepared to get excited and maybe feel the geek inside just a little bit. I know I get excited when I find easier better faster ways to write html code, make a little icon, or make a pretty button,

What's this long introduction all about?

I just discovered this design website called "Speckyboy", and on it is the BEST list of free web tools and apps that can make your life as a webmaster a whole lot easier.

This is the best list I've ever seen, and even more exciting for me, I've never heard of any of these free web tools before, ever.

Check it out, and enjoy:)

Best,

P.S. Looking for ways to promote your website or blog?   Check out my guide "30 Minute a Day Webshop P.R.O.M.O", and learn how to explode your traffic and sales in only 30 minutes a day.

About the Author

Christine Gierer is the owner and creator of HandmadeResults.com.   With a focus on internet marketing and business fundamentals, not wasting time on stuff that doesn't work, and good 'ol commonsense, she loves helping jewelry makers make strides building their successful online businesses.   As a jewelry maker and web business owner herself, she knows financial business success is the key to getting the freedom of time to live a creative life.

Have a comment about 50 free web tools and apps? Share your thoughts and questions below:

photo credit: Got Sarah

One reason people don't stick around on a website is because the website loads so slowly.   Often you can increase your page load speed dramatically just by making your images load faster.

Jewelry websites and blogs are especially image heavy so if you don't compress and resize your images you could be turning visitors away without even realizing it.   There's no point increating a beautiful website with gorgeous images on it if no one has the pateince to let them load.

Photoshop and Irfanview are two programs that can easily be the solution to your bandwidth sucking image problem.

Learn how to reduce your image size with both Photoshop and Irfanview (a free program) in this new Handmade Results Article.

Beautiful Blogger Blogs?

I was just checking out a member's website and I was struck by how beautiful her blog was.   It was a simple free blospot blog and i thought, has Google come out with new backgrounds? Google blogger backgrounds have generally struck me as not terribly exciting, but definitely serviceable.   And of the course the (free) price is right.   But I never really considered the backgrounds to be especially beautiful...

Here's a screenshot of the site, Gabriela Bijoux, the site whose background intrigued me so.

Isn't that background gorgeous?   I love how it's offset with the daisy.

Not a Google Background...

Back to my question.   Did Google come out with new backgrounds for it's free blog platform?   No, they didn't.

It was simply a background supplied by Shabby Blogs.

Shabby blogs has lots of interesting stuff to check out for the free blogspot blogger.

Seeing this site got me thinking...

(This is where I should note   - I have a head cold as I write this and the neurons aren't quite firing properly today.   Forgive me if this post doesn't quite "connect" as lucidly as usual).

It got me thinking about the importance of the website background for jewelry sellers.

The Importance of a Good Lookin' Website for Jewelry Sellers?

It can be argued a few different ways...

Should you make a visually gorgeous site when you sell jewelry?   Or should you keep it clean and simple?

Etsy for example has a very clean look that really showcases the handmade items that are posted for sale.

I like clean and simple myself, but then again a visually pleasing site could really grab a visitor right off the bat and might be enough to keep them away from that back button.   I'm not sure which makes more total overall sales in the end.

Just a few thoughts today from my fuzzy head cold head.

Return from Free Blogger Backgrounds to Handmade Results Home

Best,

P.S. What are your thoughts?   Clean and simple?   Or do you like a visually stunning website theme when you shop?   Which do you think makes more sales?   Comment below.

Looks pretty doesn't it?

Now go embed something onto your jewelry website!

P.S. Are you wondering how to make your own video for promoting jewelry websites? How to Make Videos to Promote Your Jewelry is one of the lessons you'll get access to when you join Handmade Results Weekly.

Return from Embedded Video Example for Jewelry Websites to How to Use Other People's Videos

Return from Embedded Video Example to Handmade Results Home

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 125x125 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...

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 125x125 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...

This website case study is a request by reader Deena, who asked me to take a look at her Oak Hill Jewels site via a comment on my article How to Promote Your Jewelry Website, and also by Anita who commented on my comment.

The issue? Traffic. Deena says she thinks she's optimized her website properly for keywords, and she thinks she's providing good content, but still nada. Why is no one visiting?

I gave a little advice in the comments, but Anita asked me to clarify on what Deena could do better to increase traffic and build a better website, so here we are!

What Is the Point of This Case Study?

Before we look at Deena's website, let me tell you a little about the objectives of this case study. This is a landing page case study and it's also an overall website case study.

The landing page is the page that a visitor lands on first. For most websites this is the home page. When you build a website, whether it's a blog or a regular website, you want to have a homepage. I know that blogs aren't normally set up that way, but this doesn't mean that you shouldn't have one.

People like having a starting point that clearly explains what they can find on your website, what the point or focus of your website is, and an easy to understand way to jump off to other points on a website. If you have a home page, you can give them some much appreciated direction. You can greet them warmly, let them know what your objectives are and how your site will benefit them, how to get around your site, and generally make them feel more comfortable with you, and your website.

The rest of your website should focus on more of the same. Your entire website should be structured around a focused topic. This makes it easy for the search engines to categorize your site, and in turn lead targeted traffic to you. This applies whether you have an information site, an ecommerce site, or a combination of the two.

What You'll See in the Website Case Study Video

This case study looks at Deena's landing page, her content, and her on-page and off-page search engine optimization. I use a few tools to try to figure out what keywords she is optimizing for, whether she is successful at optimizing for them, whether they are good keywords to target in the first place, and give some suggestions for improvement.

To better illustrate what to do to fix the website, I point out features of my own How-to-Make-Jewelry.com website. This website is a content site primarily, but the rules apply whether you are build ing a website that sells products, sells jewelry, or sells advertising. You need content to draw the traffic, you need to optimize your pages for terms with reasonable search volume, and terms that have a reasonably low amount of competition.

Note: When you are looking at good examples of optimized websites, I want to point something out... Handmade Results is not one of them. I threw it up quickly primarily to deliver my Handmade Results Weekly course, not as a search engine optimized website. As a result, it breaks all the rules of a good keyword targeted website. What it is a good example of is what you can accomplish when you have a mailing list and have built up a reputation from a well-built, optimized website. At the moment all my traffic comes directly from word of mouth and from my "I'm Making Jewelry in my Jam Jams" newsletter. I do have plans to search engine optimize and make it more usable at some point, but one thing at a time....

With that lengthy introduction, go ahead an watch the website case study video below. You'll get a great overview of how a website can be made better and more search engine friendly, and more visitor friendly too for that matter.

Resources:

• SEMRush
• SEOQuake

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