Increasing traffic to my wife's jewelry site

[OneCoachDoug]

I was wondering what some good suggestions would be to increase traffic to my wife's custom jewelry website. We're getting some hits every month, thanks to her handing out her business cards at her craft shows.

The jewelry has been a large success at these shows, more than we imagined, and each year the success dies out in the winter. We're located in Northern Michigan, and so there aren't many events (0) for her to display and sell her stuff.

We have her product in a couple of small places that resell for her, but that's about it. She promotes the healing energy of her gemstones, and it's a very nice product that is also inexpensive. Would you suggest some insightful blogging posts about the healing energy each week and get people to subscribe to the blog? We could invest some money into advertising the site, but we don't want to put it somewhere that wont pay off. I've heard good and bad about Google Adwords. Her search engine position is only good when you put the title of her business in Songbird Gems. If you put "gemstone jewelry, gemstone bracelets, or anything of that nature, then she's not on there....

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!!

[Kylark]

My first desire when I read your post was to see the site in question. Perhaps your first step should be posting a link.

[4Mind4Life]

Suggestions:

1) Use the program "StumbleUpon"

2) Post HyperLinks to the site in each of your forum posts

3) Advertise on your vehicles (stick ons / paint job)

4) Keep handing out business cards

5) Have her travel to other shows, esp. in the winter

6) Keep grinding -- you will find something that works!

GOOD LUCK.

Originally Posted by OneCoachDoug

I was wondering what some good suggestions would be to increase traffic to my wife's custom jewelry website. We're getting some hits every month, thanks to her handing out her business cards at her craft shows.

The jewelry has been a large success at these shows, more than we imagined, and each year the success dies out in the winter. We're located in Northern Michigan, and so there aren't many events (0) for her to display and sell her stuff.

We have her product in a couple of small places that resell for her, but that's about it. She promotes the healing energy of her gemstones, and it's a very nice product that is also inexpensive. Would you suggest some insightful blogging posts about the healing energy each week and get people to subscribe to the blog? We could invest some money into advertising the site, but we don't want to put it somewhere that wont pay off. I've heard good and bad about Google Adwords. Her search engine position is only good when you put the title of her business in Songbird Gems. If you put "gemstone jewelry, gemstone bracelets, or anything of that nature, then she's not on there....

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!!

[OneCoachDoug]

Sorry, I didn't want the post to be considered advertising. If you'd like to give me some feedback on the site, go to Songbird Gems

I believe I hyperlinked this correctly.


Thanks for the feedback!!!

[OneCoachDoug]

"'3) Advertise on your vehicles (stick ons / paint job)"


Can you elaborate on what this means. Thanks!!

[Ninja]

Ooh, I love the color scheme! That is, if the site is aimed mainly towards women. Men tend to have an aversion to purple hues.

I'm studying "communication & Multimedia Design" and what you need to do to get more traffic, is have old visitors return over and over again. To do that, the site should be user friendly, which it isn't. I love the flash animation, keep that! But it's very 'loud' and distracts the viewer. I actually had to look for the links, which are small, repeated twice (confusing and violating about every law of usability known and unknown to man) , and look like Google ads.

Make those stand out more. Do not repeat them, but draw attention to them. Increase fontsize, make eye-catching buttons, but do something about those links to keep the site user friendly and have visitors look around and return, rather than taking one look at the site and clicking away in confusion.

[mellom]

May I suggest Sivatar?

http://www.sivatar.com

[Ninja]

I have another idea: is it possible to allow people to give giftcertificates? Your wife will make a few bucks of those and attract new customers through existing ones!

[OneCoachDoug]

I love the gift card idea! I'm sure that our merchant guy has something that we can use for that. Great idea!!

I never thought about the links being too small and repeted. I will have that changed!!

Thanks again for the help everyone

[Ninja]

Originally Posted by OneCoachDoug

I love the gift card idea! I'm sure that our merchant guy has something that we can use for that. Great idea!!

I never thought about the links being too small and repeted. I will have that changed!!

Thanks again for the help everyone

No problem

Ninja: +2 experience points

[webwhiting]

Hello,

I am in agreement with the link being posted with all of your correspondance. As far as the Sivatar I am still working on that my self. I spent eight hours last Thursday trying to find a Sivatar 50x50 that I could post on Sivatar.com. All of the free Avatar sites that I go to don't do the dimensions of 50 x 50. Does anyone have any suggestions where I can find one at so I can get my Sivatar going? I have submitted my information to them and have been approved I just need to find that Sivatar.

Also from the research that I have done the purpose of the Sivatar is to draw traffic to your site.

Infodocktor

[webwhiting]

Hello,

I also forgot to submit this quote.

"The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes." -Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

Infodocktor

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by OneCoachDoug

I was wondering what some good suggestions would be to increase traffic to my wife's custom jewelry website. We're getting some hits every month, thanks to her handing out her business cards at her craft shows.

The jewelry has been a large success at these shows, more than we imagined, and each year the success dies out in the winter. We're located in Northern Michigan, and so there aren't many events (0) for her to display and sell her stuff.

We have her product in a couple of small places that resell for her, but that's about it. She promotes the healing energy of her gemstones, and it's a very nice product that is also inexpensive. Would you suggest some insightful blogging posts about the healing energy each week and get people to subscribe to the blog? We could invest some money into advertising the site, but we don't want to put it somewhere that wont pay off. I've heard good and bad about Google Adwords. Her search engine position is only good when you put the title of her business in Songbird Gems. If you put "gemstone jewelry, gemstone bracelets, or anything of that nature, then she's not on there....

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!!

So then you do online and offline sales?

You should definitely do some SEO on the site to get the rank up there. The fact that you have healing energy with the jewelry is a good way to niche it down outside of just "custom jewelry". Drive traffic to it with something like Squidoo and Craigslist. So when someone wants "healing gem jewelry" or something along those lines, you show up. A blog could help, but really getting traffic there and maybe linked on other sites will help just as much.


Offline you should be working on gaining referrals from existing customers who love your product, and to do that you have to do to make sure your customers feel appreciated, and keep in contact with them on a regular basis.

[OneCoachDoug]

The SEO is something that I don't have a lot of control over. My wife's aunt did the site, for free, and she's really busy, so when we want to make changes...it can take a long time. Craigslist I can do, still learning about Squidoo and what that it is.

Offline sales are going crazy. I won't post the numbers, but the amount of business she does in 6 months from June to December is amazing. We're looking to add to that during the Jan-May months. rRferrals come in like mad, and she has people that run into her at every craft show and buys more items. It's the website that's not doing much more than a hundred or two per month. We'd like to get that to $500 per month, and then $1,000....

Thanks again for the feedback!

Songbird Gems
OneCoach | Number one in small-business growth.

[Brutha]

If your wive don't want to commit to writing a blog your wife could also write a few articles for "free article" sites about healing stones.
Those articles can should have a backwards links with a keyword that relevant for the site.

If she is a good writer I would also think about the blog idea.

One thing you could do to promote the website is giving people who buy something on one of the events a 1$ coupon that they can use to save 1$ when they order some other thing online.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by OneCoachDoug

The SEO is something that I don't have a lot of control over. My wife's aunt did the site, for free, and she's really busy, so when we want to make changes...it can take a long time. Craigslist I can do, still learning about Squidoo and what that it is.

Offline sales are going crazy. I won't post the numbers, but the amount of business she does in 6 months from June to December is amazing. We're looking to add to that during the Jan-May months. rRferrals come in like mad, and she has people that run into her at every craft show and buys more items. It's the website that's not doing much more than a hundred or two per month. We'd like to get that to $500 per month, and then $1,000....

Thanks again for the feedback!

Songbird Gems
OneCoach | Number one in small-business growth.

I would suggest to keep focusing on the building of offline referrals, and those who find it more comfortable to go online will go there.

In my opinion there is nothing stronger for a business than generating referrals. It is the least expensive way to market.

[byyp]

your wife's work is really appreciable ..am also a big jewelry fan so i can tell you that her site is good as per the design,content,page loading and color combination..now your original question..well you can do these to increase your wife's website traffic:
1.first rule for internet marketing is advertisement..so advertise about that site..for free advertising join forums or sites of like minded people and then include your site's link in your signature..like minded people's exposure will result in both traffic as well as sales..
2.try submitting your site to website promotion directories and submit to as many as you can..even 100 or 200..all this is free..this will result in higher page rank of your website in search engines..resulting in increased traffic.
3.if you want you can seek for a professional help on search engine optimization and for that you will be needing to spend some money to the company with which you will be contacting..google for the best companies with such services..
4.use fliers,newspaper ads,fashion magazine ads etc for advertising..
5.there is a site blogher which you can visit at BlogHer ask your wife to join here and post there regularly or intermittently about her site and collections so that other females(its a female only site..but few males are also there for managing it)can look onto the products..it will also be serving as a free advertising..