A successful web site for your jewellery business
The information here is priceless. There are secrets that the web companies won’t tell you.
Mark covers areas such as SEO, web design, stock photography, creating a banner and your first steps to starting a website from scratch.
There’s a lot to take in here so use the titles below to jump to the questions that interest you
I am a jewellery designer with a limited budget. I have great photographs of my work already in hand. I want to sell my goods online - should I pay someone to make a web site, and if so how much should I spend? What are my first steps?
How do I design a great banner or logo without expensive graphics packages?
What should a modern website look like?
What are the easy ways to make my site stand out from all the others?
What’s your top tips on search engine optimization and what is it?
How long should I spend marketing my site per day to start generating sales & where are the best places to do so?
Is using MySpace / Blogging a good alternative?
I am a jewellery designer with a limited budget. I have great photographs of my work already in hand. I want to sell my goods online - should I pay someone to make a web site, and if so how much should I spend? What are my first steps?
This depends if you have any skills or knowledge at making web sites, the time and funds you have available, and if you’re prepared to undertake this job. There are systems and software out there enabling you to create a web site very easily without any technical knowledge whatsoever – but you’ll pay for this ‘turn-key’ functionality. On the other hand, you can design and create something very personal to your style – but you’ll have to have the technical expertise. Assuming limited technical knowledge, the options are:
- Pay for a ‘turn-key’ solution – generally, these will include the domain name, hosting, sometimes even some promotion, a shopping cart and all that entails, your e-mail addresses, etc. You will often have to pay for anything ‘outside of the box’ that doesn’t fit within their package, and this could include paying for technical support – so shop around. You won’t have to deal with the dirty business of domain registration, hosting, editing files, etc – but you will be paying for that privilege
- Register the domain yourself, find hosting yourself, and find a decent package that is geared up for what you need. This will typically involve an open-source (free) package such as the popular OsCommerce shopping cart system. It is relatively easy to get going – but does require some basic knowledge of the Internet and web sites, and can be slightly daunting to a complete beginner. You will have to sort out hosting and a domain name – although you can often purchase these together. It will be cheaper than a ‘turn-key’ solution, but you’ll pay for it in time. If you’ve got Internet experience then this is a superb choice – just give yourself plenty of time, shop around for good deals, and read the small print – for instance, if you purchase a domain/hosting package and decide to leave at any point, are you tied in? What will they charge, etc? A domain usually costs around £3 / year for a .co.uk and £6 / year for a .com – hosting usually around £30 - £60 a year, sometimes with relatively cheap extras such as shopping cart. If you’re putting an open-source package on to your site, make sure your host supports it: most OS packages are written using PHP and MySQL, so make sure these are both supported!
- Pay someone to do the entire site for you. This will cost the most, but require you to do the least. The best part of this is that you can get some good solid advice from professionals, and they can guide you through any problems you may encounter. Prices vary enormously – from a small one-man business/hobbyist/designer offering web sites to a large international company. They have advantages and disadvantages; a small business will most likely give you a better deal, will go the extra mile to help, and be more personal; the bigger company may be more reliable, have a good reputation, and perhaps offer some powerful software as part of the package. Again, shop around – but you’re looking for a very small to medium sized company for this. It doesn’t cost thousands of pounds to create a web site – in fact it can be done from as little as £150 – but allocate a budget higher than the quoted cost in case something goes wrong. Typically £300 - £1000 for a small company is the norm
How do I design a great banner or logo without expensive graphics packages?
Well, there are free programs you can use – the most well known and fully-featured being G.I.M.P (http://www.gimp.org/) but this can often be tricky to learn how to use, and unless you’re prepared to put in the time I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this. If you’re willing to do the actual graphics creation side yourself then you needn’t spend a single penny – there’s plenty of graphics programs released as either freeware or open-source (totally free) or shareware (limited features and/or time limit) that can do all you will need. http://www.google.com is your friend here – search for freeware graphics programs, but be careful to download off reputable sites – a good way to help protect yourself is to find a program that looks appropriate and do a search for it before downloading. For example, if you find a program called “Coolest Graphics Editor” search in Google for it. If you see lots of reviews stating “Avoid this! Virus!” or the common “Adware” / “Spyware” – avoid it! If the reviews are good then at least you’ve done your best to avoid any nasties – but make sure your Anti-Virus is good if you go downloading programs. (http://free.grisoft.com for a free Anti-Virus if you don’t have an up-to-date one!).
Also have a look at http://www.sxc.hu – this is a site containing plenty of royalty-free images (always check the licenses if you use them commercially, usually they’re very usable however) and often of extremely high-quality. Simply visit and do a search for what you’re looking for – it’s full of stock photography covering all different topics.
If you want someone else to design your logo, a good source of designers willing to work for reasonable (read as often extremely cheap) prices are ‘out-sourcing’ sites – for instance, you can post your logo/banner project to http://www.getafreelancer.com/ and get designers to bid on the work. If you are happy with any of the proposals you can accept the bid, pay, and have the work completed. These kind of sites often have rating systems much akin to eBay, where previous work is what dictates if a designer is reliable / high quality / etc.
What should a modern website look like?
Obviously this depends on you – and can be influenced by the styles of the work you produce, company colours/theme (if you have one), etc. However, there are common features in all productive web sites – they are clear, concise, easy to navigate, intuitive. Often “little is more” – just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Today’s modern sites are geared towards finding information quickly and easily – design should be unobtrusive. Many people argue that artistic sites should be just that – but examples such as Purlsoho and Passionate Absolute show that a site can be both individual and clean.
Always a good suggestion is to post your design (before it’s live!) on to web design forums – some of these can be (at best!) brutal, but honest. If you are looking for a professional looking site be prepared to have your work trashed if it’s over the top – if you want more of a personal, home-made look then perhaps you can accept some criticism in this area.
What are the easy ways to make my site stand out from all the others?
This depends, and can be hard if you’re merely trying to sell a particular product. There are already a million sites about every type of product-selling site – be it art work, jewellery, etc. If you’ve got quality content, that will instantly make your site one notch above the average – and this can be a great way to draw traffic in. If you’ve just got a product to sell then try the following:
- Make sure the web site is clean, easy to navigate and stylish, and the user is immediately aware of what you are about and what you produce
- Good photography on your product is an absolute must – just do a search for some competitors sites and you’ll notice that some of them use photography that’s very low quality – in this era a good quality digital camera is not at all expensive (£100 - £150 buys you a very nice camera! Buy Online, do your research!) and spending some time to look up the best ways to take photography will pay off very quickly. Look at what you’re displaying, does it truly sell your product? If not, do it again
- Don’t oversell the product – a tasteful gallery of your products is more likely to have your visitors browsing than a clinical online shop – but they can both sell your goods
Ultimately your product is what you are displaying and that is what needs to stand out – so research your competitors to find out if you particular product is unique in its area or not. If not, perhaps you need to think about something that sets you apart from the others – there’s good articles online about how small variations in your designs can become a very personal and distinctive selling feature.
What’s your top tips on search engine optimization and what is it?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the ‘Black Art’ of getting your site listed prominently in the major search engines (Read as “Google”). Appearing in the search engines for your company name – such as a search for “Kate’s jewellery making blog” is all well and good, but it won’t drive new customers / visitors your way. Appearing for “jewellery making”, on the other hand, is a superb feat – and you can expect a steady and probably quite substantial flow of traffic for such keywords.
SEO is largely dependant on (amongst many other factors):
- How many incoming links you have to your site (Links for well-known sites, and sites that are in the same field as you, are the best to get)
- The use of keywords on your web pages – if you don’t mention “Jewellery making” on your site, how is Google to know that you are in the Jewellery field?!
- The quality and quantity of content – lots of valuable, non-repetitive content is priceless. Google knows this better than you would probably think a Robot could know
- A working web site without missing pages and links, and also a site that doesn’t employ shady tactics such as hiding keywords from visitors and only displaying them to the Google robot (A.K.A. cloaking)
My top tips would be:
- Keep your site updated with relevant information
- Post articles on your site if you can – valuable content, most likely containing useful keywords, will drive traffic your way
- Get lots of inbound links, but don’t pay for them – at all. Paying for links will more than likely only buy you links from sites that specialize in sending you links – called Link Farms. Google doesn’t like these, and can penalize a site for doing it. Incoming links from sites in the same field as yours are the best
How long should I spend marketing my site per day to start generating sales & where are the best places to do so?
As long as possible! You cannot spend too long marketing – although consider carefully how you use your time. Also, be wary of web sites and schemes that claim to guarantee sales /visits / links – they are almost always flawed, and usually counter-productive – with many even being scams.
The first thing to remember is that it takes a good deal of time for your site to become listed in the major search engines – especially Google. It will take a minimum of a couple of weeks just to be listed, and many months at best until you are listed for any relevant keywords. So do not despair and give up – your efforts will pay off.
Obtaining incoming links is the single most effective way to achieve greater traffic, rankings in the engines and sales. Find places where your target customers / visitors frequent – forums discussing your topics are a superb place. But be careful not to try and spread your new site too liberally – many people will see this as spam and you could be deleted / banned from sites for this. The key here is to join communities and provide useful input – people will respond to this and your contribution will become valuable. If you have a genuine passion for your subject make sure this is clear – people will be interested in what you have to say and more likely to want to investigate your site.
Find web sites that allow you to link – even if they require a reciprocal link (That is, for you to also link back to them). Contrary to some belief – it does not harm your PageRank (Google’s indicator to how popular your web site is) to link to other people. Find sites that are appropriate and ask them to link to you for a link back. Create a links page to store these links, and try and organize them if possible. This will keep things looking smart and people will be more inclined to get a link to and from your site.
More Incoming links = Higher PageRank = Increased Rankings = Increased Traffic
You will also get traffic from the links themselves, but it is the long-term plan (Google) that we are mostly interested in. These tactics are free – and you should always look to get in as many links as possible without paying anything. There are places you can pay for a link – for example, if you are in crafts, “Craft Fair” allows one free link and subsequent links at £13 / year. We run a few craft-related sites and so have had to pay for a couple of links – but have found this extremely valuable. Why this site? Because it’s prominent (Search for “uk crafts” and it’s second – “bead supplies” it’s fourth, etc.) and that makes it very busy. If someone is trying to sell you a link on their site / advertising, research the site. If you’re an artist, then you want their site to be prominent in this area – think about variations on keywords. Check out http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ for suggestions. If the site is high in the search engines for words relating to your profession that’s a great start. But if there’s millions of sites listed on their web page and they’re badly organized, how likely is it that you will be found / clicked? When I refer to “Search Engines” I mean Google only – Yahoo, Ask, AOL, etc are all good engines, but the real traffic will always be at Google. Ask yourself all these questions and you’ll avoid paying for something that won’t get your money’s worth back.
Is using MySpace / Blogging a good alternative?
MySpace - absolutely not. Not because it’s not a good service - and in fact, if you have good content, it can be extremely good - but it’s also frowned upon by many. A recent report suggests that MySpace users tend to be older than the ‘kids’ that people thought were the main users of it - but that still doesn’t affect the fact that it’s not regarded as a professional system as much as perhaps it deserves. However, as a social networking site it is very powerful.
Blogs are extremely useful - if used correctly. Again, with social-networking techniques (that is - joining community sites where exchanging links to each others blogs is the idea, and talking with others interested in the same topics) you can expect a steady - albeit not always great - flow of traffic. And it also is great for content syndication of feeding - where people’s browsers will inform them of new content. But, when you try to sell things on a Blog, people can be less interested as they would be if it were a content-only Blog. A good compromise is using a Blog for articles / tutorials / discussion / etc on your intended topic, and also referencing another location where you can buy your goods or services, but not pushed in to peoples faces. Too many blogs also suffer from too much advertising - don’t think too heavily about monetising your Blog before you’ve got it very popular.
Margot Potter
Margot has written three fabulous books to inspire women of all ages and levels to make jewellery with a difference. Her first two books -
The Impatient Beader and The Impatient Beader Gets Inspired offer a unique approach to jewellery making for the ‘time and technically challenged.’ Her third book - Sparkletastic is out this June.
Margot was also commissioned by Swarovski to create three designs for their Create Your Style book and world tour. She also teaches seminars on creativity for them in Tucson. This year, she spoke on trends in beading at the Craft and Hobby Association show.
As well as all this she is also a regular contributor to Simply Beads magazine and TV Spokesperson at QVC for the Suspicion Marcasite jewellery line.
Margot kindly agreed to answer some of my questions. She did so with a great amount of careful thought, enthusiasm and depth to inspire us all
1) You talk about becoming your ‘authentic self.’ Has your path always been clear to you? Is it hard to stay on track or would you say it happens naturally?
My current path was never really clear to me until quite recently, I drifted
around a lot for a number of years. Mostly because I loved so many things
and I was good at so many things I had trouble focusing on just one. A lot of amazing things happened during the drifting, to be clear. Every experience in my life has brought me to this moment.
When I say it’s good to become your authentic self, I mean it’s good to find your passion and talent and to follow your bliss. It’s good to embrace all of who you are without judgment. That means not concerning yourself with how other people view you and it means being clear about what you are both good at doing and love to do. It’s not enough to be good at something if it isn’t feeding your soul.
When you do what you really, really love and are really, really good at doing, everything unfolds for you. I think the best most of us can do is to live in the moment with our eyes toward our goals. We have to allow for life to happen and be aware of the signs that are around us.
We can’t be so rigid that we aren’t flexible enough to move with the subtle shifts that unexpected opportunities might provide us.
It is always hard to stay on track. It is always hard to find your path and to stick to it. There are endless things that happen to us that pull us away from our goals. It is an effort to keep your eyes on your goals and it requires discipline and hard work. I think we have to be mindful of what is time wasting and what is real. The most important thing in life is love. When we are creating without filters, we are channeling love into our work. That’s the point.
2) Do you believe in fate or good luck, or being completely in control of your life?
I believe we are (mostly) in control of our lives. I believe that if we are moving in the right direction and staying open to the signs along the way we find synchronicity and serendipity happens with amazing frequency. I believe that fate or good luck is most of the time; a matter of being in the right place at the right time and being ready to accept the gift being offered to us.
I also believe that if one is always in the wrong place at the wrong time and not ready to accept the gift being offered them they won’t find any luck. This is all about the choices we make and where they lead us.
If we aren’t in control and paying attention to the signs, we won’t see them. I believe in free will and in steering your own ship. If you steer it into stormy seas, you won’t find much ‘luck.’ If you steer it towards calm waters, you will.
I also believe that there is chaos in the world and that this is something we cannot control. Chaos is lurking around the corner at every moment and we have to accept that it is there. I don’t believe that “shit happens.” I think Chaos happens and the shit is what the chaos leaves in its wake. People die, disasters happen, wars happen, violence happens, sickness happens. In between the chaos one can find joy, luck, love and success but that is entirely up to you.
3) Do you feel it’s important to have a natural artistic talent or is it something that is gained through experience?
Yes, to succeed as an artist or a designer, I think one has to have some
level of basic artistic talent. I don’t think everyone who picks up a bead
or a jeweler’s saw is going to be able to make that into a career. That’s
the part about figuring out what you are really, really good at doing. I
think also that everyone has a point of view and an eye, so with hard work,
experience, practice and discipline one can develop that eye. We are not
all Van Gogh. That’s reality. So you may not be the world’s next Miriam
Haskell or Elsa Schiaparelli. That’s okay. You can be yourself. You can
make jewellery because it makes you happy and it doesn’t have to be your
career.
4) What advice would you give to a new jewellery designer starting out that wants their pieces to get noticed?
Pay attention. Look at fashion magazines, TV shows, the red carpet, trends
in art, gals on the street and draw from those sources. Always, always have
your antennae out for new ideas, new techniques and new materials. Do not
copy anyone else’s work, be original. No one likes a copycat. You can
interpret a trend or an idea, but make it your own. If you do use someone
else’s idea or technique in your work, show them the courtesy of an acknowledgment.
Design is a dialog, but there’s a distinct difference between interpreting an idea and blatantly ripping it off. The more distinctive your work is, the more likely it will be to get noticed.
I am a firm believer in keeping it simple. Less is definitely more when it comes to jewelry design. Think about the person who will wear your jewellery, it should compliment their personality and not overwhelm them. I see a lot of amazing, bold and intricate design work, but I think to myself, who is really going to wear that?! Make jewellery people actually want to wear.
It sounds easy and yet…it’s amazing how few designers really get it.
5) In your book ‘The Impatient Beader Gets Inspired’ you encourage the reader to find artistic inspiration in every day life. What’s your personal best technique to get your ‘creative juices’ flowing if you have a mind block?
This is going to sound really annoying, but my creative juices are pretty
much always flowing. I have a queue of ideas in my brain at any given
moment all waiting for their turn.
I am constantly inspired by things I see and hungry for inspiration. If you start to view the world like an artist you never run out of ideas. If you can’t get the ideas to come, get out of your house and look at the world around you. Look at your garden, walk in the woods, go see a movie, walk through a museum…it’s everywhere, inspiration and it’s just waiting for your open mind.
6) In the early stages when you were starting out, what kept you going, what kept you enthusiastically creative and unaffected by societies restraints around you?
This career happened for me in an interesting way. I made beaded jewellery for myself and my friends for several years. I was in Pittsburgh going to graduate school and I wandered into my husband’s bead shop for some crimp beads. I asked him out soon thereafter and we eventually got married, moved to eastern Pennsylvania and opened our own shop. We sold fair trade handicrafts and beads.
After a while it became clear to me that I hated selling beads. So, I took them home. I couldn’t quite figure out how to sell my jewellery and compete with cheap labor overseas and I hate the repetition of production work. We closed our shop and I had a very long year of frustration at trying to figure out what to do next. It was a year of many false starts and disappointments. Absolutely nothing was working out for me. It was quasi-comical!
Then I did some designs for Beadalon and everyone loved them. I knew I was on to something. I had an epiphany one day and sent my husband an email. I told him I wanted to write a book called The Impatient Beader. I researched publishers and found one I liked, contacted them, presented my idea and within a week my book was accepted.
I had the right idea and the right time. That’s how it works. Since then everything has unfolded for me with absolutely serendipity.
My biggest problems are finding enough time to do the mountain of work that has come my way while juggling my family life. I also appear on QVC regularly as the guest expert with a private brand of marcasite jewellery I don’t design.
(This is the very part time job that affords me the ability to pursue my creative life.) I am good on camera because I come from the theater so live performance doesn’t scare me. I do freelance design and writing too. All of these things come together to make a career.
The only thing that wears me down is being copied or the competitive nature of other people in my industry. That’s frustrating. I don’t believe in that limited mindset.
There is room for everyone to shine. I pretty much do what I please and I love my life. I’ve never much cared what society told me to do or what other people thought of me. I highly recommend dancing to your own music. It makes for a far richer life. It took me 40 years to get here, but I’m here and it’s amazing.
7) Does your love of all things theatrical affect your jewellery creations in any way?
I would say yes, to a certain degree. I love to either keep things very architectural and streamlined which is not a very theatrical manner of design or I go to the other extreme and make very whimsical and kitschy designs. That’s my theatrical side. My architectural pieces are more organic and tend to be inspired by nature. I would say my love of cinema sneaks into my work often. If you look at my books you’ll see many of my designs are inspired by old movie stars or characters from plays and movies.
I also use a lot of visual puns and text in my work because I’m a writer and I love language. I find the many, many interests I have all filter in to my designs. That’s part of the endless creative well from which I draw I think. You can find inspiration in many unexpected places if you start to tune yourself to the world around you!
8
Since I don’t sell finished jewellery to the end user and I instead sell my ideas in books, advertisements for manufacturers and magazines, I have to work many, many months ahead of current fashion trends. That means I have to be able to be a bit of a soothsayer.
I’ve always been ahead of the curve and for most of my life it was a negative. I finally found a career in which it is a positive! I absolutely have to love my designs. I can not make things just to please other people if I think they are ugly.
That being said, I have to be mindful enough of what is happening in the design world that my work is fresh and contemporary. No one is going to buy a book full of ugly, out of date, unappealing designs.
Luckily, there seem to be plenty of people who like my work. My work is eclectic enough that it appeals to a wide audience. That’s a good thing and it’s intentional. It works for books but might not work as well for a line of retail jewellery.
If you want to do that you should have several collections each season that all work to a specific theme. I think it’s easy to get stuck in a rut and keep making the same things, but it’s crucial for success that you are always improving, growing, shifting.
9) For the non-business minded of us jewellery designers, do you feel a business course is important or is learning as you go best?
Yes! There are an awful lot of people who lose their shirts in a creative endeavor because they have not a clue how to handle the business aspects. You have to know how to promote your work, sell your work, bill your clients, do your taxes and keep yourself on track and organized.
I never studied business, but I did study the business. I am constantly thinking of new ways to promote myself and my books. I work every week day from 9-5 and often beyond.
I never really leave my work, because I work for myself. It’s a ton of work and it is not all fun and games. If you want to succeed, you will have to learn the business and learning as you go is not always the best route to success. If you aren’t a quick study, I’d suggest that you study business before you start. You’ll be very glad that you did!
10) What is it about creating jewellery that you enjoy most?
I love the idea of making something that will make someone look and feel beautiful. I love inspiring other people to find their own creative voices.
I try when I’m designing to picture the person who might wear each piece or how it might excite them to make something of their own. Every design is a challenge for me, it’s a lot of problem solving and bending the laws of physics. It’s a lot of play and exploration.
Every design is a birthing process from concept, to gestation, to labor…to birth. Even when I make something completely craptacular, I learn something from the process. There is a seed of something beautiful even in the ugliest creation. I love my job!
Find out more about Margot HERE at her awesome website!