Jewelry Blogging Tips for Success

What a blog is, why you might want one, and how to make a successful one

© by Rena Klingenberg; all rights reserved

Here's a collection of blogging tips for your jewelry website. I'm also including the definition of the funny word "blog" and reasons why you might want one:

The word "blog" is short for "web log", or online journal. It can be anything from a publicly read personal diary, to a means for businesses to post their news and developments. This type of online journal is typically a collection of short entries, and is updated daily - or at least a few times per week.

Some "bloggers" (people who write and maintain these web logs) use special blog software or hosting that's designed for easy daily entries and also allows readers to post their own comments.

Other bloggers create a web log on an ordinary page of their main website. That's how I do my Jewelry Business Blog.

Still others use a dedicated portion of their main site's home page for blogging.

Whichever method is used, blogs are normally organized as a series of short, dated entries with the most recent entries at the top. Other than that, there's really no standard format or expectation of what a blog is.

Many businesses are incorporating some form of a blog into their websites. Because they're regularly updated with new entries, web logs bring search engines back to the site often to pick up and index new content. In addition, the constantly updated entries can bring visitors back to the site, unlike a static website where new content is rarely added, giving customers no reason to return.

Also, by their nature, blogs tend to contain keywords that are related to the business, and when people search for these keywords on Google or other search engines, these blog entries are likely to turn up in the search results, and bring customers to the business' site.

If you have an online jewelry business, you might want to consider adding a blog to your website, or starting a blog through one of the blog hosts. Adding regular updates about your jewelry and your business can really boost your site's traffic and therefore sales - if you use this communication tool the right way.

I started my blog here as a way of adding lots of short jewelry business tips to this website - all the helpful hints I wanted to share that weren't really full articles. It quickly turned into one of the most popular pages here, so I began to also use it as a place to post new article links, news, corrections, and anything else I'd like my readers to know.

You might also want to use a blog as an artist's journal of your jewelry creations.

• For most jewelry websites (where artists market their jewelry), a section of the home page is the best place for a blog; separate archive pages can be added for past entries as the blog gets full. These archive pages also give your site more keyword-packed content pages, which you could then liven up with beautiful jewelry photos and links to your shopping pages.

• Keep your blog entries short and clear. Readers don't really expect to read a full article in a blog entry; try to keep it to a few sentences or less. If you have several paragraphs, break them up into several entries. Each entry should concentrate on one single point.

• If you decide to title each blog entry, use keywords in the titles. Place keywords that relate to your jewelry here, especially keyphrases your customers would be likely to use when searching for jewelry like yours. Titles should also be used as a way to capture your readers' attention, so be sure to make them interesting in a way that will make people keep reading. (Needless to say, the title should also be a good description of its blog entry.)

• Add to your jewelry blog regularly. You may not be able to post an entry every single day, but add new content at least a few times per week. A blog that hasn't been updated for awhile makes a website appear abandoned, and won't give your site the benefits of constantly updated content.

• Keep an idea list for blog entries. If you have several topics occur to you at once, write them all down and add them on separate days. Sometimes you'll sit down and not be able to think of a single thing to blog about, and an idea list can be a real help on those days.

• If you know of an upcoming event that relates to jewelry (or any shows you'll be participating in), blog about it a few weeks in advance. Then, when the event comes up and people search for information about it on Google, your site will pop up as one of the top sources of info for that event. If you wait till the event is actually occurring, your page won't have had time to hit the search engines for that keyphrase yet, and you'll miss that opportunity.

• Pretend you're one of your jewelry customers. What kind of blog entries would you want to read?

• Think about writing entries that are targeted to jewelry customers. Here are some examples:
  • gemstone lore
    
  • history or cool facts about your jewelry medium
    
  • jewelry care and storage tips
    
  • jewelry gift ideas for teenage girls
    
  • new products added to your online jewelry store
    
  • three new pairs of earrings you've just added to your site
    
  • a sneak preview of your spring jewelry styles
    
  • announcements of a big sale on your website
    
  • mention of hostess benefits for home jewelry parties
    
  • announcement of upcoming art shows you'll be in
    
  • a beautiful new batch of Swarovski crystals you just got in and are working with, etc.

• You might want to consider livening your jewelry blog with some slightly more personal entries, such as a photo of a custom necklace you made for your best friend's wedding. Or personal jewelry-related news, such as "I took all my jewelry supplies with me in a rubbermaid tub when I evacuated before the hurricane".

  It's up to you to decide how well you want your customers to know you; just remember that you never know who's reading what you write, so you may not want to write things you wouldn't want your grandmother to read! :o)

• Your blog will benefit your jewelry business site the most if you keep it on topic. Digressing into personal entries about things like taking your cat to the vet or what you cooked for breakfast won't help your site.

• In your blog entries, add links to all the things you mention - for example, link to your spring styles from the entry that announces the preview of them.

• Keep your writing style in your own personality, and don't be formal; just talk in your own way to your customers. That's especially important for a handcraft business. You can make your customers feel that there's a real person behind the web business, which is a difficult thing for large companies to achieve. People buy from someone they feel they have some sort of a relationship with. So think of it as a way to keep in touch with them.

• Bring more traffic to your jewelry blog by adding a link to it in your email signature, even in your non-jewelry-business communications.

• Keep your blog attractive so visitors will keep returning to read more; clean, easy to read with enough white space, large enough fonts, and nice colors. Think of how you can style it to go with your jewelry style. It's a part of your over-all business image.

Blogging can be a really neat professional communication and marketing tool, keeping customers updated and in touch with the artist's jewelry business. You can put your customers' feedback and testimonials in blog entries, or let them add their own if your blog allows readers to post their own comments. They might also post suggestions for styles or pieces they'd like to see you offer.

Have fun writing and designing your jewelry blog! I think you'll find blogging to be quite addictive - I certainly have. :o)

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