Want More Website Traffic, Jewelers? Write More Content.
November 14, 2018 (0 comments)
There are a lot of people, I think, waiting to learn the secret technique of e-commerce. Unfortunately, there is none. What it really comes down to is getting qualified traffic to your site. And the way to get more traffic to your site is by blogging and producing more content for them to read.
Before we can sell people our product, we need to get people to our site. If you saw my presentation at our Jewelry Ecomm LIVE! conference, this is what I preached about. People don't want to be sold. Over the years, people have perfected our ability to ignore advertisements, even if they're discounts. We need to be much more creative than lowering our profit margin to convince someone to come to your site. We need to set time aside and produce content that people find worthy of a "click". The sale will eventually come after they've found repeated value from the content you produce.
The sale should not be your sole focus. Being a creative content producer should be, because that is ultimately what will increase web traffic.
It's a daunting task for a lot of people, I know. I've had this talk with many people within in the industry, and many explain that they simply don't have time to write blog articles and produce videos. It takes some real thought and planning, and its not the type of work that you can "half-focus" on. But then you need to find someone willing to help you with these tasks. It's the fundamental concept that is going to create brand authority for you online and get people hooked onto your product - let alone come to your website.
What Qualifies as "content"?
When I say content, I'm generally referring to blogging. Blogging is extremely important for search engine rank, and it's generally the easiest type of content to produce well. If you want to take it a step further, videos are incredible pieces of content that convert customers at very high levels. But, videos may take a lot more work for you than writing a few paragraphs.
What Topics And Type Of Content Should I Be Talking About?
You should be writing content about anything your customer may be interested in. The #1 biggest misconception people have about "blogging" is that they should only be writing about their products. On the contrary, I think it's wise to do the opposite. You should also write about any topics you'd like to align yourself with.
It's not enough to tell people you've been in business 40 years. Your competitors have their unique differentiators as well. The way you're going to get a customer hooked on your store over your competitors is by showing them the ideals and interests of your store.
I'll let you in on a little website secret tactic I've learned over the years - I put dogs subtly throughout some of the sites I develop. Here is a screenshot of the "contact us" pages on my personal site as well as a client's site:
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Both contact pages have a dog graphic in the background, just slightly visible. You see, I didn't use dog pictures because I couldn't think of what else to put there. I did it on purpose. People typically think positive things when they think of dogs. They think of warmness, friendliness, cuteness, and more. So I put dogs into some of my designs intentionally because it psychologically warms the visitor up to the brand and positions us as friendly and welcoming. In the case of my client above, the visitor already knows that they're on Beach Family Medical's website. I used the background image as a way to connect the company with the town they're located in, and capture the playful vibe of Long Beach. I thought this picture of cute little dogs splashing around in water fit perfectly.
So your website and content are the same in that they're both branding opportunities. It's not just about "writing about your jewelry". It's also an opportunity to show the world the type of charities and events you're involved in, and to show your interests and personal brand style. Sometimes convincing someone to buy from you is just about getting people to know and like you. Besides, if you only talk about jewelry, you're going to run out of topics to write about soon enough.
If I owned a hat company, my marketing campaign would be of different dogs wearing all our hats, and promoting those pics on social media. Really cool, adorable photos of dogs making dumb faces while wearing my hats. The photos would be amazing content that people would like and share online. That's the mentality you need to have. You need to be thinking "How can my content reflect your brand, and what can I write about and share that people would genuinely find interesting enough to click on." Once you've figured that part out, it's just a matter of targeting the right people online.
How Often?
The magic number seems to be 4 articles a week. There is a stat that says companies who produce 4 or more articles a week receive 4.5 times more traffic and conversions than companies who do not.
Additionally, it gives you enough ammo to make your email newsletter worthwhile. It's another little secret I've learned. The reason people unsubscribe from email lists is because they find the email annoying (NOT RELEVANT) to them. So if you only put one article in your email newsletter, people are going to unsubscribe if they find that one article each week not to be valuable. By putting 4 articles in, you have a higher chance of a reader clicking on an article and finding something their interested in.
For example, I receive a weekly newsletter from a graphic resource company. Essentially, they send me free graphic assets, sound clips, and video files I can use each week. Now, I don't do much video or audio. If I was only receiving video and audio files to use, I would unsubscribe from the newsletter. But they also send graphic resources, which I do use. So the moral of the story is this - you need a few different things in each email newsletter so a wider array of people will likely click on something and get onto your site.
I'd rather see you put your newsletter out less often if it meant having more great pieces of content in each one. Personally, I send our newsletter out on Wednesdays. So the mornings of Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri I have some coffee and pump out some kind of article. Then on Wed I send our newsletter out with a link to each piece of content.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is such a big topic that it requires it's own article (which will likely be my next article). But essentially, there are some tools you can use to research what topics are being searched for. You can then use this for inspiration and help you think of blog topics. Be on the lookout for my next article covering Keyword Research.
Writing Content vs Outsourcing
Nobody is going to know your industry and product better than you. So, you should really be heavily involved in writing the content. However, this is where hiring an agency that specializes in the jewelry industry comes into play. Many of our agency partners specialize in marketing and content for the jewelry industry. They'll be a huge aid to you in producing worthwhile content for your site.
Getting Everyone On Board
Explain the importance of content to your staff. You can even ask them to come to work each Monday with a different topic idea for your business to write about. Having collaboration on topics from your team can make the process much quicker.
You Need A Nice Site, Too.
The reason for having a website is not just to sell online. It's to create trust. When your visitor sees this cool piece of content on Facebook and clicks on it, they'll be brought to your website. That first impression of your site will be a factor in the visitor respecting your content or not. If your site looks super professional, the reader will automatically trust that your content is more authoritative.
