Optimize Your Jewelry Marketing With Effective Web Content

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Ready to break free from algorithms, vanity PR, and money-sucking ads? My name’s Laryssa Wirstiuk, and I’ve learned in 7 years of jewelry marketing that content is the crown jewel. My agency Joy Joya takes a holistic approach, leading with laser-focused storytelling, impactful content creation, and strategic content distribution. This method has worked for the solopreneur as well as the multi-million-dollar company, and now I’m sharing these systems and tactics with you. Here’s to standing out in the Sea of Sparkle.

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This is Episode #237, and today I’ll be moving beyond all the foundational stuff we’ve covered so far since the beginning of the year, from shaping your brand to getting to know your audience and competition, brainstorming content ideas, and creating a content plan. But now, we’re moving beyond the basics and getting into the nitty-gritty details of making content. In this episode and many more to come, I’m going to share with you the most effective ways to create and share jewelry content with your target audience. We’ll start by exploring the best practices for creating content on your website, and we’ll dive deep into this topic over the next few episodes. Not only that, but I’ll also be teaching you the essentials of search engine optimization (SEO) and ecommerce user experience. So, get ready to take your jewelry marketing content game to the next level and watch your brand soar! I’ll be covering: What do I mean when I say “website content”? Why’s it so important to be a caretaker of your website content and to approach it with a strategy in mind? How can you start improving upon your content today and as we move through the next few episodes? From now through early July of this year, I’m offering a free (yes FREE) six-month, podcast-guided program called “Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart” which involves weekly audio and video lessons as well as companion PDF downloads for each new episode. This week, Jumpstart members will get exclusive ChatGPT prompts that can help you write website content. If you haven’t already signed up at joyjoya.com/JUMP, then I highly recommend you stop waiting and sign up now. We’re getting into “GO” time with these hands-on lessons for jewelry entrepreneurs like you. To sign up for the FREE full program right away and get the companion PDF download to this episode, visit joyjoya.com/jump. Link in show notes as well.

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But before we get to the solid gold, I’d like to take a moment to remind you that this podcast has both audio and video – so you can either listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube by searching “Joy Joya”. You can support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe but also to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. If you leave a review, I might read it on a future episode – please let me know what you think about this episode or about any other major takeaways you’ve had recently. Speaking of podcasts, did you know I also co-host another podcast with jewelry marketer Liz Kantner? It’s called Success With Jewelry, and we’ve already released 30 free episodes everywhere you listen to podcasts as well as on YouTube. We also have an Insider community, where we share extended episodes, hands-on guidance, and a plethora of resources. Visit successwithjewelry.com to learn more.

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Okay, my Sparklers! Let’s get into the next installment of Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart, all about making the most of your website content and utilizing it to its fullest potential. So first, let’s tackle the first question: what do I mean when I say website content? So to preface this, I should say that if you’re a jewelry brand in 2023, you need to have a website. If you don’t want to sell products directly to your consumers online, then you don’t necessarily need to have an ecommerce website. But if you do want to sell products online, even if you have a brick and mortar store or retail partners, then you should have an ecommerce storefront. I highly recommend Shopify for that. And if you need to back up from this episode and get more information about jewelry websites before you move forward with this episode, then I highly recommend you check out Success With Jewelry episode number 17. And I’ll put that link in the show notes so that you can get up to speed.

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Okay, now that I got that preface out of the way, I’ll be assuming that you have some sort of website, whether it’s shoppable, or not. And I’ll be talking about all the opportunities for different kinds of content on your website. So let’s get into those types of content. First, we have homepage content. The homepage is like the main first page of your website. There are plenty of opportunities for content there, including merchandised collections, more info about your brand, and your values, customer service information, featured products, etc. The list is kind of endless. Think of it as if you had a brick and mortar jewelry store. It’s kind of like your windows of your store or the displays that a customer would see when they first walk in when they get welcomed into the store. Another type of website content would be your product descriptions. And you know, from listening to this podcast, that the higher the price point for your jewelry, the more important the product descriptions are, because consumers really want to feel like they have all the information they need, that they’re getting the value even just by looking at that product page and the product description. So your customers want a story, they want to know about the process, they want to know about the materials. And those product descriptions are an opportunity for you to offer them content. The next type of website content would be blog posts. So at the very least for search engine purposes, and we’ll be talking more about this in future episodes. So don’t worry if you don’t understand. But just as a general rule, from what I’ve seen, the effective blog posts are at least 750 words in length. The longer they are, the better they are. Google likes that even more. But I would say 750 word minimum for blog posts is a good start. And they provide extra opportunity for you to tell your brand story, share your values, talk about your products, merchandise them in unique ways, provide educational information, inform your customers about how to style the products. The possibilities are really endless.

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Another type of website content would be landing pages. So those are just static pages on your website that are not your homepage. They’re not your product page. And they’re not a blog post, which is more like a publication. They are static, they are meant to be permanent, these landing pages. And typically they cater to what the customer needs. So let’s say you have a main part of your jewelry businesses like wedding jewelry. So maybe you have a landing page for those people who are coming to you to buy engagement rings to give more information about the process of choosing the setting, choosing the diamond, etc. So it speaks in the language of what that customer would need. Or maybe you have like a custom jewelry page, then that could be more information about the custom jewelry process. Another type of website content would be educational resources. So if you do sell products that require like a lot of educating of the consumer, again, wedding jewelry would be one, even if you just sold diamond jewelry, or a special type of colored gemstone, or if you had a proprietary process that you needed to like educate the consumers on. Having a library of educational resources on your website could be really useful not just for search engine purposes, but as something you can just direct people to when they have questions, or they need more information. And then finally, another type of website content would be the search engine content that’s specifically for Google. And those are your page titles and your meta descriptions of the pages. And again, if that sounds foreign to you, don’t worry, we’ll get more into that. But I’m just listing it here as a type of website content that you can take advantage of and optimize.

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So now that we got the different types out of the way I want to talk about why is it so important to be a caretaker of your website content? And to approach it with a strategy in mind. Why is this? Why am I harping on this basically? All right, I got eight reasons for you. So let’s talk about why website content is so important. One, it demonstrates that you have an understanding of your target audience and gives you an opportunity to speak to them in a voice that resonates with them and that they’ll understand. Two: it can support an excellent online shopping experience by guiding the website visitor to the place that they want to go. So you can think of this again, as I just used the metaphor of the storefront and the windows and coming into the store, you can think of your website content as the salesperson who’s welcoming someone into the store, even though there’s no person there. So the content can kind of substitute for that lack of the in-store experience and really help the customer through their shopping journey. Number three, it can address the needs of subsets of your target audience. So again, as I mentioned before, if you offer a wedding collection, then you’ll want a landing page for that. Or if you have custom jewelry services, then you need something specific for that kind of customer. Number four, it gives you the chance to establish yourself as an expert and an authority. It can help you educate your customers. And again, especially for those bigger ticket items that are not going to be an impulse buy, the customer’s going to have questions, they’re going to need to see the value before they commit to the purchase. Number five, it gives you so many opportunities to tell your brand story in a number of ways across a number of touch points, and really enforce that for your target target audience. Number six, it provides you with diverse and multifaceted content that’s not always just focused on product product product, buy me buy me buy me. And it gives you so much to be able to distribute on email, on social media, adding life and more dimension to your marketing efforts that are probably falling flat. Because all you’re communicating all the time is just buy me buy me buy me, which gets old very fast. And that is when your target audience is going to tune out. Number seven, it serves as the foundation for all your messaging. So you can write it once. And then you’re done. Because you can repurpose it, you can take bits and pieces of it and share it elsewhere. Like in email and on social media, as I just said. And then number eight, I save this for last because though it’s important, it’s not the primary benefit or goal. It’s almost like a side benefit: Search Engine Optimization or SEO. This content can help you get found by the people who are looking for you in Google.

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Okay, tangent alert, I’m going to go on a really quick tangent, I think this is relevant. Okay, so here’s a quick note about blog posts, which I mentioned as a type of website content. Because I do get a lot of pushback from jewelry brands, when I tell them that blog posts are a must-have form of website content. So one listener, let’s call her J. I know she’s listening to this. And she knows who she is so hi, recently asked me, “Laryssa, do we really need to blog? Do people actually care? And do they read it?” Well, I have an answer for you. And what my answer is, is that I think you’re actually asking the wrong question. Because if you come to content creation with the attitude of, “Do I really need to do this and will people care?” And then after you ask that question, and you do it and you check off a box, be grudgingly and say, “Yeah, I did it”, then, yeah, it’s not going to be good. Your target audience is going to see through the fact that what you’re doing is a chore for you. So instead, I would invite you to see blogging as an opportunity to share your story. Create a rich foundation of content that can really be repurposed and shared in other places and boost your Search Engine presence, then that’s a much better way to approach this marketing task. You need to be excited about what you’re saying. And you need to see blogging as an opportunity to expand the story beyond the limited scope that you are already able to do. So that your target audience is also excited about that too. And you need to continually find ways to make your brand story and your products exciting. And the blogging can be a practice in that, and a practice in sharing stories with your audience that you can then repurpose in your email and your social media. So that again, it’s not just “buy me buy me buy me” all the time, which makes me want to tune out and delete your email or skip over your Instagram post. And at the end of the day, it honestly doesn’t matter if people do or don’t read the blog post. That is beyond the point.

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And I can give you a specific example of why I think that’s true. So I help maintain a blog for one of my clients. And over the course of doing this for a few months and being strategic in how we tell the story, the merchandising that we do in the blog post, we’ve been able to secure a number of really strong Google search rankings, just with the blog posts alone, that are bringing new search traffic to the website that they were not getting before. And even if those people don’t actually read the post, they found a gateway to the brand. And the website, they have found this client, they would not have discovered them otherwise. I mean, maybe but probably not. So if you are blogging, and doing it strategically, and getting those posts to rank in search and engine results, and then in the blog posts themselves, you’re doing a good job of following practices of readability, adding photos, adding product links, adding calls to action, then you’ve just provided the website visitor an entry into your online store. And the best part is, is since they were already on Google looking for what you have to offer, this is a high intent website visitor. And at the very least, if you have your email marketing popup set up and it has a compelling call to action, they will sign up for your emails, and you will have gained someone with interest in your brand. So my point of this tangent is, I would suggest changing your mindset about website content like blogs, and seeing it not as a checkbox on a marketing list but instead as a great opportunity to share what you have to offer and to attract the people who are. And this is the key. The people who are looking for you: give them entry to your online store. Okay, that’s the end of my tangent. Let’s keep going.

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So how can you start improving your existing content today, and as we continue to move forward through the next few episodes? First, I want you to review the content audit you did from Episode 231. When it comes to website content, what was missing? What was lackluster? Where were the opportunities? Make sure to plug those ideas into your Google Sheet content plan. That was the last episode. As well as into Asana. So you have accountability for updating the existing assets and adding new ones. If you came up with some great ideas, please make sure there’s an action plan to put those into place for your content. Because great ideas are pretty much useless unless you have a plan to enact them. So you’ve already performed a master content brainstorm. But I’d suggest doing a more micro brainstorm just for blog content. So what do customers ask you the most? What are the pillars of your brand and your values? What do you wish people could know about your products and services that they don’t already know? How could you educate them or give them tips for styling your products? Make a list just for that and then then take care to populate your content plan with space for writing blog posts, at least once per month and at least 750 words for each blog post. Then what are some of the key words and phrases that people would search in Google to find you? Think of things that aren’t too generic like say “engagement rings”, kind of generic, but also not so niche that people wouldn’t even think of it or know what it is. Be sure to also cover those key words and phrases with blog post topics, if possible. Then you want to familiarize yourself with tools that can help streamline your content creation process, like chatGPT, for example. I have a video on my YouTube channel about this. I’ll link that in the show notes, so you can watch it if you’re interested. But don’t worry, I’ll be talking more about it in future episodes. It’s a tool that can help you with product descriptions, blog posts, and homepage content. And if you hate writing, you just hate it, or you’re not good at it, then invest in a copywriter who can do this for you because it’s important. Or you can find someone who’s good at using chatGPT but then punching up that first draft to match your brand voice.

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Okay, that’s it for now, much more to come in future episodes, especially about SEO, go to joyjoya.com/jump for additional information, action items, and exclusive chatGPT prompts that you can enter into the tool to help you with that content creation process. Before we get into The Gold Mine as well as my news roundup, I want to share a case study of a brand that I think embodies what I talk about in this podcast.

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Alright, let’s get into the case study. These are my thoughts about how I’d apply the lesson to a jewelry brand in the wild. So let’s talk about the brand Marla Aarom. I’m sure you’ve heard of this fine jewelry brand that’s known for their locks, highly collectible, very covetable. So I think they do an awesome job with their website content, especially with capturing a very specific voice and helping the customer through the buying journey. So on the Marla Aaron site, which I’ll link in the show notes, on the homepage, there’s this really great little paragraph that guides the customer through this process of how to like, get a lock and a chain and put it all together and kind of create your own look. So it says, “Let’s Begin: You can take a Lock and put it on a Chain or try a Strand and then add some Charms or maybe you want a Ring perhaps start with an Earring? The choices are infinite but wait, there are also Completed Pieces!” And each one of those product categories in that little blurb have a link. So you can look at that and click on where you want to start kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure, what interests you and then click to that category page. So I really liked that it’s friendly, a call to action, and kind of makes the process less overwhelming.

23:37
Also, on the homepage, they have a call to action to join email. And it says, “Emails are boring. We try not to be” and then there’s a call to action to sign up. I love that it’s really like straightforward. No frills, fun, friendly, unique, definitely feels personal. And then there’s a page called “The Guide to It All”. So there’s if you’re new to this brand, you might feel overwhelmed by how to get started. There are so many different approaches to kind of building your look or your collection with the locks. So there’s a really great sentence that is from Marla’s voice and it feels so personal. It says “The locks were the original concept for the entire collection. Once I realized that I could morph the shape of a hardware store carabiner in a myriad of ways, the collection became a reality. People often ask me which one is THE one to own and I honestly can’t say. I am partial to every single one of them. They are all solid and strong and crafted by hand and can be worn in infinite ways. Here you will see lots of versions of the locks but you may have something else in mind and we love that too.” And then they have illustrations of the locks that make it feel like you’re looking at the designer’s own sketchbook.

25:05
Also, if you go to the product pages, the description is quote, and it says in Marla’s words, so just one example I found in Marla’s words, quote, “This lock was created based on my rope drawings when I felt the need to create a more textured and “chunkier” lock. The closure mimics a tightly wrapped coil of rope.” I love that there’s this like short little blurb that comes from Marla shares the design inspiration gives a really personal take on the product. My only gripe about this website is that they don’t have a blog. And I feel like they actually are missing so many opportunities to show how to style to merchandise the products in different ways. So that’s my only complaint. I just want to share this as a great example of utilizing website content. What do you think about the Marla Aaron website? Let me know in a podcast review or YouTube comment.

26:09
All right, let’s get into The Gold Mine. This is a segment of the podcast that’s a more personal, heartfelt, honest take from me about topics like entrepreneurship, mindset, growth, success, etc. This week’s episode is all about confirmation bias and how it’s potentially holding you back from achieving your marketing goals. Back in 2022, in Episode 212, I’ll link that in the show notes if you want to go back to it. I talked about cognitive biases in marketing, if you want to go back to check out that one – it’s super interesting! Basically, a cognitive bias is just a tendency our brains have; life and the world is really complicated, so our brains try to simplify things. To do that, our brains process information through a filter of personal experience and preferences One one hand, it’s kind of a coping mechanism that protects us, but on the other hand, it could limit us and help us from seeing truths and/or paths forward – or even what’s best for us and our businesses. We all have cognitive biases!

26:42
Confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias. I’ll share the definition from Psychology Today, so I don’t butcher it: “…it occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. When people would like a certain idea or concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. They are motivated by wishful thinking.” I see this so much with marketing, especially when new technologies get introduced. Naturally, people don’t want to have to learn a new technology or a new approach. No one likes change! So instead of accepting that change is coming, we convince ourselves that the new thing must suck or that it’s not for us; that way we can sneakily avoid dealing with it. Lately, I’ve been seeing this a ton with AI technology as it relates to marketing and business. People are really afraid of AI, and there are definitely some scary unknowns about it for sure. But it’s a train that we’re not going to be able to stop. It’s here, so it’s in our best interest to figure out how to make it work for us – and reap the benefits because there definitely are benefits. I think a lot of people are in denial about it or confused about it or just tired of always embracing change in a digital world, so they don’t want to learn about it. So the immediate reaction is, “Oh, this is terrible, and it’s not going to work for me.” That is a confirmation bias that you’ve created for yourself. And then to prove the confirmation bias, you go and try the tool or new technology with a chip on your shoulder (and not really with an open mind or even a clue about what you’re doing), then you try it once and don’t get the result you want, or you’re not dazzled by it. Then you’re confirmed your bias. “I tried it, and it sucks.”

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It’s kind of like a little kid who’s really picky about food and has all these self-made rules about the food they eat, like “I only like sandwiches, and I don’t want to eat any other food. I won’t eat vegetables because they’re all gross.” And the parents are trying to convince the kid, like “Max, we’ll let you eat some ice cream if you just TRY vegetables, please.” So the kid’s like FINE, MOM AND DAD! I’ll try the vegetables, and he goes into the fridge, takes out a raw broccoli bunch, takes a bite in front of his parents and says, “SEE I TRIED IT NOW WHERE’s MY ICE CREAM!” Obviously that’s gross, and obviously the kid had a confirmation bias about vegetables. I know that’s a funny and extreme example, but you could kind of be doing it with your business. So my call to you is to try to be aware of your own confirmation biases and that trying a thing once and coming to a grand conclusion about it is not really sufficient. Please be open to things because they can help you – and realize that getting the tool to help you is also many times about learning how to get the best result from it – and that takes time and effort. Tell me in a YouTube comment or podcast review if you can relate to this. Do you ever try things once and think they’re not for you? Is there any situation where you may have been trying to convince yourself it’s not right for you, so you had a confirmation bias?

32:50
All right, let’s get into the news roundup, where I share three relevant articles related to jewelry or marketing. The first one comes from Insider Intelligence, and it’s called “4 promising use cases for generative AI in content marketing”. So what is generative AI? First of all, it’s a type of artificial intelligence technology that can help you or it can produce various types of content like text, imagery, and audio. So what are some of the best ways to use these generative AI tools like chatGPT for your jewelry marketing content? According to a 2022 survey of marketers who are already using these tools, most are using them impactfully to optimize existing content. And I personally also love that the most, the reason I love using these tools to help me optimize existing content is because I can get a rough draft using some of the terminology, language and words that I want to use, or even kind of get it close to the voice that I want to communicate. And then I can use chatGPT to kind of help me take that to the next level. Or give me some alternate options, or expand on it or make it shorter. So you are giving it a prompt the best that you can, and it’s kind of helping you take that to the next level. And there are some other ways to also be using this tool. So to repurpose your content. AI can take an original piece of content and then create related pieces of content. So you can start with a blog post and then have it maybe distill email marketing copy from that or social media captions. You can also use it to help you personalize content. So you can take a piece of content and then have it rewritten in a voice that would resonate with your customers using terminology they’ll understand. You use it to create high ranking content. So AI tools can help you research and generate keywords to include in your content for SEO purposes. And you can also use it to help you test content. So if you do AB testing with your email marketing or with your website content, AI tools like chatGPT can help you come up with variations of something so that you can see what performs better with your customers. My main takeaway is, as I mentioned earlier, if you’re nervous about AI tools, or don’t understand them, start by getting creative about the ways that they can help make your life easier when it comes to marketing. Just playing around with a tool like chatGPT and spending some time experimenting with it can give you new ideas, and open new possibilities for you.

35:58
The next article comes from Elle and it’s called “What Is Quiet Luxury And Why Is The Trend Louder Than Ever?” I believe I mentioned a New York Times article in a news roundup in another recent episode about this topic, but I saw again in Elle this time and wanted to highlight it. So quiet luxury is a trend I think you should know even if you’re not a trend driven brand. It emphasizes understated elegance and subtle sophistication. And it’s driven by the consumers’ desire for timeless, well-made pieces that they can wear for years rather than disposable, trend driven fashion. So for someone who embraces quiet luxury, they would have key pieces like tailored separates, classic coats, and fine jewelry with clean lines and minimal detailing. And then sustainable materials are also super important because those who embrace quiet luxury have a growing concern for the environment and ethical production. So obviously, these quiet luxury brands prioritize quality and craftsmanship over quantity, and mass production. And according to this article from Elle, it seems to be particularly appealing to older consumers who value quality and durability over fast fashion so that it’s more thoughtful, more sustainable, prioritizes quality, celebrates the beauty of understated elegance. Main takeaway: again, even if you’re not a trend-driven jewelry brand, you may want to consider how to take bits and pieces of this concept that already exists for you. So if you cater to older customers, think about how they may prefer some aspects of quiet luxury, even if they’re not like the aesthetic design aspects. Maybe they’re the aspects related to production and sustainability. Are you already doing some of these things without necessarily calling them quiet luxury? And can you amplify them to kind of appeal to this growing movement of consumers who are seeking these things?

38:18
And then my last article comes from I’m gonna butcher the name, L’Officiel Singapore, and it’s called “HermèsFit: The Amalgamation of Fitness and Luxury Fashion”. So this is a really creative brand activation. And if you don’t know what that means, check out my interview with Emma Morgan. That’s episode 219. Put the link in the show notes. This example with Hermes is such a fun way to reach perhaps a new customer or to appeal to a new side of their target customer. So Hermes is elevating the luxury fashion experience with HermèsFit, an interactive platform that allows customers to engage with the brand’s iconic accessories. Following successful events in Tokyo, New York and Sydney, they’re bringing this personalized fitness experience to Singapore. So HermèsFit is incorporating iconic accessories as alternative tools for physical training. This is some really fun and creative merging of conventional workout culture with luxury fashion, so adorned with Hermes’ signature motifs and painted in the trademark orange hue. There’s this pop up gym, I guess that features a custom designed wall of armor as barbells and kettlebells. And there are fitness classes including belt stretching, which is a flex class with Hermes belts as alternatives for resistance bands, Ballet Arms with bracelets and Shoes HIIT, a cardio based workout using Hermes shoes as weights and more. Like yes, please. It makes working out more fun and fashionable. It’s a little bit tongue in cheek. My main takeaway is, have you ever thought about appealing to your target audience through a unique event or out of box experience? It may help people who already know your brand see it in a completely new light, and it can also help you introduce them to new products and collections.

40:38
That’s it for today. Did you have any questions about Jewelry Marketing Jumpstart? You can always email me Laryssa at joyjoya.com. If you love this podcast, please share it with a friend who’d appreciate it. And don’t forget to subscribe, as well as leave a review on Apple podcasts. If you’re completely new to digital marketing, then you’ll want to purchase and read a copy of my book, Jewelry Marketing Joy. Visit joyjoya.com/book for more information.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai