As a guy who performs a lot of the Search Engine Optimization work for my business, I have become very knowledgeable since 1998, the year I started marketing our handmade sterling silver hair accessories online. I have a lot of internet jeweler friends, and several of them are just starting business websites. A lot of them offer their jewelry for sale on the Etsy site; but want to build their own e-commerce sites. This week, two of them asked me to give them some tips, and I’m going to share that advice with you here.
I find it very interesting that both of them made coincidental, very basic mistakes; what I find truly unbelievable is that one of the sites was developed by a professional website maker or creator. Designers are artisans at heart, and appearance is the most crucial aspect to a designer. Unfortunately, the individual who put that site together just didn’t consider search engines at all when designing her website, and is strongly resisting the changes I advised my colleague ask for.
Visually, the site has a very neat appearance, is easy to navigate and is simply gorgeous. The main page has lots of white space, a big photograph of a bangle made by the site owner and only 5 links to inside web pages with a copyright announcement. Problem is – this simply is not enough.
On the surface, the big problem is there isn’t any text. Not even a single word. Even the copyright statement is an image. The hyperlinks are also pictures. This makes clear the web designer just doesn’t understand how search works at all; search engine robots understand text, and don’t see graphics.
Behind the scenes, there was nothing to help SE spiders either. Just a title tag … and a writer’s tag. After all, you would expect that, but … no Description or keyword Meta tags. In addition the page title isn’t good enough for SE marketing purposes.
The second website was designed by my colleague’s husband; believe it or not he really did a more thorough job than the professional designer. However, her husband also made some of the same basic mistakes, starting with the page title. This is what’s wrong …
They both used the business name as the site title. I understand that this is a natural way to do this; but in most cases this is a major error. This is how I explained it to them:
If your business is well known and an industry leader similar to Tiffany, you can name your site in that manner because people are very familiar with those brands and they will go to their preferred search engine to find their favorite jewelry by entering the store name. Unfortunately, we are not famous, and no one is going uses to look for our online stores that way. No one is going online to find my business by typing Jewelry24Seven at a search site; and if someone does they’ll come across the site even though the name is not mentioned as part of the page title. Of course, shoppers WILL search for what I offer for sale. This is how I decided on my title.
The title of our site is: Handmade Silver Jewelry – Silver Chains and Handcrafted Bali Jewelry. Not the name of our business, Jewelry24Seven. Our site has fairly decent rankings for these search phrases; and these are very competitive search keywords. A huge reason my online store can be found is the title.
The owner designed website does have a decent description Meta tag; my friend’s hubby was truly up to the task. The paid designer’s home page had no Meta description at all. My colleague asked the web designer about it and was told … OK, include a tag if that’s what you want. It should list as many of your relevant search terms as it can. I don’t really agree … not completely anyway. This is NOT a good place to write a list of search phrases. This tag should contain a true description of what you do and what your site is about. Of course, this tag must mention your most important target search phrases; but they should be within the context of sentences describing the site. It’s not an alternative keywords Meta tag. The description Meta tag must make sense. Here’s mine:
“Handmade silver jewelry and custom silver chains. Handcrafted sterling silver jewelry. Gemstone pendants and artisan rings. Hand made beaded earrings. 50 types of sterling chains by the inch. Bali bracelets, rings, earrings and barrettes.”
It has been separated out into phrases and used punctuation to form a basic structure. Yes, it is basically made up of keywords, but isn’t a straightforward list. When it is read, you can tell what our site is about. You can see that my primary and most significant terms are in both the page title and description tag.
My friend is at odds with her designer over the keywords Meta tag. The site designer told my friend to gather a list of search phrases that included words with spelling errors like jewlery. IMO, this is truly bad advice for two reasons … primarily due to the fact that it gives the impression the merchant is uneducated and unprofessional. Even worse, it takes up resources in the keywords tag.
Very few pages can be thoroughly optimized for over 2 or 3 relevant keywords. The keywords at the front of the tag should be more meaningful and relevant. I believe including over_in excess of 15 keywords really does no good, and after 15 it sort of lessens the strength of the relevant terms. The keywords Meta tag also requires a balancing act of sorts; every term you include in the keywords tag has to appear on the web page in visible text. This can be tricky, in particular with purposely misspelled words due to the fact that it looks like the page is full of typographical errors. Using mine our site’s keywords for example:
“handmade silver jewelry, silver chain, custom silver chains, sterling silver jewelry, bali jewelry, handcrafted, artisan jewelry, silver barrettes, custom made, bracelets, handmade earrings, silver ring, by the inch, pendant”
Our site has 14 search terms listed in the tag list shown above. All of them are included in our body text. The most important phrases are included before any of the others. search phrases are included in the body text a few times; and appear in different ways. Headline or heading 1 text, category or text, bold text and text links all play a part in how my index page is constructed.
The web designer strongly objected when it came to the index page’s body text. She refuses to believe it is needed. My friend may not be able to get her to follow her instructions; she feels the site is finished and I do understand it spoils the visual impact. But with no text, the site will not be included in search engine listings; the result is very few people will ever see it. This is why you should be very discriminating when paying someone to work for you.
Of course I know and acknowledge that Flash looks awesome and it does have its place; so do graphic images and Java. But if you want a page that is easily found in the search results, a static HTML page is the way to go. Make good use of the Meta tags by mentioning your primary search terms in the 3 major tags – title, description and keywords. Don’t forget to include each word you put in the keywords tag in the site’s body text. Describe your graphics by using “image alt” tags. Use text hyperlinks to inner pages, not graphic or Javascript buttons. And put 600 – 900 words on the page in easy to see text that intelligibly describes the services you offer and sell on the site.
Work on acquiring as many sites as possible to link to your webpage with formatted hyperlinks that mention matching key phrases and relevant text you have included in the tags. There is no other way to bring your site natural traffic on search engines; it is a lot of work; however this seriously is the only way to reach as many people as possible – people without investing a a huge amount of money for online advertising!
Bob Edwards is a jewelry maker and metalsmith in New York City with over 30 years experience in the jewelry business. He is the webmaster of a popular retail website specializing in handcrafted silver jewelry and silver chains. This article may be copied and published on blogs and websites as content as long as the entire article, all links and this writer’s statement are included, Copyright 2010 Robert Edwards.
