How Blogging Can Help You Build Your Jewelry Brand and Increase Sales
October 25, 15More and more businesses are using blogs on a regular basis to inform readers about their products and services. Blogging in today’s diamond industry offers manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers a solid strategic venue to inform readers of new developments in the industry, which can then be converted into increased sales.
What is a Blog?
A blog is a web journal that is updated in chronological order from newest to oldest. It is usually less formal than your main website, and describes new developments in your company and brand, while at the same time bringing new information about your items to your customer’s attention.
The Benefits of Blogging
Blogging can serve many purposes so it is vital that you build and maintain a quality blog on a regular basis.
It should provide engaging information regarding the diamonds and diamond jewelry you wish to sell. This will help to define you as an expert and authority in your field, in this case diamonds, whether you are a manufacturer, retailer or wholesaler.
Customers, whether they are retail stores, other diamond wholesalers or end consumers, will often seek out your blog in order to get an update on what is stylish and trendy in the diamond market. It is of vital importance for bloggers to stick to consistency, be it once a month, once a week etc. so that readers can easily look for and find the new blog post.
If, for example, you are marketing color-treated diamonds and your blog caters to jewelry stores, make sure you write a blog post when new treatments become available. It is also advisable to post photos of famous celebrities wearing jewelry with treated diamonds. Another idea is to write a blog highlighting before and after treatments of real diamonds.
If your blog posts are consistent and authoritative, your customers will come to depend on your opinion regarding diamonds, and will check your blog on a regular basis. You also want to encourage your readers to recognize the quality of your content so they will start sharing it on their Facebook pages and other social media platforms. This will increase your exposure to others and increase your customer base.
Another great benefit of blogging is the potential to attract new customers from search engines. These search engines appreciate and reward quality content. Google’s algorithm is moving away from the keyword base and is beginning to view websites based on topics. By consistently blogging and telling Google that your website is especially geared to topics relating to diamonds and jewelry, you will benefit as more people search by these topics. Therefore, your blog and site will have a greater chance of appearing on customers’ screens when they use the key words such as “diamonds” and “jewelry.”
There are currently millions of searches and millions of websites crowding cyberspace, making it difficult for small companies to compete for the main phrases used in the diamond industry such as “diamond engagement ring” or “loose diamonds” etc.
However, if you employ a blog strategy you can try and compete for long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are combinations of a few keywords composed of very specific phrases. The main advantage of using these specific phrases is that there is much less competition.
Another plus is that typically a customer who is searching for a specific phrase is higher up in the buying cycle than customers doing a general search. For example, a customer who has just begun a search for a diamond engagement ring does not yet know exactly what he/she is looking for. As a search becomes more sophisticated and realistic he/she might search for a 2-carat SI2 irradiated treated, blue color 14-karat solitaire engagement ring. If you have this specific phrase in your blog, the customer may have a good chance of being directed to your site.
The more you blog the better the chances of your content appearing in the search engines and the greater your chances of having potential customers sharing your blog contents via social media. Some of the best practices that successful bloggers employ are:
- Blogs should appear at a consistent time cycle; weekly or monthly. Try to make sure that the content is fresh, yet consistent. This will help you tap into the search engine’s algorithm.
- Try to use at least one link from your post to your products. If your goal is to have brand awareness, have a link to your “About Us” page.
- Every post should have the option of sharing it on social media platforms.
- Allow your customers to leave comments and engage with your post.
- Diversify your content by using good quality photos and infographics combined with videos.
Which Blogging Content Platform Should You Use?
When choosing a blogging platform, it is important to choose one that will easily allow you to upload your post and manage your blog post. Two of the most popular blog platforms are Blogger and WordPress.org.
Blogger is hosted on the Blogger.com website and is owned by Google. It is very easy to manage and facilitate, so it should be up and running in just a few minutes. If you use this platform, you should be aware, however, that Google owns your content and there is therefore, a risk that it could shut you down. Further, your customization options are more limited than WordPress.
Wordpress.org is an open source platform that you host on your own server. It is rich with thousands of templates and plug-ins allowing you to customize the platform and build something that is uniquely yours. However, be aware that there is a learning curve for using the system. It will cost you money to host the platform and you will have to worry about security and maintenance issues.
Tracking and Monitoring Your Users
Once you have your blog up and running, it is very important to keep track of your visitors. One of the most popular tools to do so is Google Analytics. This is a powerful free tool from Google that can easily be installed on all major blogging platforms.
Google Analytics allows you how to keep track of your visitors, what pages they have viewed, how much time they spent on each page, their country location and how they accessed your page; by referral, a Google search or perhaps a social reference.
By using Google Analytics, you can learn which strategies brought the traffic that ultimately resulted into sales. You can use this information as a way to improve your future topics, future blog posts and learn how to build a better blogging experience that can lead to more brand awareness and more sales.
To summarize, blogging can be a great strategy to build your brand and break into new audiences as well as promoting and marketing your products to your existing customers.
CaratsDirect2U is an online retailer and specializes in color-enhanced diamonds as well as clarity enhanced diamonds. Their collection includes a large stock of tennis bracelets, loose diamonds and classic engagement rings.CaratsDirect2U runs a diamond jewelry blog, which covers the latest trends in diamond jewelry as well as information geared to customers which will enable them to make a purchase of diamond jewelry based on the information on its blog.