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Success With Jewelry
173 - Laryssa and Liz on Website Best Practices for Jewelry Brands: How to Audit Your Homepage and Make a Strong First Impression
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Success With Jewelry Podcast your go to source for real conversations about business marketing and what it actually takes to succeed as a jewelry brand
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Today I'm Larissa, the strategist systems queen and the one who finds joy in turning big marketing challenges into step by step plans that actually work. Email marketing and generating revenue through it is a specialty of my agency, Joy
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Joya and I'm Liz, your creative compass and advocate for designers doing things differently. I live for brilliant brand storytelling, beautiful visuals and helping designers confidently, confidently show up and shine. I founded the Stay Gold Collective to create community and support for independent jewelry brands.
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Together we bring you nearly two decades of jewelry marketing experience and on this podcast we're pulling back the curtain on everything we've learned. Whether you're just starting out or scaling to your next big milestone, you'll get honest insights, helpful tips and maybe a few giggles along the way.
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A
This is episode 173. Your website is the one place online that you fully own and control and and for a jewelry brand, it's often the difference between a browser and a buyer. Today we're kicking off a three part series on website best practices for jewelry brands, starting with the big picture. How to audit what you have, what your homepage needs to do, and how to make a strong first impression before a visitor even clicks on a product. And for our insiders, stay tuned. After the episode, we're sharing a homepage audit checklist you can use this week. Plus the most common homepage mistakes we see on jewelry websites. Let's get into it.
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B
All right, let's talk about websites.
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A
We haven't talked about websites in a while.
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B
It's been a while. It's like I, I think we get nervous about like recycling content, but then we realize that a lot of things happen in short amounts of time in terms of like best practices and tools and features. And so it's important to like bring some of these topics back back.
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A
I agree and I think we've talked about it more generally and I think we're going to break it down a little bit more in these episodes, I hope. But yeah, we have to revisit content because things are always changing.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
So why does your website matter now more than ever? Maybe in 2026?
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B
Well, I mean if you're a purely e commerce business, it really is the only storefront that you have. So it has to serve as like representing your brand, being a place where your products can live, where they can be purchased and also build trust and serve as like an interface for your Customers. But even if you're not purely E commerce, I think so many people do like browsing and pre shopping online or they go to a website to like investigate a brand or learn about it. So it's kind of necessary.
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A
Yeah, it builds trust. I mean, having a website is really important. It builds trust. I don't know that you would be necessarily successful, although I know there are some cases where people are with just an Instagram and just an email list or just one of the two. I think you need like a home base that you own.
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B
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it's kind of like a calling card. Is that the right word? Like, it's just, it's like a business card and a face and a storefront and like a trust builder. It serves so many functions.
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A
It serves so many functions and there's many important pieces of a website. The homepage is kind of the first thing people see though. So it's, it's a really important one. But I got ahead of myself there. The real job of a jewelry website, I mean, it is to drive sales. But I would also say that it's to tell your story and like talking specifically about the homepage too. Like that is. Some people might not click any deeper. So you want that homepage to really do the job of telling your story.
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B
Definitely. And also considering all the different ways people might engage with it. So it could be on their phone, it could be on their computer, it could be going directly to. It could be clicking from another place. And so you have to also think about like all the different scenarios and mindsets and circumstances that would cause someone to like get to your site in the first place.
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A
Do you think it's harder now to have a strong website than it was maybe 10 years ago?
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B
I. That's a really great question. I don't know if it's harder necessarily, but I think that the DIY approach isn't necessarily always the best if you really want to be taken seriously and build the trust. And how can I clarify this? Like, obviously there are website solutions out there, like Squarespace, like even Shopify, that can let you get a website up and running pretty quickly. But just what I've seen with like the most basic theme or the most basic setup. Yeah, you have a website, but I think it's very hard to make it look very professional, make it optimized on your own. And of course, if you're just starting out your business, you probably don't have a ton of money to invest in it. But I would say as soon as you have some kind of money to invest and you're serious about your business. Like, that should be the first thing that you are getting someone else to help you with because it is very competitive out there. And I think consumers make snap judgments about what they're looking at on their phone or their computer very quickly and they're not going to give you another chance after that.
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A
I agree with all of that. And I think that one of the tough parts about using a standard template is making it easier. The website feel like your brand and not like every other website out there. And consumers are just smarter now, I'd say. So they might have trusted a website that was a little bit more basic or a little more DIY in the past, but now I think there's a lot of security concerns. You have to, like, work so much harder to build trust to get that
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B
sale and even just to engage someone to like keep them on the site and browsing. There are a lot of ways, like you can make your collection or your product pages more engaging by working with like a developer or an expert that knows how to do that. Otherwise it's kind of hard to keep someone's attention on a site, like, if it's not fully doing all the things it needs to be doing.
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Definitely.
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How do you.
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How would you recommend or do you have any tips for auditing your own website with fresh eyes? I find this to be hard. I'm. I try to look at my website like once a quarter, I don't know.
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B
And it is so hard because you're like, you're saying you, like, look at it all the time, so it's so easy to miss stuff. Yeah, good question. I think that it helps if you yourself are like an online shopper. Two because you can look at websites that you like and make notes about things that are cool about them and what, what are they doing that's like engaging you and then go back to your own site and see like, oh, can I do similar things? Like, is it functioning the same way? Does it have similar features? Like, how is my site different? So maybe it's more helpful to do like a comparison rather than just like looking at your site in isolation.
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A
I think that's good advice. And looking at sites maybe outside of the industry too, so you don't get too caught up in comparison. But I think looking at other sites for best practices is always a good idea. I mean, I think when we first did a webinar about this topic years ago, we talked about Tiffany and Co's website, which is obviously like within our industry. But I think it's such a great website to look at still for best practices because they are putting a lot of resources and research into it and you can kind of notice things that they're doing that you could kind of emulate, like having a, like a contact button at like, very prominent or things like that, or the kind of way they organize their menu. You can kind of see a lot of best practices by looking at bigger
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B
sites and keeping like a running list of those things too. Like, maybe you do need a del the deliver, maybe you do need a developer to help you with these things and maybe it will cost money and be an investment. But in the meantime, I think it is nice to keep like, inspo or features that you think were really cool, or take screenshots like, of pages that you really liked and have that all in a folder so that either maybe you could figure out how to do that or eventually when you can hire someone like, you know all the things that you want to do. I think that it can be frustrating for a service provider if, I mean, someone who's a website expert can, like, do a good job. But if you're not able to communicate what you want and what you like, there's going to be a disconnect there. Of course.
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Definitely.
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Yeah.
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Doing that homework in advance and really understanding what you need or what you like or what you want to achieve with it, I think that's really important work. I think that something else to kind of help audit your site is to send it to people and get their opinion. Because sometimes I think about my own brand, like, oh, it's so obvious that I have a community. It's so obvious that I have a community called the Stay Gold Collective. And maybe when you go to my site, it's not that obvious. I don't know. Or like, I get emails sometimes that's like, hey, Liz, how can I actually work with you? I'm a little confused and I'm like, I should really figure out how to make my site more clear. Um, but it's hard to make those changes alone.
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B
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good case for like, joining, like, what is it called? An accountability group, Like Stay Gold, for example. Because I will say if you send something to, like, a friend or like your mom, a lot of times they'll just be like, this looks great, I love it, good job. And you need someone who's kind of like, removed from you personally and maybe even has similar objectives so that they know, like, why it's important to give constructive feedback rather than just like, good job. Love your website.
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A
Totally.
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Yeah.
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Send us. If you're listening, send us your website. Yeah. When we asked people to send us copy, was it like two or three weeks ago? I don't think anyone did.
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B
We're here. I recently, I was shopping online recently and I was actually, when I was on this website, thinking to myself, like, I hope there's a chance for me to talk about this on the Success with Jewelry podcast. Tell me more, because I really like this experience. So I've been shopping for a bathing suit recently.
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Such a struggle. Everyone I know is shopping for a bathing suit and struggling. So this is very relevant.
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Yes. Okay. And plus, if you're trying to do
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it online,
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even worse than like going to a store because who knows, like what is going to be good or not. Oftentimes these websites especially, especially like more specialty brands, they have, they don't have like the best return policies, always blah, blah, blah. So like, huh, terrible experience. But no. I found this website. The brand is Kulani Kinis. And I was mostly browsing on my phone because I was just kind of looking like when I had a few minutes here and there, like looking up bathing suits. And what I liked about it is that the website, not only is it really functional for the specific purpose of like shopping for bathing suits or for this like specialty apparel item, but also the functionality had, was very well mixed with like the brand identity too. So like, I don't even know how to explain this, but little things like you'd be on a collection page and it would allow you to toggle if you wanted to see the model photos, like as the first picture or you wanted to just see like a white background of the bathing suit, like based on whatever is more helpful to you to shop. And I appreciated stuff like that because as I said, I feel like that's just kind of a difficult shopping experience right out the bat. Like you're already overwhelmed, like, who knows? And they really took the time to create friendly features to make it more pleasant. There was even something else. It. I'm sure they spent a lot of money on this. So I'm not saying everyone needs to go, like, use these features or recreate them, but just thinking through the experience of the person using the site, it's like, I don't know what size I am. And you, they had a little button next to the size selection that's like, oh, we can help you. And you push the button. It asks you like a few questions that is just like yes or no or this or that. And then it said we recommend this size. And I'm like, oh, okay. I don't even have to like think about this. I don't have to look at a size chart. I don't have to like compare myself to what the models look like. It's just like, here, take this is your size. And again, this is very aspirational because I could tell this site was expensive and had a lot of fancy features. But I really appreciated how they thought through what a customer's like hang ups would be or difficulties and then found ways to address those. Basically.
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A
Yeah, I do like that. And that site is fun. I like those features you mentioned. I was just browsing it while you were talking about it and it does look fancy and expensive. So a workaround I think is having like it very prominent how to contact you. I think that that's always a great workaround to like not being able to have like a quiz to find your size or things like that. Just be accessible or provide as much information as you find helpful. I mean, is essentially the takeaway there. And what you said about the return policy too, There's a brand I love called Curator and they have a super easy return policy because their clothes are a little more expensive and you might not know how they fit. So they have this really easy return policy and portal and it's just super simple to encourage people to buy because you can return it if you really don't like it or it doesn't fit.
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B
Exactly. Things like that. Yeah. Similarly to this bathing suit brand, their return policy was one that I actually haven't seen before where if you're a first time customer, no matter what on the site, like no questions asked return, you can return things. So I think that helps people get over the hurdle of buying something that's kind of a little more difficult to buy online for the first time so that you can check out what the sizing is like and what the material feels like and stuff like that. Again, that's not going to work for every jewelry brand out there. But you can invent whatever works for you and what you think will work for your customers too.
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A
Yeah, I like that. Let's talk specifically about the homepage. What are your thoughts about making a strong impression in the first few seconds?
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B
Yeah, I mean, yes, you should do that. Yeah, I mean the homepage is definitely for most online businesses going to be the page with the highest traffic by far. That's usually the entry point. It's not always the main way people will enter, but it usually is. And I think considering that maybe at least half your visitors are going to be on their phones. Rough estimate. Like, how is that translating to the mobile experience? And that's where I see a lot of homepages kind of like fall flat, especially at the top, like where the navigation is or where the search bar is. All of that is where there is usually room for improvement, in my opinion.
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A
I find a big mistake to be a lack of, like, immediate call to action, like a header that's just a picture or it's not really telling me where what to do or where to go. Or I also find that sometimes when I get to a homepage, it's like totally misaligned with what they're promoting on their other platforms. So I can't. It doesn't feel like I got to the right place.
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B
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Because it hasn't been updated or like there's an old banner that's like Valentine's Day sale or whatever. Valentine's Day gifts.
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Yeah. Everybody pause now and make sure you don't have your holiday shipping deadlines up in your banner anymore. You probably. But it's a good thing.
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That's so easy to overlook that.
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It's so easy.
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With some of my clients, we have a shared, like, content calendar item for like, checking that kind of stuff so that it doesn't fall through the cracks. Like, we know at least once a month or every other month, like, we need to make sure this banner gets rotated or whatever.
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A
Yeah, that's really smart. I think that one of the biggest mistakes people make with their homepage is like, my website's done, I never need to look at it again kind of mindset. Whereas with your homepage, it should be a little bit dynamic. You should switch things out and change it up based on what you're promoting.
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B
Yeah, absolutely. Especially with like a Shopify theme. A lot of them like the theme templates for a homepage. They usually have sections like your new arrivals, like your featured collection and stuff like that. A lot of that is. Can be automatic, like based on what you put in those collections. But you do want to check them and make sure, like, oh, these are my new arrivals. They're not like, from two years ago or something.
- [19:51]
A
Yeah, I think that's a. That's something good to look at. I think something else that's often missing from homepages is like a photo of the maker or their bench or their sketchbook or something that's kind of tied to the and about page. Because you do want to like if somebody's scrolling through your homepage, you want to articulate your story, you want to tell some of your story while somebody's scrolling because they might not make it to any other pages or they might like read your story or see your bench and be like, oh, this is really cool. I like that ring. I'm gonna go to that product page and not ever find the space to like find out that you make everything by hand or whatever it is that you want to get.
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B
So true. Yeah, at least a, a blurb or like an excerpt of that full story that someone could click through. Yeah, I agree with that.
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A
Something else that has been frustrating me recently is that there's either no pop up, which is fine. I don't mind if there's no email pop up. But if I want to sign up for your email list and I can't figure out where to sign up, I find that to be very frustrating. So having in embedded in your homepage just like an email signup space or even at your footer, but somewhere that somebody could just go and sign up for your list if they want to join.
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B
I'm 100% on board with that. I'm a thousand percent on board with that. Oh, and make sure it works too. You know what I see so much is even if you do have a pop up, also like a pop up and a footer signup, a lot of times they're not integrated to go to the same list for whatever reason. And so though if you do have a welcome email, which I hope you have, it won't trigger if you sign up from the footer, but it will like through the pop up. So you want to test always like all the sign up sources.
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A
That's good advice. And you should have a welcome email. We could, we've talked about that before, but we could do a whole series on that too, because it's very important. All right, what, what else do I want to say about a homepage? So I think one thing in terms of where do you direct someone after they land on your homepage? Like I said, not seeing a strong call to action is often why somebody leaves because they don't know where to go next. So making sure you're promoting a collection or a piece or something aligned with what you're saying on other platforms is really important. You typically want to get somebody from your homepage page to a product page, right?
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B
Yes, definitely. Yeah. Because then the product page is the gateway to the cart. So we want to, like, always be moving someone to check out.
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A
Right. And maybe they pop to your about page first, but. Or maybe they bop to your blog first. But all of those pages should also be directing them back to the product pages.
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B
Yeah. And it should be clear also on every page. And this is why, like, the navigation menu is really important. Not only from where someone is on the homepage, but if they do go, like you said, to the about page or the blog, the navigation menu should be very focused on shopping as well, so that they can use that to, like, go somewhere else or browse your products.
- [23:24]
A
Okay, I have one more question, and then we're gonna chat with insiders, but what metrics do you think you should be looking at to ensure that your homepage is actually working?
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B
Yes. I can't remember if this is in, like, Shopify metrics. It might just be a Google Analytics one. But bounce rate is really important to look at. Bounce rate and engagement rate. Bounce rate tells you, like, what percentage of people are just, like, they go to your site and they immediately leave, which is obviously not good. It means there's nothing of interest for them there and they're not spending any time. And then I guess the positive version of that is engagement rate, which. How long. How much time is someone spending on the homepage? The longer the better. And so if you can focus on, like, getting that up, on getting the general browsing time up, that means people are, like, engaging with your site more.
- [24:25]
A
Yeah, that's great.
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B
Would you add anything to that? I. I don't think so.
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A
I think those are great to look at. I was going to say time on site, but you covered that. Yeah, with the engagement rate. And just someone staying on your site longer is usually a good thing. But we'll talk more about websites next week. I think next week we're going to dig into the product pages more, which I feel like we both have a lot to say about that. Yeah. But if there's any specific website questions anybody's thinking about, send them our way, because we'll add it into our content and answer them on the podcast.
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B
Let us know.
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A
All right. Did this episode help you see your website differently? Let us know. Visit successwithjewelry.com and if you love the podcast, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a message or leave us a review. Thanks for being part of our community.