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Success With Jewelry
175 - Laryssa and Liz on Your About Page, Website Navigation, and SEO Basics
00:23:04
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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 I live for brilliant brand storytelling, beautiful visuals and helping designers 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 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 175. We've covered your homepage and your product pages and today we're continuing our website series with everything else that builds trust and drives action. Your about page, your navigation, some SEO basics and the small details that make a big difference. And for our insiders, stay tuned. After the episode, we're sharing an SEO basics checklist for jewelry brands and our top recommendations for tools to help you monitor and improve your website performance. So let's get into it.
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B
We've been getting some good feedback I think on all the website episodes we've done and by all the I mean
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A
two I know I'm wondering if we this was kind of what I thought would be the end of our series but I want to cover and we're going to do an interview about this but accessibility, I think that's an important topic within websites, but I'm thinking of other ideas. So we might continue the series and would love to know what you think.
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B
Yeah, maybe even website platforms. Have we talked about that one before?
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A
I think we have, but briefly. Another idea could be a whole episode about driving traffic to your website, which I guess we're talking about a lot in other ways with marketing, but we could kind of just focus on driving traffic.
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B
Yeah, those are great ideas.
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A
So the website series might continue and then I TBD and we have done an email marketing series before but I think that would be worth revisiting at some point.
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B
There's always more to say about everything because it's always changing.
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A
It's always changing. I am teaching an in person workshop tomorrow about creating a consistent content strategy which I've taught that workshop before, in iterations, in different ways. And I was just relooking at it before, you know, in preparation. And I was like, I have to change some stuff. Because the way I'm thinking about content is just. It's a little bit different. And it feels, even though it's just small kind of differences in the way I'm thinking about it, it feels significant when looking at the presentation again. Anyway, yeah, marketing's always changing.
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B
It's always changing too quickly. Too quickly.
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A
I know it feels overwhelming. I mean, everyone I've been speaking with recently is overwhelmed. I'm in a big state of overwhelm. I think I mentioned this last week too, but it's tough. Having a plan definitely helps, but with the constant changing of things and all of the places you need to show up in really authentic ways, it's very hard. The supporting pages on your website, what are the pages? You know, outside of homepage, outside of product pages. What other pages are really important to
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B
what you said about page? I think some others too. Your shipping policy, I think that's more important than people realize. I'm always looking at shipping policies when I buy things or FAQs also.
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A
Similarly, do you look at what, what is typically on a shipping page?
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B
Yeah, usually it's just about like standard turnaround times, like how long does it take to process in order? What are the different shipping methods? If there's more than one or if there's just one, like what does that typically look like for a turnaround? And then also what is the pricing? A lot of brands will say like, oh, it's over a certain amount, it's free shipping, but up to, it's like whatever 799 or whatever it is. It's nice to have that really clearly listed out. I'm sure that for most brands that exists in a lot of other places on the site. But it's good to have like one page that summarizes everything. And then in addition to that for holidays or like high demand periods, I think that shipping page needs to be updated with like more exact lead times.
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A
That's really interesting. I haven't thought much about a shipping page. I'm glad you brought that up. But having all those details, which is kind of what we talked about with when we talked last week about the product pages, is the more information, the more confident people feel to make that purchase.
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B
Yeah, I think it's especially important if someone's shopping for a gift or like I just said around like gifting periods, they want to feel confident that their gift is going to come on time and. Yeah. Or if there is an incentive, if you purchase more, you could get free shipping. Like, a lot of people will take you up on that because people hate paying for shipping. Yeah.
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A
And then you're. And then you're increasing your aova, which we have talked about before, your average order value. I think that about page. I put about page in our outline specifically because I do come across a lot of weak about pages. I think that people think it just needs to be your bio. And I think we could do a whole episode about bios too, because it's not a resume necessarily. You do want to think about it a lot differently. You know, maybe it doesn't make sense to share where you went to college.
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B
Maybe it does.
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A
But a lot of them start out with like, here's where I went to school, and here's like one sentence about what I'm inspired by and here's where I'm at now. And that's fine. But the about page should really, like, introduce someone who's new to your brand about you and why you're doing what you're doing.
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B
Yeah, we don't want it to sound like a cover letter for like applying to a job or something. I think, you know what word is very popular now. I guess it's like from tick tock culture. People say lore. A lot like the lore. And I think that really applies here. Like, you want your about page to be like the lore of your brand.
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A
That is true. I agree. And it's such a great space to build trust. Again, like coming back to this idea of making people feel really confident about purchasing from you. And I think it is a huge mistake to not have a picture of yourself there. And I also think it's a mistake to not show some of your process, whether it be your studio space or your sketchbook or something. Maybe it's an inspiration. Mood board. Something that kind of gives a little bit more than just a really standard bio. And no images.
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B
Yes, definitely. I was just looking. I'm gonna sound like I'm a shill for this company now because I mentioned them a few episodes ago. But the swimwear brand that I was talking about, Kulani Kimis, it's just fresh in my mind because I was recently shopping with them. I love their about page. What I like about this about page one. Visually, it's really easy to take in. There's like very small sections of text accompanied with imagery, illustrations, collages. It's very like playful and colorful, which matches their brand and it talks about not only like the more personal involvement and history of the founders, but also about like the challenges that they had with their business, what inspired the business, like what their motivation and mission are and kind of like looking forward and looking ahead, like where is the business going? And I think that that is all a very nice package to deliver to your customers.
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A
I think so too. I, I'm looking at this about page now and it's kind of scrapbooky and it intermixes their, their business wins and their business timeline with their personal timeline. And not everyone kind of has this personal and business tie in as much as this brand does, but it does, you know, because we looked at this website a few episodes ago, we talked about it or you talked about it and I was like, okay, this is interesting. But I didn't go to the about page. And reading the about page, I'm much more on board with them. I feel like even just scrolling through and a quick glance, it's, it really tells their story nicely and it articulates that they're a family owned business and they care a lot about what they do.
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B
Yeah, definitely. I actually this was not one of the first pages I looked at even when I was shopping. I think I just stumbled upon it later and I was like, oh, this is like more of like a small business just run by like two women. And then I, it kind of deepens like my connection and appreciation for them. So it definitely added to the great experience that I was already having. I love that.
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A
Thanks for sharing it because I think it's hard, I think, I think it's hard to do something different that you're not seeing out there. And I think that's why so many about pages look the same, is because, oh well, this is what everybody else is doing or oh, this is what it makes sense to do or this page isn't that important because it's not selling anything, but it is selling, it's selling your brand.
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B
Yes, that's true to your point about them all kind of looking the same. So what I find. And we kind of were talking about this in the product page episode too. If you're on Shopify or like any other website platform really, there's a finite number of page templates that you can use and the like standard one that you would probably use for an about page, which is just lets you, you put like a picture and not really format it very nicely. I bet every single person that doesn't have like a more custom build out is using the same exact like Layout and as we kind of talked about in the product page episode, like, yeah, it costs money to get a developer. It's an investment to have something more custom. It's an investment to get more custom features or layouts. But I do think to what Liz just said, how this is selling your brand. It's a representation of your brand, like bring it to life in a way that is truly authentic to you and you may have to work with a partner on that.
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A
It's hard to do everything yourself even. And I've said this many times, but even for myself, who I'm a marketer, I can market other people's businesses no problem. I have a lot of skills in that. But when it comes to my own, I really struggle. It is hard to work in like in by myself in my office. It's hard to do that. You're our listeners. You're probably alone in your studio. It's hard to do everything by yourself. So I think bringing in help is a great idea when you can, especially for something like your website. Another page that I don't have mentioned in this. These notes here, but I was just thinking about it. That is often overlooked and often very weak is a custom page. And you know, it depends if you do custom design in your business. But I've seen custom pages for brands who really do want to focus on custom that are just a few sentences and a contact form and that's not enough. We need to know more about the process.
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B
I'm so glad you said that because I have seen the same, but it didn't occur to me. Yeah, I mean you're selling a whole service. I mean think about actual service providers who have websites like me and Liz. Our entire website is like leading selling to this one thing. And of course custom is different than that, but it's still a full service that you are trying to sell to someone. It needs to be really fleshed out. What is the process like? What is your approach to it? What, what is the pricing someone can expect like a range. What are testimonials that you have? What are samples of custom work? What is the next step? What can someone expect at the next step? Like there's so many things that need to be communicated.
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A
I agree. And a lot of people coming into custom design have never worked with a designer on custom before and don't know the process. And it's probably a big investment for them. So. So letting them know clearly what the steps are builds that trust. You know, just saying, hey, and if you're interested in working on a custom project, shoot me a message kind of thing. It's not going to do it for somebody who's maybe like looking at a few different designers and has never done a custom project before. So even just adding some more information and some more images and maybe a gallery of custom projects you've done, I think is great. And then something I was thinking about because I was in a workshop on Tuesday and I do coaching in Asheville and there's all these different coaches in this group and we were teaching each other kind of what we do and somebody did a whole like mini presentation about contact forms and how you can put more questions and more criteria on a contact form to get more information and weed out folks who maybe aren't going to be a good fit. And I just hadn't thought about contact forms in that way before. But that's something to think about too. With your custom page or just your contact forms in general. Mm.
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B
Yes, I was thinking about that too as you were talking, like in addition to asking really good questions on the contact form, but not so many questions that you will scare someone away. There's a balance there.
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A
It's a balance. That's what they were talking about. And it's a fun project to think about.
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B
Yeah. But I think even in the language that you use, you can kind of help the customer or the prospect, like pre qualify themselves in a way by saying, like, this is for people who I don't know xyz, like very specifically what you can help someone with so that if they want a project that's not one of those things, they're not going to waste your time or their own time, they're going to move on. And that's great because they wouldn't be a good customer for you anyway.
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A
And something so important to think about if you're doing custom is to have a minimum and share that minimum. We should not be doing custom projects under a certain amount where you're making no money. So really think about that and maybe even raise the minimum. But put that on your custom page to help weed out people too.
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B
Yes, 100%. I'm glad you brought that one up.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. So the other thing I wanted to talk about, and I feel like you have more opinions on this than me, is navigation. And I don't know, I. The only feeling I have about navigation is that I don't want too many options. I sometimes look at a mega menu and I'm like, this is too much. I like to just shop all that's how I shop on websites typically or if I'm looking for something specific, you know, I like the categories like rings, necklaces, earrings. I think that's really helpful. But when you have all of your collections and you have all of the like, you know, different ways and categories and curated things that you can shop and buy metal type and I know that some people like to shop that way, but that's my only thoughts on, on personally what I don't love from navigation. Yeah.
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B
Oh wow. Shop all. I mean, I know, I think it depends so much on the website though because you're not going to shop all on like, I don't know, Walmart.com or something.
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A
You're not. You're right. You know, I need a search button too or search bar at the top of a website because I do like to search too.
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Well that's a good thing to mention because I notice on mobile some Shopify themes don't prominently display or feature a way to search a website easily. And that's something everyone should go check right now because on mobile especially where navigation is like kind of hard to use, you want to make sure your site is easy to search.
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A
That is a really good tip. I mean check your mobile sites. It's really important that your mobile site is as strong as your desktop site. But circling back to navigation because I don't want people to listen to me and what I said, what are your thoughts on what does good website navigation look like right now?
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B
I think and I'm just speaking to the main navigation at the top right now, the rule of thumb, I would say if you are an E commerce brand, it should be like 90%, maybe more than that shopping focused. Like if you have blog up there, contact wholesale events, like if they're all up there, they should not be up there. Um, I mean if, if you don't really sell online, okay, that's a different story. But if your website is built to sell online, that menu should be shopping focused. Everything else can go in a footer. That's what the footer is for. And customers know that people know to go to the footer to look for things like contact shipping policy, like kind of these, I don't know, side, side quests that aren't related to shopping.
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A
That's good advice. So I just want to touch on SEO and we have a great episode with Sohail Diwani from the Jewelers League where we go into SEO more. But any thoughts on just kind of like basic very high level things to think about with SEO when you're thinking about your website?
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B
Yes. I mean actually it would be interesting to get Sohel on with us again because I can't remember when that episode was from, but I think a lot has changed. Everything's different now.
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A
Not everything.
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I mean the main principles are kind of the same, but now AI plays a much more prominent role than when we spoke to him. I believe we sort of maybe had a section in the episode where we had mentioned it, but probably we could talk about it a lot more. Now there aren't really any like so called tricks to rank for AI. I mean people will probably say there are, but it's kind of all the same basic SEO principles that always existed, like have helpful content, have descriptive content, make sure like you are filling out your product descriptions, that you're putting alt text on all your images, that
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you
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have a blog that has like helpful educational content that actually ties back to your products and that you're regularly updating those things, that your site isn't stale. You're taking the time to like continuously improve, add more content. Yeah, it's kind of always the same basic principles that always existed. So that website, not website. That episode would still probably be really helpful for people.
- [21:05]
A
It would be. We're going to talk more SEO with our insiders, but I think that after talking and having to wrap up this episode now I think we need to continue our website series. So we're going to keep going and we'll see you next week. But if you have any specific questions about websites, we'd love to hear from you. And yes, we're also, you know, we post it for insiders. We reviewed a couple websites because people reached out and if you want us to look your website, send us a message.
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B
And if you're not an insider, we should tell. We, I think we never tell people like how to do it or what,
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A
how to become an insider. I've been linking more to our Patreon page. So success with jewelry is available on a Patreon page. Like I had someone message me and say they don't do Spotify, they don't have Apple, and they wanted to listen and I was like, go to our, our Patreon page because you can listen to all the episodes there and that's where you can sign up to be an insider. And insiders get extended episodes and we talk more. And for this series we've been doing checklists. We're also, Larissa and I are available. You can message us through the platform if you have questions or need help or we've been posting some extra content like website reviews, and we're always trying to do more for our insiders. So you can head to. I think you can just go to successwithjewelry.com and it'll redirect you, but you'll find all of the information there's. Yeah.
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B
And we'd love to have you there.
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A
We'd love to have you. And we're glad to answer any questions you have about it, too. All right. Did this series give you a clear picture of what to focus on and where to start when it comes to your website? Let us know. Visit successwithjori.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.