Other than creating new video, blogging is the best and most versatile method to create new content for your website.
Through blogging, you can demonstrate your expertise on topic, give a product review, provide a commentary on something you read online or in a magazine, talk about jewelry or fashion trends, create event write-ups that leave the reader envious that they missed the soiree, and so much more.
Since I've been blogging professionally now for 510 days perhaps it's time to share my own tips and tricks that keep me going, so you, the everyday average jeweler, can copy my methods, and success.
Admittedly, my success at blogging has a very limited reach since everything I write for jWAG is focused on the retail jeweler and I don't attract much attention outside our industry. But your success can be much further reaching because you have a wider audience--consumers.
I have to warn you, this is going to be a multi-part series again. I'll do my best to write them so each Daily Nugget can be self contained, but each will cover a different blogging issue.
In my experience, the only successful low-budget jewelry website is one that is somehow attached to a blog. High-budget jewelry websites are those with a monthly advertising budget of $3000 or more, in which case its your targeted ads that attract success, rather than your creative blog writing.
I've also noticed that jewelers willing to spend $3000+ with online advertising are unwilling to give credence to blogging. I don't understand this point of view since so many people have proven time and time again that blog writing really works. But they would rather spend that $3000 and see 4000 visitors to their website instantly (even if they don't buy) than spend $1600 per month paying a blog writer.
Are you one of those jewelers? I view this as old-school thinking whereby $X ad spending = Y customers. Of course those customers are usually met with a sales rep that makes the sale. You don't have sales reps online; you only have a website that is suppose to convince a customer that you are worth their money.
With paid online advertising about 79% of your monthly traffic turns off immediately when you stop spending that $3000. But every month you spend $1600 paying someone to blog for you will build organic traffic to your website, and over time, you will have 4000 visitors per month organically.
Just to keep the apples-to-apples comparison going, once you have 4000 organic visitors you could potentially fire that employee and save the $1600 per month for a few months and those 4000 visitors will not decline. This is money in the bank for you.
Better yet, those 4000 organic visitors acquired through your blogs will not need to talk to a sales rep because your blog functions as a soft-sell sales method.
Since Google's Penguin filter I've read some reports that you should create separate blogging website from your normal website. Some SEO guys are claiming that this method helps your link building, but I see the same link building value when done inside your site as off-site. The big benefit of an on-site blog is that you have many ways to further capture the reader's attention and lure them into your product catalog.
Hopefully this Daily Golden Nugget explains why blogging is important. Get to it!
