If you're looking to open a new jewelry store in a city with little competition then take a serious look at Walla Walla, WA! I just did my typical "jewelry stores walla walla, wa" search and found only 2, maybe 3 jewelers in that city. The first 2 jewelers, Martin's and Falkenbergs, have websites, but the 3rd only has a Google+ listing.Martin's Jewelers website is http://www.martinswallawalla.com/ and Falkenbergs Jewelers website is http://falkenbergs.com/. It looks like Falkenbergs gave up their website in November 2008 and the Martin's website was last updated in May 2008 although the design looks like it's from 1998.
Falkenbergs has a Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Falkenbergs-Jewelers/438177675181
but they hardly update it. Meanwhile Martin's didn't bother with Facebook at all.
Both jewelers have been in business for more than 100 years and it seems like they are taking an antiquated attitude toward the internet. Sadly it looks like any young upstart that understands marketing could swoop in and put both of these guys out of business without them knowing what hit them.
Actually, the Martin's website does have the makings of something decent. They have all the cornerstone pieces in place to build upon. Let's look at it together here: http://www.martinswallawalla.com
Usability:
* This site is amazingly fast! Their design is very simple and the code is elegant. They're actually using modern HTML programming even though the website look like it's from the late 90's.
* Take notice of the dropdown menu they are using at the top. It's not glamorous, and it works well and very fast without any fancy fading or animation effect.
* I'm not very happy with the size of the text or designer logos used throughout the site. Both could be larger.
What I Didn't Like About the Site:
* It's a small 18 page site that introduces a lot of different service and products that they provide, but every page leaves me wanting more.
* There are 6 pages on their site that have offsite links to jewelry vendors. Each of these links leads customers away and they could be lost. Instead of linking to a vendor's site you should always include a vendor detail page on your own website. Another problem I found is that a few of those links now point to dead websites.
What I Liked About the Site:
* Although the content on the site is thin, they do have a well rounded presentation. They have the 4C's of diamonds, store history, and pages that mention the designer lines they carry.
* Someone put some thought into the page file names. They appear rather simple but this works I their favor for SEO.
Incorrect SEO Issues:
* The main headings on every page are using the Header 3 HTML tag (h3) instead of h1. When you use the h1 tag you are telling Google that that is the most important word or phrase on the page.
* All pages of the site have the store name as part of the Page Title. The footer of all their pages includes their store address but not the store name. If they add their store name to the footer, they can safely remove their store name from the Page Titles. This will help their SEO greatly.
* None of the pages of the site have a Meta Description. With only 18 pages it should be easy to spend an afternoon to write 150 character descriptions of each page.
That's it for this week's basic review.
FTC Notice: I randomly choose this website and won't be telling the retailer jeweler that I'm doing a review. Unless someone else tells them, they will only find out about this review if they examine their Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. I'm not doing this to solicit business from them, but rather as an educational exercise for everyone. This review is completely impartial and all my comments are listed in the order that I discovered them.
