Welcome to my weekly Flop Fix website review. I dedicate my Friday Golden Nugget posts to reviews of randomly chosen jewelry websites. The review candidates are randomly chosen through a Google Chrome incognito search for jewelers.
This week, I searched Google for "jewelers Christian County, KY" and was given these results:
This week, I'm choosing J. Schrecker Jewelry and their website http://www.jschreckerjewelry.com.
First Impressions
This is what the home page looked like when I first visited:
(click to enlarge)
At the time of this writing, the copyright on the bottom left website said (c) 2013. I could not help but wonder if the website hadn't been updated in 3 years, or if they flopped by not updating that date in 3 years. The simple fix is to change that date to 2016, or better yet, have the website programmer set it up so it always shows the current year.
The design certainly looks more than three years old. A quick look at the WaybackMachine at web.archive.org showed me that this design was implemented in 2011. Website designs should be refreshed every 18 months at most, maybe even sooner now.
Although their design is old, their URL structure is working in their favor in the SERP. Their simple URLs are triggering the sitelinks you see here:
Usually Google creates sitelinks when the URL, page title, and the H1 tag on the page are similar. These are important SEO elements that should be transferred to their new website... assuming they will make a new website some time soon.
A lot of small businesses don't take the time, or have the money, to hire an SEO specialist to analyze their website before a redesign, which is unfortunate because that invariably leads to a drop in search engine ranking for several months after a new site is launched. That drop in ranking then leads to a drop in sales and a loss of profits that's greater than the cost of hiring the SEO specialist in the first place.
Thinking about redesigning your website? Don't create your own flop; make sure you do an SEO analysis first.
Off-Site Links
As shown above, the Catherine Ryder Bridal page is listed as one of the sitelinks in the Google SERP. This is what the Catherine Ryder page looked like:
I would call this a simple designer line page with a brief description of the designer. Someone searching for Catherine Ryder in the Hopkinsville, Kentucky area would probably find this page in the search results. This strategy is good, and it works.
In addition to designer line page, I'd like to see an online catalog filled with Catherine Ryder designs. There could be a link on the designer line page to that catalog page. However, J. Schrecker doesn't have any Catherine Ryder products on their website; instead, they link to the Catherine Ryder website... Except the link is broken, as you see here:
I assume the Catherine Ryder website was http://catherineryderdesigns.com/ back in 2011 when J. Schrecker put their website together. As of this writing the new website address is http://catherineryder.com/.
J. Schrecker should be reviewing their web pages regularly to watch out for these types of broken links. It might sound simple, but few website owners will click through their website monthly just to make sure all their off-sitelinks work.
Catherine Ryder isn't the only off-site link flop I found. I also found broken links on the Ziva Jewels and Eleganza pages.
Overall Thoughts
This website is mostly just a set of designer line types pages like the Catherine Ryder one shown above. They do not have a product catalog, which they should in today's world. Even if you don't sell from an online catalog, it helps potential customers understand what you sell and what you have in stock.
Additionally, even though this site is old, it has some very important SEO value with those sitelinks. They should perform a full SEO audit before a redesign so they know what SEO tactics to carry forward to a newly redesigned site.
That's it for this week; I'll see you next time...
FTC Notice: I randomly choose this website and won't be telling the retailer jeweler that I'm giving them these flop fix ideas. Unless someone else tells them, they will only find out about this Nugget if they use Google Alerts or examine their Google Analytics and Google Search Console. I'm not doing this to solicit business from them, but rather as an educational exercise for everyone. This #FridayFlopFix is completely impartial and all my comments are based on previous experience in my website design and marketing agency, and from my personal research data.
