This is the Friday Flop Fix website review. The goal of this review is to examine the mistakes a random website is making and suggest ways to fix it. I do my best every week to take on the role of a typical internet savvy consumer as I search for a review candidate. I also use the Google Chrome browser set to incognito mode so my previous browsing history does not influence the search results I see.
For today's search, I used the phrase "jewelry stores Elgin, IL" and saw these results:
Over the last 6 months I've been writing a lot about the importance of associating all of your marketing channels together. Your website is the cornerstone of your marketing because that's where you can fully control the user experience, but social networks, offline ads, and online ads should now tie together to create a road of intriguing discovery for your customers.
While I've been following the ins and outs of exactly how to build that path of discovery, and explained it to you, I've not been following that path myself. Since July 27, 2010 I'v... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Back when jWAG was formed in 2010, the common mantra touted by many online marketers was that "the money is in the list." The list, at the time, was a reference to the number of people on your email list. Since then, we now have the ability to reach customers through many other list methods, including Facebook retargeting lists, Google AdWords remarketing lists, and even push notifications through custom apps that people download. So many online marketing opportunities exist now tha... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In yesterday's Nugget, I gave you 4 ways to prepare for ecommerce. Long before you get to the ecommerce state, you need to have a perfectly working website that reflects how your business operates and the customer service you provide. To help you achieve that today, I'm giving you 5 ways to improve your website.
Once upon a time, Facebook was the social network for college friends only. Then it was opened up to anyone to join. It was a free-for-all of friends keeping in touch without any special filtering getting in the way of seeing your friend's status updates.
When they let businesses join, there was a sudden surge of unwanted solicitations and plenty of users complaining that they were seeing too many business posts in their news feed. As is all things internet related, businesses viewed Facebook as t... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
I've often said that a website needs to provide customer service features that mimic the service that you offer in a store. Today, I'm going to specifically explain one of those feature you should strive for.
In-Store Customer Service
Think about the following scenarios for a moment.
Scenario 1: A customer is shopping in your store and tells your sales associate that they like the way you've recently remodeled the store.
Don't want to read? This week you can also watch the video recording of this review here!
This is the weekly #FridayFlopFix edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Every Friday, I search for a really bad website in a random town, and provide ideas for how to fix all of its flops.
This week when I searched Google for "jewelers Scottsbluff, NE" I saw these results:
Welcome to the Friday Website Review. In honor of Halloween, I went searching for a spooky or horror related city name in which to find a candidate jeweler to review. Sadly, populated places like Devil's Peek, Hells Corner, and Pumpkinville are nothing more than tourist traps in the middle of nowhere with nothing more than a general store.
I then tried a search for Haddonfield, Illinois, the city portrayed in the Halloween movie series. But as it turns out Haddonfield, Illinois is a fictiti... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In this edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back 4 years to August 9, 2011 to my topic of conversion rate optimization.
What's A Conversion?
A "conversion" refers to some type of customer interaction that results in the capture of the customer's identity, usually their email address. E-commerce sites also measure conversions according to the number of online sales they have. VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
While it's customary for people to take long holiday weekends off from work, your website is never closed. The first impression that your website makes is as important as that first greeting when a customer walks into your store.
This is my Friday Website Review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. I write these reviews to demonstrate live examples of both good and bad retail jewelry websites. I never know where these reviews will end up and I try to be as impartial as possible when writing them.
Your website's contact form is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because you can protect yourself from unwanted mass email spam by hiding your email address, but it's a curse because you still get unsolicited offers of all kinds.
The typical unsolicited emails can come from random jewelry vendors, especially those trying to offer you a new source for diamonds and gemstones. You'll also get a lot of unsolicited emails from people offering you different online marketing services.
Welcome to the Friday website review, where every week I randomly review the website of a local retail jewelry business somewhere in the US. The goal is to find something good, or bad, that we can all learn from and apply to our own business.
For this week's review, I'm heading over to Washington state and searching for "fine jewelry stores bellevue wa." When doing these searches, I always use the Google Chrome browser in incognito mode. This allows me to see non-personalized search results.
Perhaps one of the most heated website design debates I've read recently was about the use of CAPTCHA on website forms. You know what CAPTCHA is, right? It's that annoying string of characters or words you have to retype before you can submit a website form.
CAPTCHAs are used to prove that a real person is submitting the form on your website rather than a computer program. Spammers use automated programs to send solicitations through your website forms. The reason behind this Nugget in the first place is a recent flurry of s... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
After writing yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget about the importance of contact forms on your website, I think I should dive a little deeper into an idea on how you can use your website's contact form. You will probably need a web programmer to set up the features I'm suggesting today.
I'm giving you the best contact us form idea that I've see work over the years.
My favorite and perhaps the most universal feature is a form field for a registration code. Here are some ways to give out the registration code: 1. Put a code on your direct mail. 2. Put a code on your newspaper ad/insert. 3. Include the code in a radio ad.
Consumers with the code would go to your website and enter it on your Contact Us page. Naturally you need to tell them that they have to do this, and you will need to ethically bribe them to ta... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Above all else, your website needs a way for someone to contact you. I'm surprised sometimes how difficult some jewelers make it to find a simple contact page or a phone number. It seems silly, but just last week I was reviewing a website that had an absurdly tiny link to the contact page hidden in the footer of the website.
I'd like to detail some of the more important things I've learned about a website's "Contact Us" page.
Most important is to have it easy to find. Don't tuck it away in the footer of your website and nowhere else. Sure, the footer is still a good place, but my previous testing always showed that 11% of all website visitors would click on it when you put the link prominently in the top right corner of your website. In other words, put it in the website's header.
Ask someone for their cell phone number and they immediately think you will send them spam text messages.
Ask someone for their email address and they immediately think you will waste their time and send spam emails.
The internet gets clogged with spam emails every day. We directly track and block about 75% of email traffic every day because it's all spam.
Google has a dedicated department to fight "Web Spam" and all things that cause any type of digital interaction that will annoy people. This team helps to control the built in filters that block troublesome websites.
One of the things they watch out for are websites that plainly show email addresses. Freely posting your email address as bob@jewelrystore.com will invite spam. Malicious email com... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
The anatomy of a website is extremely diverse. Some websites have pages of information, some have product catalogs, some have photo galleries. Even if you are using the same content management system as someone else, no 2 websites will ever be alike.
Websites are just like people: some tall, some short, some fat, some thin, some wear lots of color while others are dressed in plain, white clothes... figuratively speaking. Different parts of a website are used for different reasons too, just like your feet help you walk, your hands allow you to write and type, and your eyes let you read.
You probably never consciously think about it but your feet, hands, and eyes serve you differently. Would you attempt to walk or run using your hands in everyday life?
Consider for a moment that there are some common structures to... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
"...articles are easy to follow and seem to have information one can use right away." -Ann, Gallery 4, Hamden CT
"...serious kudos to you. We love your straight talk, pertinent information and plain language. I don't know how many industries have something of jWAG's caliber available, but I learn from the emails every day. Really, really nice work, and very appreciated." -Cheryl Herrick, Global Pathways Jewelry
Don't want to read? This week you can also watch the video recording of this review 
