comment on www.gemjewelryvalue.com

[vorapolpanya]

hello there,
my jewelry site, http://www.gemjewelryvaule.com is online about 4 months. the page rank is 4, have only 6 backlinks in google and total baclink around 50 backlinks from other search engines. so our raking is somewhat mediocre.

we advertised on Google, Overture and Shopping.com. we got about 1,200 uniuqe visitors /week from various source. The log files tell us that the potential customers are only 50% which is about 600 uniuqe vistior/week.

the bad side is we got NO sales, Zero sales. I really need any inputs about my site. what's wrong ? what's make our site not convert?

Please kindly provide us some inputs.
best regards
jim

[GuyFromChicago]

You have a typo in the link you posted...should be:

http://www.gemjewelryvalue.com

While I'm not an expert, I do have a couple thoughts/questions.

First, I would guess that jewelry in general, unless you have great brand recognition, is a tough on-line sell. It’s pricey, and people tend to get all touchy-feely when it come to spending a couple hundred, or thousand bucks on a piece of jewelry. Have you considered joining the BBB or something similar to add some credibility to your site?

I also noticed “Product that is returned for reasons other than damage/defective or an error from gemjewelryvalue.com, is subject to a 15% restocking fee.” If I spent $2,000 on a ring and my lady didn’t like I would be pretty upset about a $300 restocking fee…enough so that just the potential of paying that fee would steer me clear of ordering from you.

Also, where is your traffic coming from – what key words are your visitors using to find you? You can get a ton of traffic, but if it’s not qualified traffic you won’t convert.

I think the site itself is very well done.

[vorapolpanya]

sorry for the typo...mysite : http://www.gemjewelryvalue.com

thank you very much fro the input. Really appreciated.
it's very uselful comment.:-)

I will bring up the business side to the meeting especially restocking fee.
You are right, the nature of this business is not a need-2-buy basis. We just hope our competitive pricing + over $1,000 styles/selection , will lead to some sales.

regarding to traffics, maily, it comes from shopping.com / overture , which by far the most relevant/targeted traffics from searching. Our own ranking in major search engines are picking up but not effective yet. we only rely on shoppingc.om/oveture.com. right now, we are losing money since there is no conversion. Perhaps we need to stop the campaign soon.


any suggestions regarding to traffics/SEO firm and other marketing strategy + business sides are highly apprecitaed.

best regards,
jim

[vorapolpanya]

the keywords we are targeting is from "overture keyword suggestion tool" such as sapphire ring, ruby ring..and more. they seem to be the msot relevent to our merchandise. Also, the numbers of search / month is higher than other phrases such as "cheap blue sahppire".

I would assume that the high numbers of searching would lead to the more conversion at this early stage. this can be wrong.

any expert/experience jewelry site has any input??


regards
jim

[compar]

Here are a couple of thoughts. Somehow the site doesn't look and feel like a Jewelry store. It is a nice clean site but does not get across the luxury and glamour of a high quality Jewelry store.

I also think that your images are too small, even the blown up images. Have a look at this web site http://www.tiffany.com/.

To over come the lack of being able to touch and feel the jewelry, have you considered 3D rendering of the images. If you could show a large image and slowly rotate it in 3D it might be far more attractive.

[GuyFromChicago]

I’ve done some Adwords campaigns and found that using exact matching, and including the word “buy” or “order” in front of the phrase helps conversion tremendously.

You’ll definitely take a hit in traffic, but you’ll weed out some of the window shoppers too. I’ll take less traffic and higher conversions any day.

Of course take into consideration the design comments in this post as well – visitors need to feel comfortable with your site once they get there.

As a side note, jewelry and its appropriate key words were still relatively inexpensive through the Adwords campaign a couple weeks ago. I haven’t checked in a couple weeks, but I doubt there’s been a big shift.

[vorapolpanya]

thank you very much. I appreciated all inputs.
i am working on it.

Best Regards
jim

[Foxy]

I concur with the others - you should be giving more imagery across in terms of the "feel" of the site in order to give the feeling of luxury.

The refund policy is most definitely wrong - may I be so bold as to suggest a no fee refund?

The problem on site is the word structure is, title "Buy sapphire pendant...." Heading " " and text "login...."

Whereas it should ideally be the same keyword phrase - so perhaps you could use Shawns Find keyword tool or Wordtracker [Shawn has it listed] to find the appropriate keywords and proceed from there

Use Mcdars new tool [thanks Compar] to look at the opposition

http://www.mcdar.net/KeywordTool/keywordtool.asp

I did it using your url and Sapphire Ring and there are a few there without too much support linkwise or for that matter anyotherelsewise which with a little basic SEO youshould trounce :)

[ping]

nice site, i like the fact that the front page comes with random products...howerver, the SEO needs an improvement, i found that you do not come close at all for first 3 pages in SERP.

good luck
i like it in overall, the site is well done

[Foxy]

Ping just commented and so I was reminded of this appraisal

You still have "buy sapphire pendant..." in your title!!

It gets 8 visitors/day

BUT

blue sapphire pendant gets 46
sapphire pendants 36
white sapphire pendant 25
titanic sapphire heart pendant 20
sapphire pendant 18
pink sapphire pendants 12
buy sapphire pendant 8

in that order - so make your own mind up

Do you want 46 customers for free or 8?

Your image text is the first text that the robot sees [which is not good] and is

<a Href="default.asp"><img alt="GemJewelryValue features sapphire ring, ruby ring and gemstone jewelry with great savings" border="0" src="Images/Logo.gif"

but it should be something like

<H1>Blue Sapphire Pendant</H1> and other jewellery from <a Href="default.asp"><img alt="Blue Sapphire Pendant" border="0" src="http://www.gemjewelryvalue.com/Images/Logo.gif"</a>

On another point, of marketing, you are not offering a "come on" eg a loss leader or "buy one get one free" or "limited offer" or...

You have to push your boat out! ;)

[Doogles]

Your site is very nicely designed, but could use many more photos and more detailed descriptions. Your current descriptions describe but they do not sell.


I don't get a strong sense of trust or customer service from your site. Can I order by phone? A 1-800 number can help a lot. Most site owners I work with do 50% of their sales via the 1-800 number posted on their Web sites. The phone helps build trust and, I believe, trust and accessibility are key in your business.

I think you are in a tough business with way too much competition. Be patient and sell through other channels. It can take many months to build quality traffic and start getting sales. For many successful retailers, the Web is just another distribution channel, not their sole, or even major, source of business.

[Doogles]

I will send you some more ideas and a link to a good article, as soon as I accumulated enough posts on this board to include the article link.

[Doogles]

This post should do it, Jim. Puts me up from a raw newbie on this board.

[Doogles]

Vorapolpanya,
I came across this Web article that goes into some detail about how a guy like yourself who has built up a decent jewelry business on the Web. Maybe his experience can help you. I found the article at :http://www.tradeshop.com/master/profile2.html

It has nothing to do with me or my Web business. Just thought it would interest you.

[photo heather]

I think you should make the 1st page something that evokes a feeling. The pictures should be before the text, in my opinion. Also, why does anyone want to buy this stuff? They need a reason. Maybe the first page should be a well designed but simple navigation of the site before you post pictures of the products. Check out www.redenvelope.com. It has a great layout and gives you ideas to buy stuff for occasions you never knew existed!

[Doogles]

I surfed your photo site and GIRL you are in a class by yourself! Outstanding wedding photography -- and I know photography. Well done! I'd like to get some signed prints of your best work, so PM me with details.

[PRBot.Com]

I get a "page cannot be displayed" error.

Max

[Doogles]

I get a "page cannot be displayed" error.

Max
Where, Max? What URL?

[Doogles]

Max,
I guess you mean Jim's site at http://www.gemjewelryvaule.com (http://www.gemjewelryvaule.com/)

Trouble is that good ole Jim typo'd his URL which should be: http://www.gemjewelryvalue.com (http://www.gemjewelryvalue.com/) Give that a click. It should work, but it is powerfully slooowww to load and I'm on an Ultra ADSL line. That slowness might be a factor in Jim's lack of traffic.

Check your taffic stats, Jim and see how many incompletes or home page visits only you are getting. Also look for excessive 404s.

While on the topic of URLs and all, one of the first things I do is make sure a client registers the right domain (or domains) before publishing a Web site.
gemjewelryvalue doesn't do it for me or for most search engines.

Pump "gemjewelryvalue" OR "gem jewelry value" into Overture and you get back zero, zip, de nada. Thiis not a hot keyword domain, so someone got you off to a bad start. Google doesn't much like it either.

Put "jewelry stores" into Overture and you see 72,181 hits per DAY. So, if you had been my client, Jim, I would have launched your site at a jewelry store domain, like jewelry-stores.biz or jewelry-stores.org. The right domain makes a HUGE difference in traffic.

[Doogles]

Jim
PM me if you want a jewelry keyword domain that works. I've got a bunch of them.

[rhinoplayer]

I think the site needs a 'emotional touch'.

Also, its hard to find your way around. If I wanted to buy my wife a diamond ring and landed on your site, I would click rings on the left and then be stuck searching 92 pages with 6 rings per page with no chance to select only diamond or only saphire rings at that point. I see from the home page that there are better ways to sort but personally....I would give up when I arrived at the rings page (and even then I might not scroll down to see that there is a 'next' button and 91 addt'l pages).

Just some ideas.. good luck! I know its competitive.

[2umbrellas]

We are Specializes in Tanzanite Jewelry, We carry a wide range of Jewelry like Rings, Earrings, and Pendants in gold & Sterling Silver studded with Diamond, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Amethyst, Aquamarine, Topaz, Citrine, Garnet, Opal, Peridot, Tanzanite, Zirconia. HUGE selection Great prices.

If you are a trader looking to stock up for the year-end shopping season, pick your selections right away, as the stocks are very limited.

http://www.2umbrellas.com

[marketjunction]

Your ad copy is not written well. Effectiveness aside, there are grammar errors.

For example, you open up with:
our online store for Gem & Jewelry with saving!!

What does that mean?

The front page has a couple broken images.

The website does nothing to build trust and establish professionalism. It basically says "Hi, we sell stuff. You buy now."

It needs work, and the results to date show this. Addressing these issue should go a long way to improving your sales potential.

Good Luck.

[Rod]

Good point made by marketjunction--always one to spot gramaticals. But I have another thought. Using the US spelling for jewelry cuts out a huge bunch of searchers who would be looking for 'jewellery". This is how the word is spellled in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and other countries that use English spellings. A big market to miss out on. Why not have a page that will get indexed for 'jewellery'.?

[compar]

Good point made by marketjunction--always one to spot gramaticals. But I have another thought. Using the US spelling for jewelry cuts out a huge bunch of searchers who would be looking for 'jewellery". This is how the word is spellled in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and other countries that use English spellings. A big market to miss out on. Why not have a page that will get indexed for 'jewellery'.?
I optimized a Canadian Jewelry/Jewellery site once and we wrote an entire paragraph about the two acceptable spellings and then occasionally in the rest of the site would say " jewelry or jewellery whichever you prefer".