Reader's Favorite Nuggets
Recent Hits All Time Matt's Favorites
Recent Reader's Favorites

Our Nugget List
Filter Gold Nuggets By Tag: " Business"
Friday, September 01, 2017

Ecommerce is More than Selling; It's Retail Business Evolution

by
Ecommerce is More than Selling; Its Retail Business Evolution daily-golden-nugget-1572-39
Twenty-five years ago, no one understood how the internet would trigger an evolutionary change in how almost every business in the world operates. Today, most businesses have some type of website to represent themselves online, and even the companies without websites have some type of online presence in business directories like Yelp and Google Maps.

It seems like every business industry has figured out how to use the internet to improve the efficiency of their business and their c...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/01/2017 11:27:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 25, 2017

Facebook Algorithm Cleans Up The News Feed Spam

by
Facebook Algorithm Cleans Up The News Feed Spam daily-golden-nugget-1571-12
Way back on April 10, 2017, Facebook announced that they'd be cleaning up the News Feed to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time.

Their goal was to cut back on the amount of spammy content that is published by Pages that deliberately try to game the Facebook algorithm. Their algorithm measures the popularity of a post by the number of likes, comments, and shares it gets an...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/25/2017 09:42:13 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 18, 2017

How To Handle and Learn From Your Customer Reviews

by
How To Handle and Learn From Your Customer Reviews daily-golden-nugget-1570-14

Have you Googled yourself lately?

Your online reputation is now part of your marketing. The results that people see in search help formulate the first impression that someone has of your business and whether or not they will purchase from you.

Managing your online reputation through reviews that appear on Facebook, Google Reviews, and Yelp is vital for your future business health. Savvy consumers are referring to what other people say in these online reviews and other consumer generated co...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/18/2017 09:49:30 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 14, 2017

Ecommerce Inventory: The Never Ending Update Saga

by
Ecommerce Inventory: The Never Ending Update Saga daily-golden-nugget-1565-84
I was in New York City over the Independence Day weekend helping someone troubleshoot a sound and mixing board problem for a friend of mine. They recently bought a new sound board that was causing a hum when connected to the older equipment.

This little challenge was a throwback to my pre-2003 days when I volunteered as a sound and lighting engineer for community theatre productions. I knew exactly what the problem was and what was needed to solve it. I needed something called a "ground loop isolator," ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/14/2017 11:56:10 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 07, 2017

How Scammers Are Using Social Engineering To Target The Jewelry Industry

by
How Scammers Are Using Social Engineering To Target The Jewelry Industry daily-golden-nugget-1564-71
On June 23, 2017, the Jewelers' Security Alliance issued a special alert outlining a widespread scam that's been recently targeted at the jewelry industry. In the security alert, which you can read here, the JSA explains that scammers are profiling retailers and manufacturers in order to pull off the reported telephone scams.

According to the JSA...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/07/2017 07:49:36 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 23, 2017

Building A Business Directory Website: A brief case study

by
Building A Business Directory Website: A brief case study daily-golden-nugget-1562-6
I recently had a few meetings with a French tourism company that needed help figuring out how to build traffic to their website. Their website wasn't anything special; honestly, it was just another directory website. Directory websites are a very common business model that range from large sites like CitySearch.com to local Chamber of Commerce websites. Niche focused directory websites can usually better serve their community than the larger sites.

Directory websites make money either by p...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 06/23/2017 06:21:22 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 16, 2017

The Ecommerce Business Plan

by
The Ecommerce Business Plan daily-golden-nugget-1561-22
No one ever wants to write a business plan for their new business or new business venture. Most people feel that a business plan is especially needed when you want to raise startup capital, which while true, a business plan helps you create focus.

Many business owners have great ideas that they feel they can accomplish without writing the ideas down on paper. I started my first business in 1994 with just vague ideas and didn't write my first plan until 2 years later after suffering several slow starts.

Why Bother With A Business Plan? VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET



AT: 06/16/2017 11:08:15 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 09, 2017

Embrace Change to Prevent Business Stagnation

by
Embrace Change to Prevent Business Stagnation daily-golden-nugget-1560-19
Every time internet technology changes, there is a chance that consumer expectations will change along with it. I often say that expectations change every time someone upgrades their smartphone. Unlike a desktop computer that we hold on to for 4 or 5 years, we each have the option to upgrade our smartphones at least every 24 months. The recent smartphone upgrade I did gave me faster processing speed, which means my apps, camera, and video editing run faster, but my internet speed is still controlled by my carrier.
...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 06/09/2017 09:30:33 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 19, 2017

Watch, Learn, Change, Adapt, or Just Die

by
Watch, Learn, Change, Adapt, or Just Die daily-golden-nugget-1557-54
Many small businesses, not just retail jewelers, are caught in a tight monthly financial cycle. Those businesses teeter on financial ruin because the only thing needed to send them over the edge is a bad week of sales, unexpected loss of the star salesperson, tax penalties, medical bills, or the wrong choices of inventory. Each of these could be an unrecoverable setback.

According to the Jewelers Board of Trade, there was a total of VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/19/2017 08:03:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 12, 2017

The Ever Changing Reality Of Facebook

by
The Ever Changing Reality Of Facebook daily-golden-nugget-1556-43For several years and through a lot of tough competition, Facebook has managed to maintain its status as the most popular social media network, although there seems to be an evolutionary shift of people away from Facebook and on to other networks like Instagram and Snapchat. Some organizations, groups, and communities are using Facebook's Group feature to create a community messaging board, while other organizations have migrated to networks like Telegram. For the moment, Facebook is still the network to use, but Instagram is growing quick...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/12/2017 09:21:58 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 14, 2017

6 Most Frequently Broken Or Missing Website Features

by
6 Most Frequently Broken Or Missing Website Features daily-golden-nugget-1552-28
Website review and analysis are part of my everyday job. I've been actively analyzing and making suggestions on improving traffic acquisition, user flow, SEO, and usability for several years. I've shared this analysis process and the tips for improvement in my writings for the last few years to provide an insight into how you could do it yourself.

Today, I'll share 6 of the most frequently broken or missing website features that I have seen over and over again, and provide some suggestions for maki...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/14/2017 09:35:50 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, March 17, 2017

Photos Now Appear In Google Local Pack Results

by
Photos Now Appear In Google Local Pack Results daily-golden-nugget-1548-30
Google made a significant change in the search results page layout over the last 7 days that removes the powerful advantage that they'd bestowed upon local businesses for about 10 years. Today, I'll dive into the details of those changes.

A Little Background


Google created their original Local Business database in the early 2000s and has morphed it through many permutations with names like Places, Maps, and Local. Today, they call it "Google My Business" or just GMB for short. Having your business...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/17/2017 11:43:44 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, February 10, 2017

A Review Of Online Reviews

by
A Review Of Online Reviews daily-golden-nugget-1543-16
Online referrals are starting to make an impact on local businesses, but not in the way we all expected them to. A few years ago, the buzz within the online marketing community was that social networks would become a referral engine for people to ask advice through. Facebook even attempted to create a new type of social search engine to capture that referral service. Google also struggled with the idea that the internet would become a big referral engine, and they tried to capture a piece of it through Google+.

While Facebook and Google were comp...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/10/2017 12:26:28 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, February 03, 2017

McGuire's Jewelers Website Review

by
McGuires Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1542-1
In honor of the jewelry shows in Tucson, Arizona this week, I decided to search for a website review candidate in that area. I began my search with the phrase "jewelry stores tucson az" and saw these results on Google:

McGuires Jewelers Website Review 1542-jewelry-stores-tucson-az-19

The goal of these weekly reviews is to poi...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/03/2017 12:17:51 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 18, 2016

Franzetti Jewelers Website Re-Review

by
Franzetti Jewelers Website Re-Review daily-golden-nugget-1531-88
In this week's website review, I'm going back to re-review the first website I ever wrote about way back in April 2013. At the time, I chose Franzetti Jewelers with the website http://www.franzettijewelers.com/. You can read the old review from April 19, 2013 here.

My review process was pretty unsophisticated 3.5 years ago. It took a while for me to realize that I should be ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/18/2016 01:00:33 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 09, 2016

Abraxas Jewelers Needs A Lot Of Online Help

by
Abraxas Jewelers Needs A Lot Of Online Help daily-golden-nugget-1521-65
The internet of things (IoT) now connects so much of daily life it's hard to remember what things were like 23 years ago when it was just in its infancy. New internet connected devices are announced every day that will undoubtedly shape our futures of personal life and how we reach customers and conduct business. Although there are plenty of new tech toys announced every week, it's the smartphone which has changed how we manage our daily lives.

With all these changes happening in the world around us, it's hard to im...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/09/2016 12:13:39 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 02, 2016

Van Atkins Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Website Review

by
Van Atkins Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1520-30
Can you learn from someone else's mistakes? That's exactly what I hope you'll get out of this Friday Flop Fix. This week, I'm venturing over to Tupelo, MS in search of a retail jeweler that might be making a mistake with their online presence.

This is the result I saw when searching for "jewelers tupelo ms" in Google:

Van Atkins Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review 1520-jewelers-tupelo-ms-serp-30VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/02/2016 06:56:26 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 19, 2016

Pascale Jewelers SERP Review

by
Pascale Jewelers SERP Review daily-golden-nugget-1518-45
I find it interesting that, in this world of shopping malls and big box stores, there are still times when people automatically think of a specialty store for a specific need. Local retail jewelers are specialty stores because they focus on a single product category, but at the rate that JBT reports jewelers going out of business, it seems like the small local retail...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/19/2016 01:53:35 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 22, 2016

Cairo GA SERP Review

by
Cairo GA SERP Review daily-golden-nugget-1514-80
Welcome to a somewhat unusual Friday review. Every Friday, I usually look for a website that's a bit of a fixer-upper and I suggest how to make it better. This week, as usual, I opened my Google Chrome browser in incognito mode and ran a search for "jewelry stores in Cairo GA."

There are certain search phrases that trigger specific search results formats, and normally when you search for a "jewelers in _____" or "jewelry stores in ____" Google activates the local results version of the SERP, but today it didn't.

Instead, this is what I saw:

VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/22/2016 12:28:14 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 10, 2016

Murphy's Mountain Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Website Review

by
Murphys Mountain Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1508-9
In this week's website review, I'm heading over to Laramie, WY in search of a good jewelry store. My hope, like most savvy internet users today, is that I'll find a good jeweler based on the information they have on their website. If the website I find happens to be a total flop, well, then I'll give some suggestions to fix it.

I write these website reviews every Friday to demonstrate how to apply new SEO techniques, online usability, and content building to pre-existing websites that need help. ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 06/10/2016 11:15:22 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 13, 2016

Walter's Jewelry #FridayFlopFix Website Review

by
Walters Jewelry FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1504-61
This is my weekly website review where I search for a retail jeweler at random through Google and pick apart what they are doing online. I try to uncover the flops that are being made so I can suggest the fixes needed to improve what they are doing.

This week, I started my Google search with the phrase "jewelers Brookline, MA" and quickly found myself heading down a rabbit hole after viewing these results:

Walters Jewelry FridayFl...<br />
							<span class=VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/13/2016 12:30:51 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 22, 2016

Google Maps Drives Customers to Your door... Unless Your Account Has Been Suspended!

by
Google Maps Drives Customers to Your door... Unless Your Account Has Been Suspended! daily-golden-nugget-1500-58
It's time to take a drink, or maybe 15 drinks! The official jWAG drinking game is to take a drink every time I mention Google Maps. Why? Because the very first Golden Nugget I wrote was about Google Maps and it's been one of the most common topics I've written about since I started writing these Golden Nuggets on July 27, 2010. I've been writing special edition version of the Golden Nugget every 100 since. Today is my 1500th Golden Nugget....
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/22/2016 11:58:08 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, April 21, 2016

Transfer Ownership of Google My Business From Employee To Store Owner #TBT

by
Transfer Ownership of Google My Business From Employee To Store Owner TBT daily-golden-nugget-1499-61
Last weekend, I received a frantic phone call from a store owner that needed to fire an employee, but the employee was in control of all their Google accounts. The store's Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Google Search Console, and Google My Business accounts were all created by an employee years ago, and the store owner never insisted that those accounts be transferred into her name. It's a sticky situation now that should have been avoided from the beginning. VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/21/2016 12:21:59 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Hellberg's Jewelers Website Review

by
Hellbergs Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1498-2
Every week, usually on Friday, I write a website review. This week, I'm publishing my review a couple days early because I have something special planned for Friday. The goal of my website reviews is to dissect the online efforts for a random local retail jeweler. I don't bother reviewing the websites for chain stores because I want to illustrate how a local jeweler can improve a similar site like their own.

I find my website candidates by searching Google using the Chrome browser set to incognito mode. Incognito mode is good to use whe...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/20/2016 12:16:41 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, April 14, 2016

Passing The Family Business On To The Next Generation #TBT

by
Passing The Family Business On To The Next Generation TBT daily-golden-nugget-1494-84
As a coach and a mentor, I'm often asked a variety of unexpected questions. Over the last week, I was working with another client to help them plan for their retirement. Their retirement is many years away, but right now, they needed some help planning their future profits and if they should sell the business or if their children will take it over.

Their children are in their early 20s and haven't committed to working in the store. Both children finished their non-jewelry college educa...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/14/2016 07:39:44 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Don't Apologize For The Delay Between Blog Posts

by
Dont Apologize For The Delay Between Blog Posts daily-golden-nugget-1492-84
Stop apologizing for not updating your blog! That's it! Just stop it!

Throughout my entire career writing these Golden Nuggets, I have explained over and over again how important it is to have an active blog on your website. The basic goal of your blog is to provide good information to customers who want to know more about a topic.

The blog on your website is a good place to publish information that doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the pages on your site. Most webmasters spend a lot of time tw...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/12/2016 06:53:01 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 01, 2016

Stonecraft Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Review

by
Stonecraft Jewelers FridayFlopFix Review daily-golden-nugget-1485-19
This is the #FridayFlopFix edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Each week, I find a random retail jewelry stores and review their website in hopes that we'll be able to learn something from the process. I call this a "Flop Fix" because I specifically look for websites that are making mistakes, i.e. flops, so I can suggest fixes.

Here's the search results I saw this week when I searched Google for "jewelry stores Elko, NV":

VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/01/2016 12:38:36 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 28, 2016

Using Your Smartphone To Improve How You Engage With Customers Socially

by
Using Your Smartphone To Improve How You Engage With Customers Socially daily-golden-nugget-1481-17
Your success on social media is related to the amount of time you spend engaging with your customers. I like to think of social media as the online version of a business networking event. Plenty of people attend business networking events with grand notions of meeting new business partners only to get there and stand on the sidelines, or quietly sit at a table without working the room.

At some local networking events, you might have the opportunity to hand out ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/28/2016 07:32:49 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Should I Deactivate My Website When Taking A Hiatus From Working?

by
Should I Deactivate My Website When Taking A Hiatus From Working? daily-golden-nugget-1477-20
Within the jewelry industry, I often hear about jewelry designers who take a break and put their business on hold while they reconsider their artistic direction or go back to school for additional training. Although it might seem like a simple idea to put a business on hold, how you present yourself online during your hiatus could have positive or negative ramifications on your future livelihood.

I've spoken to many jewelry designers who had a rough start with their busines...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/22/2016 12:38:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 21, 2016

Social Media is The Glue Holding The Customer Life Cycle Together

by
Social Media is The Glue Holding The Customer Life Cycle Together daily-golden-nugget-1476-81
Social media is required for business--all businesses. It ties all your other advertising together: every ad you place in your local community, whether it's on TV, radio, on billboards, in all of your direct mail, for newspaper ads, or everything else you do on other social networks. Social media ties all your marketing together in such a way to support your customer life cycle.

Customer Life Cycle


There are specific steps that every customer must travel throug...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/21/2016 06:46:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 07, 2016

Facebook Messages: Your New Customer Service Channel

by
Facebook Messages: Your New Customer Service Channel daily-golden-nugget-1466-20
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


AT: 03/07/2016 01:27:50 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, February 19, 2016

Tallmon's Jewelry #FridayFlopFix Website Review

by
Tallmons Jewelry FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1455-71Don'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:

VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/19/2016 08:48:32 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Left Unchecked, Comments On Your Facebook Ad Will Kill Its Effectiveness

by
Left Unchecked, Comments On Your Facebook Ad Will Kill Its Effectiveness daily-golden-nugget-1453-55
Planning the perfect Facebook ad is quite time consuming. Some ads, like Valentine's Day promotions, are only good for a few weeks, while others could be good for quite a long time. You could boost a regular post VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/17/2016 01:38:21 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, February 01, 2016

Top 10 Daily Golden Nuggets from 2015 According to Google Analytics

by
Top 10 Daily Golden Nuggets from 2015 According to Google Analytics daily-golden-nugget-1441-60
Today I'm stepping back into 2015 to review the top 10 Daily Golden Nugget posts according to my Google Analytics account. Take a quick look to see if you remember them, and if you were able to put any of this information to use:

EVM Chip Cards


1. U.S. Retailers Must Install EMV Chip Card Terminals at Point-of-Sale by...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/01/2016 01:04:23 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, January 15, 2016

Goodman's Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Review

by
Goodmans Jewelers FridayFlopFix Review daily-golden-nugget-1430-87
During my internet travels over the last few days, I came across the website for Goodman's Jewelers in Madison, WI. It caught my attention and I immediately decided to use it for today's #FridayFlopFix review. I hope to make a few suggestions that will help them improve how they use their site, and give you a few ideas on what to avoid on your own site. Let's dig in...

The website I'm looking at today is Goodman's Jewelers at:
http://www.goodmansjewelers.com/...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 01/15/2016 01:21:44 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, January 04, 2016

Website Session Stats from the 2015 Holiday Season

by
Website Session Stats from the 2015 Holiday Season daily-golden-nugget-1421A-0
With the 2015 Holiday Season at an end, let's take a look at some website tracking results from the Thanksgiving week through Christmas.

I have a lot of data to from various retail jeweler websites. The set of data I'm referencing below was recorded across retail jewelry websites that have been active with updating their website regularly over the last 12 months. These same websites are also mobile friendly. This includes a combination of retail jewelers and ecommerce sites. Remember, the results show...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 01/04/2016 12:20:09 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Insights for 2016

by
Insights for 2016 daily-golden-nugget-1418-76
The year 2015 is about to come to a close, but before it does, I'm venturing out on a limb to give you my forecast insights for 2016. This year, I'm referring to these as "insights" and not necessarily as "predictions" because these things are what I already see happening in a small way, and steadily growing. They are in no particular order...

Social Media Change with the Young Generation


The current teenage generation is struggling to hide from their parents online. Many of them want nothing to do with Facebook because the grown-...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/30/2015 08:23:36 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, December 10, 2015

Google+ and Google Reviews Are Dead #TBT

by
Google+ and Google Reviews Are Dead TBT daily-golden-nugget-1404-94
This is a pretty sad edition of #ThrowbackThursday. In fact, it's not even much of a throwback since I'm only jumping back 3 months to September 2015 to my explanation of how to share Google reviews to your website.

Testimonials and online business reviews are an important part of a customer's pre-screening process of you. While every online directory has a review system, arguably Yelp a...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/10/2015 10:27:08 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Customers Do Use Mobile Devices For Product Information While Shopping In Your Store

by
Customers Do Use Mobile Devices For Product Information While Shopping In Your Store daily-golden-nugget-1403-83
Since 2010, the predicted website and internet usage trends right before the holiday season have suggested that more people will use their smartphones to pre-shop retail stores and to look up product information while in a store. What better way to save time during the busy holiday shopping season than to look for online product information and find stores that carry the items?

While out shopping with my mother o...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/09/2015 12:24:03 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, December 04, 2015

Changes to Google Maps Results and Google+ Business Listings

by
Changes to Google Maps Results and Google+ Business Listings daily-golden-nugget-1400-10
Welcome to the 1,400th Daily Golden Nugget. In honor of reaching another "00" status, I'm returning back to the root topic of where these Nuggets began, which is an update on what's happening with Google Maps. It's become our own personal drinking game, so let's explore it again with a beverage of your choice.

During the last 5 months, Google has changed a tremendous amount with regard to how Search, Maps, and Google+ work together. It started with a large c...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/04/2015 02:03:18 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Using Your Local Product Inventory To Attract Local Customers

by
Using Your Local Product Inventory To Attract Local Customers daily-golden-nugget-1383-66
Did you know that 61% of smartphone users are more likely to buy from mobile sites and apps that offer some type of customized information for their location? That statistic came from the Consumers in the Micro-Moment study conducted in August 2015 by Google and Ipsos. The full details of that study are here.

Of course, you might no...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/11/2015 08:32:57 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, November 09, 2015

Sharing and Re-Sharing: What Types of Posts Have The Best Organic Reach On Facebook?

by
Sharing and Re-Sharing: What Types of Posts Have The Best Organic Reach On Facebook? daily-golden-nugget-1381-20
Do you have a specific question about your website or business that you'd like to see answered in a future Daily Golden Nugget? Please send it in through the contact form on the jWAG website http://www.jwag.biz/contact-us.html.

Here's an interesting question I received recently:
"For the best bang for my buck, so to speak, is it better to re-share an...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/09/2015 07:30:47 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 22, 2015

Setting Up Google AdWords Express #TBT: 2015 Holiday Run-Up

by
Setting Up Google AdWords Express TBT: 2015 Holiday Run-Up daily-golden-nugget-1369-39
It's #ThrowbackThursday, and it's also the 19th installment of my special 2015 Holiday Run-Up series. Over the last 30 days, I've written out holiday marketing steps for Pinterest, Google+, VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/22/2015 12:25:28 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 19, 2015

Discover Your Own Social Media Timing and Scheduling: 2015 Holiday Run-Up

by
Discover Your Own Social Media Timing and Scheduling: 2015 Holiday Run-Up daily-golden-nugget-1366-51
The time needed to manage social media can easily eat up most of your day. Over the last few weeks, I've detailed a lot of social media tactics in this 2015 Holiday Run-Up series. If you've missed out on the discussion so far, then go back to the beginning here and catch up.

As I've detailed steps for VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/19/2015 09:41:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, October 16, 2015

Trends Jewelers Case Study

by
Trends Jewelers Case Study daily-golden-nugget-1365-78
It's Friday. Every Friday, I start out by saying "This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget." I'm sure you guys are tired of reading that. Anyone want to suggest a hashtag that alliterates with Friday? Send your suggestions to me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or just email them to me.

So it is Friday, and it's review day. The goal is learn something from a random website of a random retail jeweler chosen from a random city somewhere in the U.S. This week that random somewhere is Raynham,...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/16/2015 11:55:27 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 15, 2015

Why To Post To Google+ #TBT: 2015 Holiday Run-Up

by
Why To Post To Google+ TBT: 2015 Holiday Run-Up daily-golden-nugget-1364-67
In today's #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back to January 2014 to my directions on how to post to Google+. This is also a continuation of my special 2015 Holiday Run-Up series giving you the tactics you need to help boost your sales this upcoming season.

I've already given you steps and tactics for VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/15/2015 11:15:17 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, October 09, 2015

Keith Chapman Jeweler Website Review

by
Keith Chapman Jeweler Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1360-42
This is the weekly website review where I choose a random retail jeweler and compare their website and online identity to what is commonly known about search engine optimization, online marketing, and customer usefulness.

I started this week's review with the Google search "jewelers athens oh" and saw these results:

Keith Chapman Jeweler Website Review 1360-jewelers-athens-oh-serp-85VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/09/2015 11:27:43 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 08, 2015

How-to Boost a Facebook Post #TBT: Holiday 2015 Run-up

by
How-to Boost a Facebook Post TBT: : Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1359-92

This is probably the Daily Golden Nugget you've been waiting for! Over the last few weeks I've been working through several topics related to marketing for the upcoming holiday season. This is part 10 in that special Holiday Run-Up series, and it's also a #ThrowbackThursday edition.

I'm not throwing back too far in this one, only to August 2014, when I explained how to use Facebook's VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/08/2015 11:57:15 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Directions for First Time Users of Facebook Audience Insights: Holiday 2015 Run-up

by
Directions for First Time Users of Facebook Audience Insights: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1353-73
This is Part 5 of a multi-day Daily Golden Nugget series packed with tactics to help you in your 2015 holiday marketing. The series started with the overview of 2015 holiday marketing strategies.

In this edition, I'll show you how to use the Facebook Audience Insights tool to build and save a target audience fo...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/30/2015 07:01:37 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, September 21, 2015

Google Files Lawsuit Against SEO Agency to Protect Small Businesses

by
Google Files Lawsuit Against SEO Agency to Protect Small Businesses daily-golden-nugget-1346-5
This is great; Google is finally taking action!

The economy of the United States is built on small business. Those who run a small business know that every decision is a trade off of one thing for another. Taking a short cut today might help to lower expenses, but that same short cut might create bigger problems in the future.

As a business coach I'm always helping entrepreneurs evaluate business tradeoffs and opportunities that might financ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/21/2015 11:11:16 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 02, 2015

How To Share Google Business Reviews To Your Website

by
How To Share Google Business Reviews To Your Website daily-golden-nugget-1333-99
PLEASE NOTE: The new version of Google+ launched on November 17, 2015 no longer supports the ability to share reviews. This Daily Golden Nugget is defunct, but saved here for archival purposes.

The other day, I explained how Google+ has been completely disconnected from Google's local search results. When Google built Google+, they wanted...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/02/2015 09:36:31 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 01, 2015

Review Your Marketing Results From Last Year Before Planning This Year

by
Review Your Marketing Results From Last Year Before Planning This Year daily-golden-nugget-1332-94
September has a strange place on my yearly calendar. I view it as a month that tries to maintain a death grip on the hot days of summer while also revealing the temperatures and colors of the fall. I remember how it was to dread the beginning of the school year, and now, even though I'm not a parent myself, I can appreciate how parents feel now to have their children occupied all day again.

As a consultant serving the jewelry industry, I n...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/01/2015 09:17:58 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, August 31, 2015

Implications of Google Local 3-Pack replacing the Google+ Local 7-Pack

by
Implications of Google Local 3-Pack replacing the Google+ Local 7-Pack daily-golden-nugget-1331-59
Back on July 10, 2015, I reported seeing a very different looking version of the Google Local search results in my Friday website review here. I was a little disturbed by the appearance of that mobile design and I'm now saddened to report that...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/31/2015 09:31:29 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, August 27, 2015

Getting New Websites Indexed in Google #TBT

by
Getting New Websites Indexed in Google TBT daily-golden-nugget-1329-40
It's time for this week's Throwback Thursday Daily Golden Nugget. I'm jumping back to March 2011 to my discussion of Older, Wiser, Faster Indexed Websites to specifically revisit the difference between new websites and old websites, and how Google indexes them.

New Websites


People don't race to shop at your store as soon as you build a new website. Before that can happen, Google needs t...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/27/2015 11:05:10 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 21, 2015

Horrible Retail Jeweler Websites Near Grand Fork

by
Horrible Retail Jeweler Websites Near Grand Fork daily-golden-nugget-1325-78
This is the Friday website review where I do a Google search for an independent retail jeweler in a random town, then review their website.

This week, I'm starting my search with the phrase "jewelry stores in grand fork nd." Every week that I do this, I try to give you my first impressions of every website as I work through it. Just looking at the results given below, I have a feeling this week's review is going to be quite... nasty. Hold on to your seats gang and let's jump in...<...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/21/2015 07:36:40 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Plan Your Facebook Posts to Help Build Your Business

by
Plan Your Facebook Posts to Help Build Your Business daily-golden-nugget-1323-19
I recently had someone tell me that they felt it was better to post anything to their business Facebook account than nothing at all. This particular jeweler didn't have anyone in the store willing to manage their Facebook account, yet they felt it was important to be active.

Their solution was to hire a social media management company that didn't know anything about jewelry, and was posting non sequitur information to their account. Although their fan base was slowly increas...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/19/2015 07:42:59 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, August 13, 2015

Your Reviews From Other Sites Are Hidden - #TBT

by
Your Reviews From Other Sites Are Hidden - TBT daily-golden-nugget-1319-30
In this edition of Throwback Thursday, I have to report some news which saddens me. It relates to how your business websites reviews appear; or rather; no longer appear in Google search results.

In October 2014, I wrote this Nugget explaining how to use Google My Business to find and reply to online reviews that are not part of the Google system. In other words, customer reviews that are ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/13/2015 06:34:28 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 05, 2015

These Yelp Reviews Are Worthless

by
These Yelp Reviews Are Worthless daily-golden-nugget-1313-4
"There's no stupid question."

That's what I always say when a jeweler wants to ask me a question but starts off saying "I have a stupid question," which happened several times over this past weekend while I was at the RJO show in St. Louis. When it comes to asking me questions though, you have to be aware that I always use the good questions as future Daily Golden Nuggets, like this one.

After my Local Marketing seminar at the RJO show, a jeweler was explaining that they often ask for their customers to write ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/05/2015 07:04:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Don't Sell Over Social; Just Build Connections

by
Dont Sell Over Social; Just Build Connections daily-golden-nugget-1312-49
I'm sitting on a regional jet right now as I write this. I'm heading back to New Jersey after three days with the RJO in St. Louis, Missouri. For me, it was a weekend of discussions about e-commerce, online local marketing, and social networking.

I was very impressed with all the jewelers I spoke to this weekend and I'm starting to think that the need for social media is starting to be understood as a necessity for marketing, even though the results can't be tracked. Many jewelers told me...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/04/2015 08:37:15 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 27, 2015

Managing Social Media: Business Strategy Made Easy

by
Managing Social Media: Business Strategy Made Easy daily-golden-nugget-1306-37
When you consider the time it takes to be involved with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ and so many social networks, it's no wonder so many people live their lives carrying their smartphone in their hand all day. So many people have traded everyday verbal conversations for terse text conversations and deluges of selfies.

Those who have chosen a smartphone-tethered life, now find it second nature to use social network as a way to keep their friends and family in...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/27/2015 07:03:31 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 24, 2015

Skeie's Jewelers Website Review

by
Skeies Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1305-25
This is the weekly website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Each week, I work through these website reviews to give you real examples to learn from. It doesn't matter if the website is good or bad, there's always something to learn from.

I'm changing it up a little this week. Normally I search for the phrase "jewelry store" and a random town name, but not this week. In honor of this weekend's official kickoff of the Jewelers Equality Alliance<...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/24/2015 06:40:56 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 17, 2015

Google My Business Smartphone App

by
Google My Business Smartphone App daily-golden-nugget-1300-16
Once again, the Daily Golden Nuggets have reached another milestone: 1300!

It was 1,300 weekdays ago that I wrote the first Nugget about Google Maps. In honor of my first topic, I now write about Google Maps and its subsequent incarnations ever since, and save them for these milestones.

The original Maps service has transformed several times through the years and had names like Local, Places, Local Business, and Google+ Local. Ever since Google started using Google+ to tie all its services together, the p...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/17/2015 11:24:51 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, June 25, 2015

#TBT Try Changing Your Name To Avoid Failure

by
TBT Try Changing Your Name To Avoid Failure daily-golden-nugget-1284-57
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople


Names may change, but things stay the same. What's in a name, really?

In this edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back to November 18, 2010 and m discussion of when Google first announced their "Google Places" service.

Well, honestly, there's not much to say about Go...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 06/25/2015 12:14:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 09, 2015

JCK Talks 2015: Introduction to Multichannel Marketing for Retail

by
JCK Talks 2015: Introduction to Multichannel Marketing for Retail daily-golden-nugget-1272-43
Jennifer Shaheen, President of Technology Therapy Group was among those speakers chosen to present at the 2015 JCK Las Vegas show. Jennifer and I are industry colleagues and we share 99% of the same point of view about the internet and how retail jewelers should be using it for their marketing.

I've seen Jennifer present at ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 06/09/2015 09:44:38 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, June 01, 2015

Create Marketing Campaigns That Allow For Natural Discovery of the Full Message

by
Create Marketing Campaigns That Allow For Natural Discovery of the Full Message daily-golden-nugget-1266-23
I was at a social media marketing meeting in New York City last month when someone asked if they should be posting the same photos and status update to every social network.

That was a good question, and there's no real straightforward answer. In reality, it depends if you have the same audience following you on all the social networks. If the same audience follows you on all networks, then they will get very bored very ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 06/01/2015 06:48:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, May 28, 2015

Foursquare Is Quite Useful While Other LBS' have Checked-Out #TBT

by
Foursquare Is Quite Useful While Other LBS have Checked-Out TBT daily-golden-nugget-1264-58
In today's Throwback Thursday, I'm bringing back a group of old Nuggets that are near and dear to my hart: Location Based Services.

One of our more ambitious events here at jWAG was back in August 2010 when we held live video broadcasts several days in a row, we called it "jWAG Live 2". Every day we covered different topics, one of which was ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/28/2015 08:32:09 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Recommended Monthly Online Marketing for Jewelers

by
Recommended Monthly Online Marketing for Jewelers daily-golden-nugget-1262-1
After last week's Nuggets about marketing funnels and determining a funnel cost, I received an email from a reader wanting to know my current recommendations for a marketing funnel.

Here are my recommendations for monthly online marketing, in this o...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/26/2015 01:12:01 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Jewelry Designers and Retail Jewelers: A Potential Marriage To Revitalize The Industry

by
Jewelry Designers and Retail Jewelers: A Potential Marriage To Revitalize The Industry daily-golden-nugget-1253-74
Diamonds are supposed to be forever and a girl's best friend, but lately they are a tough sell. While many of my retail jewelry store customers are still looking for ways to increase their wedding and engagement ring sales, there are plenty of other opportunities for with designer lines of jewelry that could attract a new audience to your store.

The New Jewelry Designer


Since 2013 I've been networ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/13/2015 09:58:46 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Should You Pay For Inclusion in a Directory Website?

by
Should You Pay For Inclusion in a Directory Website? daily-golden-nugget-1232-64
I'm in favor of the entrepreneur that tries to build a business around a perceived need. What make entrepreneurship in the U.S. so exciting is that you potentially make a healthy living off an idea you dream up yourself.

The internet makes those dreams possible.

A few weeks ago, one of my clients brought my attention to the following message that was posted on their Facebook wall.

VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/14/2015 11:33:32 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 08, 2015

Planning Your Jewelry Store's Profitable Future

by
Planning Your Jewelry Stores Profitable Future daily-golden-nugget-1228-19
Last week, I was doing a little research into the US census data on this website. The U.S. business census data is captured every 5 years, but there's a delay before the information is published. The 2012 was only recently published.

Shrinking Number of Retail Jewelry Stores


The data shows that there were only 16,847 corporations that classified themselves as "jewelry stores" in 2012, and there were 2...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/08/2015 11:55:34 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The Use of Ellipses ... in Meta Descriptions

by
The Use of Ellipses ... in Meta Descriptions daily-golden-nugget-1212-33
The ellipses are a set of three periods that has different functions depending on how that punctuation is used.

In these Daily Golden Nuggets, I often use this symbol to represent a long pause or a trailing off thought. In text messages, I use them to represent long pauses, or sometimes I even send them alone in a single text message to illustrate a perplexed reaction when I don't know what to say. A stunned silence, perhaps.

The ellipses has turned into one of the most commonly u...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/17/2015 07:24:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 16, 2015

10 Ground Rules For Employees When Using Social Media

by
10 Ground Rules For Employees When Using Social Media daily-golden-nugget-1211-39
Many retail jewelers still struggle managing the time it takes to promote themselves on social media. Unfortunately, even though you can hire an agency to manage your social accounts, the best way to engage your customers is to establish your brand's own online identity.

It's difficult to allocate the time needed to engage on social media amidst the daily routine needed to run a jewelry store. Instead of doing it all yourself, you could allow your employees to engage soc...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/16/2015 07:10:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, February 27, 2015

Google+ Local Now Shows Shopping Mall Information

by
Google+ Local Now Shows Shopping Mall Information daily-golden-nugget-1200-63
If you're jewelry store is located in a strip mall or a shopping mall, Google will probably be changing your address, if they haven't already.

In honor of my 1200th Daily Golden Nugget I'm bringing you some updated information about Google+ Local today. Way back 1200 post ago I began these Nuggets with a a post about Google Maps, since then I've carried the tradition or reviewing Google business related changes every 100th Nugget. So here we are again.

During the course of ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/27/2015 12:49:53 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 25, 2015

How Facebook Chooses Images From Your Website to Use as Status Update Preview Images

by
How Facebook Chooses Images From Your Website to Use as Status Update Preview Images daily-golden-nugget-1198-53
Facebook can be very annoying when it doesn't let you select the right preview image for the blog you are trying to share. All of your blog posts should have associated images. They grab attention and help to convey your message, but sometimes Facebook simply ignores the images you use.

Facebook has become a very visual social network and they try to offer all users the best possible shared images from every web...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/25/2015 08:05:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Modern Customers Want to See Product Photos and Product Information on Your Website

by
Modern Customers Want to See Product Photos and Product Information on Your Website daily-golden-nugget-1192-17
The internet has become a very visual place, especially on social media. While blog content may thrive with well written information, as of today, on Facebook and Google+ you won't get noticed without some type of visual. This is especially a complete change for Facebook because in 2013, they lowered the visibility of status updates with images because they were combating meme over usage.

Product photography posts...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/17/2015 08:30:19 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, February 02, 2015

Content Marketing Costs Will Change Based On The Target Need and Who Creates It

by
Content Marketing Costs Will Change Based On The Target Need and Who Creates It daily-golden-nugget-1181-56
I'll be the first to admit the website content creation difficultly level is pretty high. Content includes infographics, photos, podcasts, PDFs, videos, testimonials, and, of course, the written word. It takes hours to prepare each of those types of content but the return on that time investment come in the form of several years of attracting customers throu...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/02/2015 09:53:20 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, January 30, 2015

Watkins Jewelers Website Review

by
Watkins Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1180-97
This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Today, I'm going to perform an incognito Google search for a random jewelry store candidate in Blackstone, Virginia, then review their website.

The goal of this weekly website review is to learn something new, or at least to see an implementation of something good or bad that you never knew.

When I used the search query "jewelry stores in blackstone va" I was given these results:

VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 01/30/2015 08:58:12 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, January 21, 2015

How Jewelers Should Mitigate Security Risks from Google Business View

by
How Jewelers Should Mitigate Security Risks from Google Business View daily-golden-nugget-1173-65
A few years ago, Google undertook an extremely ambitious project to extend its Street Mapping technology inside buildings. Specifically, they created a way that Google Maps Street View could reach inside individual retail stores to create virtual walk throughs of those businesses. These virtual tours are called Google Business View, and the businesses taking advantage of this technology are reporting more engaged customers and higher sales.

The Business View virtua...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 01/21/2015 12:29:52 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, January 20, 2015

When It's the Right Time to Rebrand a Business Name in Google+ Local

by
When Its the Right Time to Rebrand a Business Name in Google+ Local daily-golden-nugget-1172-87
I was recently analyzing the Google+ Local account for a new jewelry store. The owners bought the previous bead store that was at that location and remodeled it into a new jewelry store. My analysis discovered a situation I'd not yet seen, or in fact, even envisioned. Of course, that makes it a perfect topic for a Daily Golden Nugget!

It's obvious that every new business needs to design their store and stock their shelves with merchandise. Before you even get to that...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 01/20/2015 10:35:13 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, December 15, 2014

Prenuptial Agreements With Your Online Agency - Part 1

by
Prenuptial Agreements With Your Online Agency - Part 1 daily-golden-nugget-1146-88
Jewelers are in the business of helping couples get to the moment when they profess their love and vow "til death do us part."

Few relationships are intended to last forever, or even a lifetime, but when you get into bed with a business partner, you are rarely thinking about the day when you will break up. When you're in business for yourself, you should be making forward steps to improve your business, but also prepare yourself to different possible future outcomes.

Even though a busines...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/15/2014 12:13:23 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, December 05, 2014

Mauzie's of Colorado Website Review

by
Mauzies of Collorado Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1140-6
Let's imagine that there's a special gift giving day coming up soon and I need to buy a gift. Assuming that I live in Englewood, Colorado I might do a Google search for "buy jewelry gifts in Englewood Colorado."

Today is the weekly website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. The goal of this review is to randomly search Google for a retail jewelry store and learn something from scrutinizing how they manage their website and online identity. There's always something to learn from these reviews, whether it's learning from someth...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/05/2014 08:16:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Understanding How-To Be A Profitable Business

by
Understanding How-To Be A Profitable Business daily-golden-nugget-1132-93
What do you think makes a profitable company?

Ask that question to a room filled with 100 business owners and you'll probably get 100 different answers based on their own experience and how they perceive their own profits. In truth, profit is a measure of all the money left over after you deduct expenses from the money you make from sales.

This equation has been around for as long as businesses have been around:

Sales - Expenses = Profits

Although the equation seems simple, most small busines...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/25/2014 09:04:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, November 24, 2014

More People Are Switching To Smartphones and Crave Up To Date Information

by
More People Are Switching To Smartphones and Crave Up To Date Information daily-golden-nugget-1131-21
I'm often asked how I keep up with all the internet changes because people feel overwhelmed. It really is true; the technology companies that control key factors of the internet make some type of change every day. Even though the internet is made up of millions of computers and billions of wires, it's the search engines and social networks that really control how we use it daily. In reality, the search engines and social networks are just software programs.
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/24/2014 01:48:55 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 21, 2014

A. Scott Rhodes Jeweler Website Review

by
A. Scott Rhodes Jeweler Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1130-16
This is the Friday website review where I dissect a random retail jeweler's website to find the good and bad that we can all learn from. Although I write about website design, search engine optimization, and online marketing every day, sometimes all that stuff doesn't make any sense unless you see exactly how it applies to a real website.

That's why I dedicate one day every week to these reviews of randomly selected jewelry stores.

Normally I ask someone on my team to give me a random city name, but this week's review c...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/21/2014 11:04:51 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 20, 2014

How to Fix Google Manager Invitations That Don't Send

by
How to Fix Google Manager Invitations That Dont Send daily-golden-nugget-1129-8
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I explained how you can invite someone to help manage your Google business account. An email is sent to notify the person who's being invited to manage the Google account. That email invitation is the only way that the person will know they've been invited, there's no other notification.

This is what the email looks like:

VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/20/2014 09:21:38 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Google My Business: Managers

by
Google My Business: Managers daily-golden-nugget-1128-0
This is the last part in my 7-part Daily Golden Nugget series on Google My Business. The links to the first 6 parts are at the bottom of today's edition.

As the Google services have become more complicated, the user interfaces to manage them have become equally complicated. Many users have given up on managing their accounts while others have screamed for help. Google hears those screams and is working through their different services to give business owners a way to share editing rights to consultants that you hire to help.

These are the s...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/19/2014 07:38:08 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Google My Business: AdWords Express Reporting

by
Google My Business: AdWords Express Reporting daily-golden-nugget-1127-81
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'm going to review the latest AdWords Express functionality that you'll find within your Google My Business account. This is slightly different than the last time I explained it in this previous Nugget.

Today's Nugget is part of my ongoing series explaining the new features within the Google My Business dashboard that allows you to control all of your Google related business...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/18/2014 10:19:49 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Steps to Change Your Business Online When Your Store Moves

by
Steps to Change Your Business Online When Your Store Moves daily-golden-nugget-1123-56
I was recently asked a really good question that doesn't come up very often...

How do you change your address in a business Google account?



The first thing you'll have to do is make sure you have access to your Google My Business account so you can edit your business address<...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/12/2014 07:44:27 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Google My Business: Insights Reports - Part 2

by
Google My Business: Insights Reports - Part 2 daily-golden-nugget-1117-17
This is Daily Golden Nugget part-2 explaining how to read your Google "My Business Insights." Take a look at yesterday's Nugget to get up to speed before reading this one.

Insights Engagement Reports



Here's a screen shot of the Insights Engagement report:
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/04/2014 12:29:26 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, November 03, 2014

Google My Business: Insights Reports

by
Google My Business: Insights Reports daily-golden-nugget-1116-95
This is the fourth entry in my Daily Golden Nugget series explaining how to manage your Google business account through the Google My Business interface. I've included links to the first three parts at the bottom of today's edition.

Today's My Business topic is the reading and understanding the Insights app within the Google My Business interface. Once you log into your account, you need to click the box-cluster icon on the top right of your browser window as shown here:

VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/03/2014 11:48:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 30, 2014

How-to Use Google My Business Reviews

by
How-to Use Google My Business Reviews daily-golden-nugget-1114-17
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'll show you how you can use the interface within your Google My Business account to monitor your business reviews from around the internet.

This is the 3rd part of a multi-part series on using and editing your business account through the new Google My Business interface. Part 1 of this series was a basic orientation of Google My Business and Part 2 went into details of VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/30/2014 11:26:56 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Understanding and Editing Google My Business

by
Understanding and Editing Google My Business daily-golden-nugget-1113-41
This is part 2 of a multi-part Daily Golden Nugget series explaining how to edit your Google My Business listing. Please refer to this previous Nugget to see how to access your business information within Google's system.

Once you get into your account, you need to review and update any information that they have on file. It's important to log into your account and verify your information every once in a while. It mig...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/29/2014 07:09:32 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 20, 2014

Referral Websites That Work for Retail Jewelers

by
Referral Websites That Work for Retail Jewelers daily-golden-nugget-1106-2-66
We're now in the last two weeks of October and a lot of holiday promotions are about to launch. You've probably already completed your own marketing and all the publication dates have been set. In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'll go over some last minute online marketing referral sources that you still have time to set up this week.

Your customers will find you through many online sources. Some of those sources will be your own paid marketing, while other people arrive through organic tra...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/20/2014 12:24:11 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, October 10, 2014

Introduction to Google My Business

by
Introduction to Google My Business daily-golden-nugget-1100-6
Time flies and another one hundred Daily Golden Nuggets have passed. This is the 1100th edition of my 5-day a week newsletter, and to commemorate that milestone, I'm returning back to my favorite topic: how Google drives customers to your door, literally.

Google's free business listing service has morphed over the years from its original simple name of Maps, to Local, to Places, to +Local, and Places for Business. In April 2014, Google finished migrating all business accounts from the "Places" interface to the "Places for Business" inte...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/10/2014 12:47:22 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 09, 2014

These Old Daily Nuggets Are Now Rubbish

by
These Old Daily Nuggets Are Now Rubbish daily-golden-nugget-1077-98
Seventy-seven week days ago, when I reached the 1000th Nugget milestone, I got the idea that I should write a recap of all the technology that I wrote about that came and went since 2010 when I started this daily newsletter.

Although I really want to be nostalgic, I don't even have the time to look through 1000 posts to create a full list. But I'm going to give it a try and see where this goes, so let's have a little fun... Instead of learning something new today, I'll look at some old topics that I'v...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/09/2014 09:03:03 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 04, 2014

Important 2014 Marketing Dates and Sales Headlines

by
Important 2014 Marketing Dates and Sales Headlines daily-golden-nugget-1074-45
Over the next 4 months, you'll have several opportunities for social media and email marketing campaigns that can be associated with special calendar events.

A quick look at my own wall calendar and I see these jumping out at me as important US dates that can tie into your marketing campaigns:

September 7, 2014: Grandparents Day
October 13, 2014: Columbus Day
October 31, 2014: Halloween
November 2, 2014: Daylight Savings Time Ends
November 11, 2014: Veterans' D...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/04/2014 11:10:49 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 29, 2014

Review of 3 Hayward Jewelers

by
Review of 3 Hayward Jewelers 4913-daily-golden-nugget-1070
My journey today began with a search for "jewelry stores Hayward CA." You see, I'm pretending to be a real customer searching for a local jeweler in Hayward. My goal is to examine how the local jewelers in that town stack up in Google search, take a look at their websites, and see what can be learned by the experience.

This is my weekly retail jeweler website review, but this week I'm changing up the format a little bit.

Here's a snapshot of the business listing I saw in the Google SERP for that search:
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/29/2014 12:42:15 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, August 04, 2014

Jewelers Who Pay to Play on Facebook

by
Jewelers Who Pay to Play on Facebook 143-daily-golden-nugget-1051
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'm reviewing another section of the seminar I presented on July 27, 2014 at the JA NY show. This segment is about paying for traffic on Facebook; should you be doing that?

Paying for online advertising always has a right way and a wrong way. Typically the wrong way is seriously wrong and it's a complete waste of money. Most businesses, not just retail jewelers, are advertising on Facebook wrong.

Once upon a time, any business could set up a Facebook b...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/04/2014 02:03:38 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 21, 2014

Walk a Mile in Your Customer's Shoes to Understand Their Intent

by
Walk a Mile in Your Customers Shoes to Understand Their Intent 1990-daily-golden-nugget-1041
I've been sharing a lot of my secret tips recently and today I'd like to share another. This one's about understanding your customer's intent.

One of the biggest mistakes I've noticed many retail store owners, not just jewelers, make is that they set up their store, create advertisements, and design their website based on what they believe their customers will like, without truly trying to understand what their customer's intent is.

It's easy ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/21/2014 03:40:53 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 14, 2014

Wixon Jewelers: 2014 Small Business of the Year

by
Wixon Jewelers: 2014 Small Business of the Year 6059-daily-golden-nugget-1036
Small business owners always seem to struggle trying to balance the time they spend working in their store, managing back office paperwork, and growing the business. It's very difficult to achieve the perfect balance of spending time with each of these tasks if no one showed you how to do it correctly in the first place.

Occasionally, you will find a small business success story in the news, and perhaps you wonder how they achieved their success. From my own personal experience,...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/14/2014 09:22:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 30, 2014

Google Places for Business Store Hours Sometimes Get Stuck

by
 Google Places for Business Store Hours Sometimes Get Stuck 4218-daily-golden-nugget-1005

Today I'm returning back to my Friday website review format after skipping the last two weeks while presenting the series on Google Places for Business.

Each week I choose a random city then search for one of the most common jewelry store related keywords. I like to choose my review candidates purely based on orga...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/30/2014 10:37:12 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, May 22, 2014

Google Places for Business Settings for Personal Jewelers

by
Google Places for Business Settings for Personal Jewelers 3872-daily-golden-nugget-999

The discussion of today's Daily Golden Nugget was requested more than a year ago by a few of my daily readers, but it wasn't until recently that I could provide the correct answer to it.

The topic is how to use Google Places for Business if you are a personal jeweler or a jewelry professional working out of your house. Personal security is usually a bigger factor for these types of jewelers since they will often carry styles with them when visiting clients. ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/22/2014 10:54:33 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Choosing the Correct Google Places for Business Categories

by
Choosing the Correct Google Places for Business Categories 3311-daily-golden-nugget-998

How can Google lead potential customers to you unless they know what type of business you are?

Although Google might spend a ridiculous amount of effort reading and indexing your website to figure out who you are and what you do, they also rely heavily on exactly what you tell them from within your Google Places for Business account.

The screen shot below was taken from a jewelry store's Places for Business account. You can see the list of categories...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/21/2014 03:42:36 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Business Query Data and Other Valuable Insights Inside Google Places

by
Business Query Data and Other Valuable Insights Inside Google Places 2020-daily-golden-nugget-997

Ever since Google started hiding keywords from their Analytics reports, it's been harder and harder for marketing professionals and business owners to figure out what keywords customers search for when they find your website.

Within Google Webmaster Tools, you can find the VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/20/2014 11:48:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, May 19, 2014

Google Places Business Listing Name Guidelines

by
Google Places Business Listing Name Guidelines 65-daily-golden-nugget-996

Google Places can help you get found in local search results, but you'll get into trouble if you disobey the Google Places for Business quality guidelines.

Over the years, I've seen many jewelry stores using a lot of tricks to place higher in Google's ranking results. Perhaps the most common trick is changing your business name to include specific keywords.

Using the jewelry store name Perosi Jewelers, located in Totowa Borough, NJ, here are some examples of what some jewelers ha...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/19/2014 02:04:16 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 16, 2014

Reviews on Google Maps and Places

by
Reviews on Google Maps and Places 539-daily-golden-nugget-995

Google Maps will help people locate your business online, but sometimes those online reviews will chase people away screaming, instead of luring them to your door.

The power of the online review is undeniable now. I've read a few case studies about negative online reviews and the affect on a business, and I've had personal experience helping several businesses deal with the aftermath caused by horrible online reviews.

The legitimacy of online reviews has gone through some controversy over the last 4 ye...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/16/2014 02:10:38 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Cleaning Up the Ugly Caused by YouTube

by
Cleaning Up the Ugly Caused by YouTube 9725-daily-golden-nugget-993

During the summer of 2013, as part of their product unification process, Google converted all YouTube accounts into Google+ accounts. This resulted in duplicate business pages on Google+ Page for several businesses. Now that Google is transitioning the old Places listings into the combined Google Places for Business and Google+, these same businesses now have a triplicate listing.

This is a bad situation that needs to be corrected and I'll explain why in this Daily Golden Nugget. I'm documentin...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/14/2014 10:49:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 13, 2014

How-To Delete a Duplicate Google Places for Business

by
How-To Delete a Duplicate Google Places for Business 9258-daily-golden-nugget-992

There might be trouble with your business listing on Google and you don't even realize it. Over the last year, Google has been slowly migrating all Google Places listings created years ago into the new and improved Google "Places for Business" (PFB) systems that's integrated with Google+.

As I explained in the Daily Golden Nugget yesterday, this migration could cause accidental VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/13/2014 02:48:42 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, May 12, 2014

Business listing migration from Google Places into Google Places for Business

by
Business listing migration from Google Places into Google Places for Business 2396-daily-golden-nugget-991

"Google Maps will drive visitors directly to your doorstep."

That's how it all began way back on Monday, July 26, 2010 with the first Daily Golden Nugget I wrote. It was only 147 words because, after all, it was only supposed to be a "nugget" of information. Many nuggets are now 10 times tha...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/12/2014 02:20:55 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Businesses Always Have to Pay, Always.

by
Businesses Always Have to Pay, Always. 5885-daily-golden-nugget-942Something's been happening over at Facebook since December 2013 that affects how the overall methods of how customers see your social posts...

If you carefully examine your own Facebook Insights, you should see what many of my own customers are seeing. Generally speaking, there's a massive decline in the number of your Fans that see the social posts your business is publishing.

Although Facebook doesn't provide statistics on personal accounts, you might have also noticed that while your business s...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/04/2014 09:38:25 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Facebook's Cover Photos Have a Small Visible Safe Zone

by
As a continuation to yesterday's Nugget where I gave you 5 templates for creating Facebook Cover Page images, today I have a few specific suggestions for how to use your Facebook Business Page cover photo.

Page Cover Photos usually draw a lot of attention in the News Feed which means you can capture some extra attention if you change them on a regular basis.


Do you have an upcoming store event? Special sale? Big announcement? You can use your cover photo to announce any one of these, but just make sure to keep that announcement within the 100% Safe Zone I'm showing you.


VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/17/2013 02:32:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, September 16, 2013

Marketing Area Guidelines for Facebook's Cover Photos

by
Back in February, I reported that Facebook changed their Advertising Guidelines to limit how much space in your cover photo could be used for text. This guideline quickly became known as the 20% Rule my many Facebook marketers and it seriously limited how you could use Facebook to quickly attract attention of your page fans.

To the delight of many Facebook marketers, this 20% Rule was removed on July 1, 2013. This is great news that allows us to use our cover photos for ads, notifications, and calls to action... Facebook gave us back the permission they took away from us when they launched the 2012 major layout redesign, back when we only had tall Profile Pictures in the left margin.

Today I'm going to revisit the same ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/16/2013 04:17:45 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Changes to the Facebook Cover Photo Policy

by
Changes to the Facebook Cover Photo Policy 330-daily-golden-nugget-673I remember reading Facebook studies from 2011 showing that the most popular types of updates to Facebook were images. When comparing text updates, video updates, and photos updates, the photos had the highest ratings in the studies.

It certainly was true for a while; any photo posted to Facebook would be seen by a larger number of your fans and friends. The results were clearly measurable.

Within a short time many brands started to flood their posts with images. This exploitation eventually lead to a change...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/20/2013 08:43:55 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Facebook Social Graph Search Has Ups and Downs

by
Facebook Social Graph Search Has Ups and Downs 3255-daily-golden-nugget-667Facebook recently announced that they will try to revolutionize online search by letting you find recommendations from your friends. The entire concept is still in the early phases and the usefulness is not quite clear. They call it the "Social Graph Search."

In the past they've tried to work their way into other technologies, like location based services and photo sharing, with mixed results. In some cases they had to force their new features on users when they were not adopted quickly.

As it ex...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 02/12/2013 06:22:31 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, May 21, 2012

3K Website Visitors vs. 3K Facebook Likes

by
Let's set the wayback machine to 1993 when we used to track the number of "hits" to a website. At that time a website was simply an HTML file with text and a bunch of links between pages. A hit was counted every time one of the HTML pages was displayed in the Mosaic web browser. (Mosaic was the first web browser.)

The early internet engineers wanted to know how many times their pages were read, and they assumed each "hit" represented 1 person taking the time to actually read it. Those old counting system didn't consider that other file types, like images, would eventually get caught up in the hit counting.

Before anyone knew it, a page with 2 images was counting as 3 hits, and a page with 9 images was counting as 10 hits. This meant that two people visiting a page with 9 images would suddenly be 20 hits, rather than jus...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/21/2012 10:38:41 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, December 23, 2011

2011 Holiday Season Bridal Sales

by
As we close out another holiday season, we at the Jeweler Website Advisory Group hope that all our readers experienced a successful holiday season.

How were your bridal sales this season? A recent study shows that only 51% of Americans are married, and that number is declining. The study also shows that other countries around the world are seeing a decline in the number of married couples. Visit this Bitly link to read more about this study: http://bit.ly/vR22pz

With this marriage study in mind we took a close look at trends for "engagement rings" this season to see if we could find any correlation of online interest that agrees with the study.

Online interest in engagement rings shows a slight rise in from October 2011 to December 22, 2011, and there's certainly more interest than Q2 and Q3 of 2011. When looking ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/23/2011 12:34:30 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, December 01, 2011

December is here: Your Web Page Needs a Purpose

by
A subtle emotional shift enters as we begin the month of December and start counting down the days remaining before Hanukkah, Christmas Eve/Day, and Kwanzaa. Gift giving, holiday cooking, family gatherings, and those holiday lights that start to brighten neighborhood streets all help us realize it's that time of year again.

The season of cheer might be here, but uncertain economic times also bring many holiday frowns for all business owners. Increasing material costs means that all jewelry, not just gold, is on the rise. Do your customers prefer leather and beads this year, or will they add a new 18kt charm to their bracelet?

What we know for sure is that many retail jewelers are having a tough time choosing between changes in product lines, paying bills, stock balancing, and if some new marketing strategy will actually ...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/01/2011 11:53:36 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 10, 2011

Small Business Saturday SEO Suggestions for Jewelers

by
As mentioned a few days ago, American Express is trying to popularize Saturday, November 26, 2011 as the day when people should go out and buy local, not online, and not from big brand stores. This is the 2nd year in a row they are promoting it and they call it "Small Business Saturday."

Those looking to support their local community will visit the stores they already know about. Other shoppers might make an extra effort to read their local newspaper or direct mail circulars and ValPak, Money Mailer, or similar ad mailers.

Smartphones are everywhere and we are already inside the mobile age. Mobile websites are a thing of "today" not "tomorrow." However, if you don't have one yet there are still many things you can do to beef up the chances of being found on Small Business Saturday.

The first thing you need to do i...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/10/2011 00:01:35 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 02, 2011

302 Strategy for Jewelry Store Holiday Marketing

by
During the first week of October one of the jewelry website SEO strategies we gave you was to add your holiday website content to your website immediately so Google could find it and serve it up to holiday shoppers when the time came.

Well, that time is just about here. Many national brands launched their holiday websites yesterday, November 1, 2011. Let's look at them:

Blue Nile: http://www.bluenile.com
1. Their background was changed to include their signature snowflake.
2. BlueNile's website design signature is the home page large red ribbon. That red is now darker, less noticeable.
3. As of yesterday they added a small red bow next to "Find the Perfect Gift," which in...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/02/2011 01:04:52 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, November 01, 2011

All Gold Ring Roads Lead Back To Your Store

by
There's a tactic we commonly use when creating AdWords campaigns that allows us to target online ads to appear to people who have already visited your website. The idea is that if someone took the time to browse through your website, they were probably interested in your jewelry, but weren't interested enough to purchase at that moment; so we keep showing them ads to make them remember the jewelry store.

This is a very successful strategy that Google AdWords has enhanced greatly in the last 12 months or so. Google explains the effectiveness in the fact that people are targeted with specific offers. These offers were not, and will never be, visible on the regular website, making the person feel like they found a special deal or even say to themselves "wow, thankfully I didn't buy that a day ago."

We're explaining this proc...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/01/2011 12:10:46 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up: Content Answers Questions

by
There's an idea among first time website owners that it's best to slap up a website with perfect jewelry photos, prices, and a Buy Now button and they can sell online. At the other end of the scale there's another camp of first time website owners that feel it's best to slap up a website with basic information about the jewelry store and they will attract new customers into the store.

Both of these ideas are completely erroneous. There is no way to slap a website together and become a success. What's worse is that we know, and our staff has attended, many seminars at jewelry trade shows where both of these myths are perpetuated.

You might be familiar with the phrases "Business card Websites" and "E-commerce sites from vendors." The business card site is a basic 1, 2, or 3 page website that puts your name online. The e-c...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/04/2011 11:02:44 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 22, 2011

Yahoo Local and Retail Jeweler Online Reputation

by
Before we close out this week's discussion of online reviews, let's reference back to the study we gave you in Monday's Nugget: http://bit.ly/oVuu21

Since it accounts for 57% of your online reputation visibility we need to talk a little about Yahoo! Local and how to manage your business listing there.

Yahoo! populates their listings with a phone book database. Unless you manage your own listing, any information you find there will be limited to that found in public phone records.

Only registered Yahoo! users can write reviews or edit listings on Yahoo! Local. You will first need to create a Yahoo! account to edit your own business listing.

To get started go here: http://local.yahoo.com

When you're on that screen, search for your st...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/22/2011 01:14:02 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Jewelry Store Reputation Management

by
Yesterday, we gave you our three month research study results to illustrate how online user generated content is out there, and potentially damaging until you lock it down.

InsiderPages, Yahoo Local, and CitySearch are the top 3 review sites you should worry about. Let's look at a case study to show exactly what you need to pay attention to.

We randomly searched InsiderPages.com for all jewelry stores within 20 miles of our office to find a good example.

We found:
188 jewelers with 5 star reviews from 1 or more reviewers.
178 jewelers with 4 star reviews, mostly from a single reviewer.
52 with 3 star reviews, many from 2 or more reviewers.
13 with 2 star reviews from 1 or more reviewers.
20 with 1 start reviews from 1 or more reviewers.

These review systems are always wrought with spam. Some b...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/19/2011 10:46:16 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 18, 2011

Study Results: Small Business Online Social Presence

by
We'd like to tell you about a little research project we started on March 13, 2011 and concluded July 1, 2011. We'll explain what we did, give you our results, and then explain why this is important for jewelry stores.

Our goal was to determine how many small businesses are actually using online reviews, social media, Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, etc. as part of their online strategy.

Our target market was Houston, Texas, where we chose the unofficial diamond district on Richmond Ave. as our test epicenter.

We don't actually have anyone physically in Houston. This test was purely via the internet by searching in Google Places where we randomly selected independent restaurants, hardware stores, toy stores, various boutiques, and many other types of retail businesses. We tried to get a completely random sampling of...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/18/2011 12:40:28 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, June 06, 2011

Front Line SEO: Google Plus One

by
"Sometimes it's easier to find exactly what you're looking for when someone you know already found it. Get recommendations for the things that interest you, right when you want them, in your search results."

That's the exact quote from Google's +1 page located at google.com/+1/button/.

The "Plus One" feature was in beta testing for a while, and we've been peeking under the hood of that beta for several months to get an idea on how it will work.

On June 1, 2011 as many of you were probably packing for the JCK show, Google officially moved the +1 service from beta to general use and once again changed the way we have to deal with search engine optimization.

From now on, you should see a [+1] button on the Google SERP next to the title of each result. Specifically, y...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 06/06/2011 12:40:36 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 08, 2011

Search Query Relevance

by
We've covered this topic before in our trainings, but with the recent changes to Google we need to revisit this again.

Your organic ranking is determined by the information you have on your website and how your website has been shared with the world. Search Engine Optimization now includes a mix of different social networking signals in addition to how many times people link to your website.

In 2010, Bing developed a strong association with Facebook to help measure the popularity of shared websites. The shared websites were given some new weighted value in Bing's search results.

Google was much slower to adopt social networks into their organic ranking, but in late 2010 it was announced that Twitter would help determine ranking. In early 2011, Google further introduced methods to measure Facebook sharing on Busines...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/08/2011 02:00:34 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Trading Links with Businesses Outside Your Town

by
Do you have a customer report showing the nearby town names and how many customers are in each of them? If not, start working on that. Naturally, if you don't have a computerized point of sale this might be a serious challenge.

When considering link building strategies, it's always good to develop a relationship with other local non-competing stores and link your websites together somehow. Relationships with popular local businesses that also have active websites would be your best target, like the pizza place, popular bakery or even the local pub. The local newspaper would be the ultimate relationship.

But let's extend this further out beyond your own town. Using the customer report mentioned earlier, you could also establish relationships with the popular local businesses in towns that have a high density of your cus...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/01/2010 11:35:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 19, 2010

Google Rich Snippets

by
It's been a rather unplanned Google-centric week of Nuggets. These Google developments are important, and many times they go unnoticed unless a blogger makes a big commotion out of them. There are a few more topics we will also cover next week that should be instantly valuable for this Holiday Season.

Today, we'll explain what a Rich Snippet is and how you can use it on your website.

Way back in May 2009, Google introduced Rich Snippets in its SERP as one of the initial steps towards universal search results that show content from a variety of places. The Snippet displays important information about a web page, a product or a business that is useful for anyone searching.

For all their ability to spider, save and process meta data, Google apparently decided that they were going to reach out and let the website owne...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/19/2010 11:12:43 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Sending Facebook Updates

by
A little more than a week ago, we reported through these Nuggets how Facebook could zap you if you didn't follow their rules. One of those things is sending too many emails to your Facebook friends from your personal account.

There is however, a way to send out an "update" to all the fans of your Business Page. You can even target the specific people to send to. Here's how...

Go to your Business Page.
In the left margin, under your image, click "Edit Page."
This will take you to the Management Page, where your Basic Information will be showing.
Now click on the "Marketing" link in the left margin to get to the screen that says "There are many ways to Promote Your Page."
Click on "Send an Update"
The next screen will look like an email compose screen, but it has a subtle difference.
You will see the "Audi...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/03/2010 10:28:39 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, October 22, 2010

Facebook contest policies suck

by
Do not shoot the messenger on this one. We're about to give you very specific instructions on using your Facebook Business Page. You might not believe us. If you choose to ignore this Gold Nugget, we will simply laugh and point a finger at you when you get zapped.

Was that blunt enough for you? Please give us some attention for this one.

First, understand that Facebook needs to make money. They have a mostly free system, but somehow they have to pay their bills. From our point of view, their rules are put in place to prevent you from making money with their free system unless they get a cut of the profits.

In November 2009, they announced a set of new rules that totally distorted the ability for businesses to use contests to gain new fans and to protect their branding.

Here's a very strong list of what you shou...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/22/2010 11:11:07 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 05, 2010

"Checking-in" on Facebook Places

by
This morning shortly after midnight Eastern time Facebook announced new features for their Facebook Places service.

On August 18, 2010 Facebook Places was suddenly available to everyone downloading the latest Facebook cel...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/05/2010 09:41:22 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 03, 2010

Get a real email address!

by
Our last topic this week regarding domain names is actually about email addresses.

All too often, people will use free email systems for their email addresses. Google Mail, or Gmail, is very popular in the past year or so. Prior to that, Yahoo! was most popular, and of course AOL, Hotmail and a multitude of others are still around.

As the web becomes an important part of your business, email communications will become even more important (if they aren’t already). When you use an email address associated with your domain name, you increase the brand awareness with your customers, as well as establishing credibility.

There's a higher level of business credibility with using joe@jewelrystore.com instead of jewelrystore@gmail.com.

Free emails are, well, free. Your email savvy customers know this because most...
VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/03/2010 02:05:37 PM   0 COMMENTS
Sign Up For Emailed Daily Gold Nuggets

"...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