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Friday, May 12, 2017

The Ever Changing Reality Of Facebook

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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...
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AT: 05/12/2017 09:21:58 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 07, 2017

Instagram As Your Primary Marketing Channel

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Instagram As Your Primary Marketing Channel daily-golden-nugget-1551-32

Back When I Could Express Myself


MySpace used to be a fun social network. You had complete freedom to change your profile any way you wanted by adding music, changing colors, and customizing your background. Anyone with a working knowledge of HTML could customize the look of their page and turn it into their online bastion of delight. I remember when being on social media was nothing more than a fun competition of making your profile page look better than your friend's profile, then tease each other about it. ...
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AT: 04/07/2017 11:12:02 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, December 23, 2016

Portland Oregon Search Results Review

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Portland Oregon Search Results Review daily-golden-nugget-1536-85
Happy Holidays! There are only a few hours left in the 2016 holiday shopping season as I write this. Those still doing their last minute shopping are probably thinking a little outside the normal box in order to find something good for their loved ones.

For this week's website review, I will work through a search scenario in hope to illustrate how your customers use the internet and why it's so important for you to build out your online identity much further than you might imagine. For many businesses, this is the make-or-brea...
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AT: 12/23/2016 10:31:56 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, April 11, 2016

How-To Get The Most People To Sign Up For Your Email Newsletter

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How-To Get The Most People To Sign Up For Your Email Newsletter daily-golden-nugget-1491-39
Back when jWAG was formed in 2010, the common mantra touted by many online marketers was that "the money is in the list." The list, at the time, was a reference to the number of people on your email list. Since then, we now have the ability to reach customers through many other list methods, including Facebook retargeting lists, Google AdWords remarketing lists, and even push notifications through custom apps that people download. So many online marketing opportunities exist now tha...
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AT: 04/11/2016 06:35:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 31, 2016

The Best Way To Use QR Codes #TBT

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The Best Way To Use QR Codes TBT daily-golden-nugget-1484-74
There was a lot of marketing buzz around QR codes when they appeared in the USA in 2009 and 2010. Marketers thought they would be a hot sensation for smartphone users and started slapping them on all their ads. Even though QR codes began to appear everywhere, their usefulness and marketing success rates were small. What marketers didn't realize was that QR codes must be utilitarian, but most were gimmicky. I wrote this Nugget about...
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AT: 03/31/2016 12:13:51 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 24, 2016

Tapping the JA Website for Jewelry Related Blogging Topics #TBT

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Tapping the JA Website for Jewelry Related Blogging Topics TBT daily-golden-nugget-1479-87
For this week's #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back to a Daily Golden Nugget that's in desperate need of updating, specifically what I wrote about the Jewelry Information Center, otherwise known as the JIC. JIC was created by Jewelers of America as a consumer education service. The jic.org website commonly posted current jewelry trends and was a great inspiration resource ...
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AT: 03/24/2016 11:42:18 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Social Media As The Minimum Marketing Effort to Maintain Customer Awareness of You

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Social Media As The Minimum Marketing Effort to Maintain Customer Awareness of You daily-golden-nugget-1473-47
The last seven days have been quite interesting, and fulfilling for me. In addition to the photography demo booth at MJSA Expo in New York City, I also presented three seminars/training classes, one of which was at MJSA this past Monday.

An interesting topic about marketing budgets and social media organically emerged during my training sessions last week, which I then added to my MJSA seminar at the last minute, and I want to share with y...
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AT: 03/16/2016 11:31:19 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Customer Experience and Marketing Campaigns Based on the Customer End-To-End Journey

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Customer Experience and Marketing Campaigns Based on the Customer End-To-End Journey daily-golden-nugget-1468-11
It's no surprise that the jewelry industry faces a tough road ahead. With JBT continuing to report increases in jewelry business discontinuances it's difficult to predict who will still be in business in the next 12 months, especi...
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AT: 03/09/2016 12:42:55 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, February 12, 2016

Dominique's Jewelry #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Dominiques Jewelry FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1450-16Don't want to read? This week you can also watch the video recording of this review here!

This is the #FridayFlopFix website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. This week I've randomly chosen Santa Clarita, CA as the city to search for my review candidate. When I searched Google for the phrase "jewelers Santa Clarita, CA," I saw these three Google business listings:

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AT: 02/12/2016 02:01:38 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, February 11, 2016

How To Think of 52 Different Blogging Topics For Your Content Creation Calendar

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How To Think of 52 Different Blogging Topics For Your Content Creation Calendar daily-golden-nugget-1449-19
In this #ThrowbackThursday nugget edition, I'm jumping back to a simple one from October 2010 about finding blogging topics.

Blogging has become the primary way of generating content for your website that search engines then use to better understand what your website is all about so they can correctly match you with the people searching for...
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AT: 02/11/2016 12:18:26 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, January 15, 2016

Goodman's Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Review

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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/...
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AT: 01/15/2016 01:21:44 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, December 25, 2015

Christmas Specific SERP Review

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Christmas Specific SERP Review daily-golden-nugget-1415-5
This is a special Christmas edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Each and every Friday, I write some type of website critique or review as an educational case study. For Christmas today, I'm changing it up and reviewing a Christmas-related search engine results page.

As I started my search today by typing out "christmas jewelry ideas," Google offered me the suggestions you see here:

Christmas Specific SERP Review 1415-ch...<br />
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AT: 12/25/2015 08:58:47 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, December 03, 2015

Decorating Your Website For the Holidays #TBT

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Decorating Your Website For the Holidays TBT daily-golden-nugget-1399-7
In this edition of #ThrowbackTursday, I'm jumping back to October 2011 to the topic of website holiday themes.

In that Nugget, I explained how you could add a few small, cheerful holiday design changes to your website as well as some quick links to help holiday shoppers.

Most retail websites maintain the same design throughout the entire year even though those same businesses will dec...
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AT: 12/03/2015 10:01:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 26, 2015

302 Redirecting Your Home Page to Landing Pages #TBT

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302 Redirecting Your Home Page to Landing Pages TBT daily-golden-nugget-1394-28
Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., the only national holiday that transcends all races and religions. The holiday is typically celebrated by gathering together with friends and family and enjoying an elaborate meal. The next few weeks will see huge spikes in retail store sales, and today is probably the last day off most retail store owners in the U.S. will have until Christmas Day.

I'm mentioning this because a recent review of my own Google Analytics revealed that 47% of...
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AT: 11/26/2015 10:07:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 05, 2015

Landing Pages Help Prevent Distractions and Create Focus #TBT

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Landing Pages Help Prevent Distractions and Create Focus TBT daily-golden-nugget-1379-99
For this week's #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back to my August 2011 topic of Landing Pages that I explained here and here.

Website redesign and ad specific landing pages are more important than ever. I use video and heatmap tracking on several of my customer websites to...
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AT: 11/05/2015 10:17:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 26, 2015

2015 Holiday Run-Up Summations

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2015 Holiday Run-Up Summations daily-golden-nugget-1371-26
One month ago today, I introduced the 2015 Holiday Run-Up with the premise that this year you could create several specialized marketing campaigns, or micro-campaigns, focused on singles products or groupings of products. Implementing the micro campaigns would require lots of product photography, correctly targeting your customers, writing lots of product content, sharing that product content to social media, coordinating...
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AT: 10/26/2015 08:40:32 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 19, 2015

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

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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

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

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

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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
Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Simple Explanation and Twitter Usage Suggestions: 2015 Holiday Run-Up

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Simple Explanation and Twitter Usage Suggestions: 2015 Holiday Run-Up daily-golden-nugget-1363-53
I've covered topics of Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram so far in this Run-Up to the 2015 Holiday season. This is my 14th installment in this special Daily Golden Nugget series to help you boost your 2015 holiday sales.

If you're just joining in for the first time, then you should review the outline of this series I explained here. I'...
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AT: 10/14/2015 12:34:12 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Instagram Videos and Marketing Campaigns: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Instagram Videos and Marketing Campaigns: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1362-92
This is the continuation of my annual Daily Golden Nugget "Holiday Run-Up" series loaded up with step-by-step explanations of how to make the most of your holiday season advertising. The focus of this Run-Up is how to make the most of your product advertising to attract customers through multiple media methods. This is the 13th installment of the Run-Up, and this series still has a few more days before I finish all the topics that should make a positive impact on ...
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AT: 10/13/2015 12:52:41 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 12, 2015

Pinterest Pinning and Marketing Campaigns: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Pinterest Pinning and Marketing Campaigns: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1361-33
This is Part 11 of my annual special Daily Golden Nugget "Holiday Run-Up" series packed with tactics to help you during November and December this year. I started this series 3 weeks ago with directions for all the initial steps needed to prepare for the information you'll find in these last few run-up days. The initial marketing strategies overview is here....
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AT: 10/12/2015 10:44:34 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 08, 2015

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

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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
Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Product Photoshoot Tips When Ultimate Photo Use Is Unknown: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Product Photoshoot Tips When Ultimate Photo Use Is Unknown: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1357-79
This is Part 8 of my annual special Daily Golden Nugget "Holiday Run-Up" series packed with tactics to help you during November and December this year. I started this series with an overview of the marketing strategies that have worked over the last 12 months and have been expanding on each idea every day since.

Today ...
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AT: 10/06/2015 11:44:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 05, 2015

Online Product Information Leads to Purchase Decisions: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Online Product Information Leads to Purchase Decisions: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1356-6
This is Part 7 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 and has continued since.

In this edition, I'll explain ways you can plan your product content to correspond to the holiday ads you have ...
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AT: 10/05/2015 11:00:53 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 01, 2015

Donating Gift Cards to Local Charity Events #TBT: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Donating Gift Cards to Local Charity Events TBT: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1354-62
For today's edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I want to jump back to a Nugget from November 2013. In it, I gave ideas on how to use gift certificates as a reputation management tool. That idea, which is still very viable today, is to donate a gift certificate to your local charity in exchange for asking them to write an online review. VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/01/2015 11:03:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, September 28, 2015

Understanding Product Photos for Ads and Social Use: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Understanding Product Photos for Ads and Social Use: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1351-82
This is Part 3 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. Today I'm specifically covering the topic of...

Photography: When More is Not Just More


A professional photographer has a kee...
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AT: 09/28/2015 06:54:49 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 24, 2015

Using Domain Names to Track Offline Ads: Holiday 2015 Run-up #TBT

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Using Domain Names to Track Offline Ads: Holiday 2015 Run-up TBT daily-golden-nugget-1349-46
This is the #ThrowbackThursday edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, but it also has a special tie-in to my ongoing Run-up series of 2015 Holiday Season Marketing Preparedness. The throwback doesn't go back too far, in fact it's a year ago today when I originally wrote about using different domain names to track your offline marketing. I've since...
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AT: 09/24/2015 07:45:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Branding Your Holiday Advertising: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Branding Your Holiday Advertising: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1348-86
This is Part 2 of a multi-day Daily Golden Nugget series packed with tactics to help you in your 2015 holiday marketing. The series started yesterday with the overview of 2015 holiday marketing strategies. I'm breaking down each section of that overview into a more detailed Daily Nugget.

Beginning with...

Create a Uniform Branding With Your Ads


Acc...
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AT: 09/23/2015 11:42:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Run-Up Planning for the 2015 Holiday Season

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Run-Up Planning for the 2015 Holiday Season daily-golden-nugget-1347-81
Another summer has come to a close and the holiday season is almost here. No matter what the financial forecasts say, I want to give you some current ideas to improve your marketing methods, and hopefully your sales, through the end of this year.

Create a Uniform Branding With Your Ads


I'd like to start with a suggestion for you to review the ads you are already planning for this season. Instead of running standalone ads this year, you can use all the potential advertising methods...
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AT: 09/22/2015 11:04:07 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Shifting Away From Traditional Media to Smarter Digital Ad Spending

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Shifting Away From Traditional Media to Smarter Digital Ad Spending daily-golden-nugget-1342-58
The holiday season is quickly approaching and you need to consider how you will be spending your advertising dollars. Will you hold an event promoted with post cards and phone calls? Will you have a Black Friday sale promoted in the local newspaper? What medium will you use for your weekly ads for the holiday season?

There are a lot more choices now than just newspapers, post cards, billboards, TV, and radio. VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/15/2015 09:43:22 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 01, 2015

Review Your Marketing Results From Last Year Before Planning This Year

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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...
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AT: 09/01/2015 09:17:58 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, August 20, 2015

Conversion Rate Optimization - #TBT

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Conversion Rate Optimization - TBT daily-golden-nugget-1324-45
In this edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back 4 years to August 9, 2011 to my topic of conversion rate optimization.

What's A Conversion?


A "conversion" refers to some type of customer interaction that results in the capture of the customer's identity, usually their email address. E-commerce sites also measure conversions according to the number of online sales they have.
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AT: 08/20/2015 09:15:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Plan Your Facebook Posts to Help Build Your Business

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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...
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AT: 08/19/2015 07:42:59 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 27, 2015

Managing Social Media: Business Strategy Made Easy

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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...
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AT: 07/27/2015 07:03:31 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, June 25, 2015

#TBT Try Changing Your Name To Avoid Failure

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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...
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AT: 06/25/2015 12:14:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 24, 2015

How To Accomplish Real Time Reporting At Live Events

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How To Accomplish Real Time Reporting At Live Events daily-golden-nugget-1283-11
It doesn't matter how many blueprints, multi-part marketing plan ideas, strategies, and VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 06/24/2015 11:25:54 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, June 22, 2015

Blogging Is The Balanced Meal That Nourishes Your Website and Plumps Your Business

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Blogging Is The Balanced Meal That Nourishes Your Website and Plumps Your Business daily-golden-nugget-1281-1
I'm not sure if it's just me or general public awareness, but I feel that the subject of blogging has been a hot topic for the last two months. I think it started as a snowball effect because of this post where Robinson Meyer expla...
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AT: 06/22/2015 08:51:40 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, June 15, 2015

JCK Talks 2015: The Power of Blogging

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JCK Talks 2015: The Power of Blogging daily-golden-nugget-1276-4
This Daily Golden Nugget is my 1,276th in a row. When I started this blogging journey nearly 5 years ago, I never expected where it would take me. Truthfully, every blogger begins their writing journey for personal reasons and we never know where we will end up.

Blogging is huge. The word blog has become the general term to represent all types of content creation that involves written words. When I started writing these Nuggets, I envisioned them only as email newsletters that would be archived online. I...
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AT: 06/15/2015 06:36:28 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 09, 2015

JCK Talks 2015: Introduction to Multichannel Marketing for Retail

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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 ...
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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

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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 ...
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AT: 06/01/2015 06:48:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Recommended Monthly Online Marketing for Jewelers

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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...
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AT: 05/26/2015 01:12:01 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Determining the Cost of Different Methods of Marketing in Your Funnel

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Determining the Cost of Different Methods of Marketing in Your Funnel daily-golden-nugget-1258-48
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I explained how to analyze the cost of your marketing funnel. Today, I'll follow up with some specific funnel ideas to help you formulate your own plan.

Understanding Previous Marketing


Here's a tricky question to think about... Do you measure ad success by the number of people it brought...
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AT: 05/20/2015 09:09:37 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 19, 2015

The Misunderstood Cost of the Marketing Funnel

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The Misunderstood Cost of the Marketing Funnel daily-golden-nugget-1257-3
The truth of the matter is that your business will never survive without some type of marketing. Word of mouth marketing is not enough anymore to support your business. Simple posts to social media and meager ads in community newspapers won't support your overhead, or even put food on your table.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, you should VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/19/2015 11:16:30 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 06, 2015

Where Should You Blog for Your Business?

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Where Should You Blog for Your Business? daily-golden-nugget-1248-84
Before social media, there was Blogging.

Blogging has passed through various evolutions in the years since its original inception in 1994. The first blogs were created to help people keep their friends up to date with what they were doing. Services like Open Diary, Slashdot, and LiveJournal we...
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AT: 05/06/2015 01:09:10 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Plan Your Next Contest To Be The First Step in Your Sales Funnel

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Plan Your Next Contest To Be The First Step in Your Sales Funnel daily-golden-nugget-1242-6
Using a contest to promote your company and build awareness is a viable method of marketing for any business.

During the past month, in preparation for Mother's Day, many retail jewelers held jewelry design contests. Typically this type of contest required a sketch of a pendant to be submitted to the jeweler through some method. The winner would have their pendant turned into reality by Mother's Day.

Over the past 4 years, I've been helping retai...
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AT: 04/28/2015 11:06:20 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Should You Pay For Inclusion in a Directory Website?

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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.

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AT: 04/14/2015 11:33:32 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, April 13, 2015

The Push and Pull of Hardware, Software, and Customer Service Technology

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The Push and Pull of Hardware, Software, and Customer Service Technology daily-golden-nugget-1231-21
When I first opened my business in 1994 as a computer consultant, the drivers of new technology were a lot different. In the mid 90s, it was typical to first buy a computer before figuring out what software you could use on it. Many of my customers wanted their own programs written, too. Those were the days of DOS and Windows 3.1, and the options for software were limited to what you could find in your local Egghead Software store, or you ha...
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AT: 04/13/2015 07:13:12 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, April 09, 2015

Adding Value To The Internet #TBT

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Adding Value To The Internet TBT daily-golden-nugget-1229-84
In this edition of #ThrowBackThursday, I'm jumping back to an old topic, and still a very valid topic explained in Daily Golden Nugget number 175 back on March 25, 2011... Adding new value to the internet.

Content, content, content! That's what Google wants. Countless numbers of official Google webmaster blog posts, videos, and presentations by Google employees at internet expos talk about the continual need to create new content.

<...
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AT: 04/09/2015 01:14:43 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, April 07, 2015

3 Email Follow-Up Ideas Engage Customers After a Jewelry Store Contest

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3 Email Follow-Up Ideas Engage Customers After a Jewelry Store Contest  daily-golden-nugget-1227-21
A jeweler wrote to me the other day asking for help with their Mother's Day contest promotion. The promotion is being advertised through the local papers but the contest takes place through their website. To enter the contest you need to fill out the online form and agree to sign up for their newsletter.

Because the contest is centered around creating a custom design, this jeweler wants to send out a series of additional custom design em...
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AT: 04/07/2015 09:31:34 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, April 02, 2015

Build Links When Sponsoring Local Events and Acquiring Customers

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Build Links When Sponsoring Local Events and Acquiring Customers daily-golden-nugget-1224-48
This is the #ThrowbackThursday edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. This week, I'm jumping back to Nugget Number 93 from December 1, 2010. The topic is Trading Links with Local Businesses.

Linking to Avoid


Google has placed heavy penalties on websites that use link building to affect their ranking. The VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/02/2015 12:59:01 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Can One Blog Be Used to Promote Two Websites?

by
Can One Blog Be Used to Promote Two Websites? daily-golden-nugget-1222-74
I received an interesting question the other day from Suzie, a jewelry designer. Well, her name wasn't actually Suzie, but let's just say that it was so it makes this story easier to tell.

For several years, Suzie had an Etsy account where she sold a line of baby toe ring jewelry. This was her fist line of jewelry before she started making gemstone jewelry necklaces. Realizing how different these two lines of jewelry are, instead of using Etsy to sell the necklaces, she opened an e-com...
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AT: 03/31/2015 07:24:30 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 19, 2015

Good and Bad Implementations of QR Codes

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Good and Bad Implementations of QR Codes  daily-golden-nugget-1214-92
QR Codes have been a hot topic for several years. In this #ThrowbackThursday Daily Golden Nugget, I'd like to jump all the way back to my second Nugget ever, which was on QR Codes. That was July 27, 2010!

That Nugget was the number one most popular post I had ever made, until I started writing about screen resolution and setup directions for Google M Business. It has since d...
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AT: 03/19/2015 11:26:57 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Building a Personal Brand For Business Success

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Building a Personal Brand For Business Success daily-golden-nugget-1197-3
A number of years ago, and I was hired to create a website to promote a national marketing campaign for retail jewelers. The website served as the cornerstone for hundreds of jewelers who were using the same set of ads to promote a select number of products that were sold exclusively through those retail jewelry stores.

The goal of the marketing campaign was to establish a nationwide brand identity for the hundreds of participating retail jewelers. Participation in that brand identity woul...
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AT: 02/24/2015 10:18:41 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, February 12, 2015

Use Storytelling to Build Valuable Website Content

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Use Storytelling to Build Valuable Website Content daily-golden-nugget-1189-36
Throwback Thursday is the name of a weekly internet trend where participants repost photos from the past. This is especially popular on Instagram where users tag their photos with the #TBT hashtag.

Truthfully, you can "throwback" anything that happened in the past. It could be a social media post, a photo, a blog post, or yes, even a Daily Golden Nugget!

Honestly, this is my first participation in a TBT, but what the heck; let's do it with a slightly different spin...
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AT: 02/12/2015 01:38:48 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Blog Post Timestamps and How They Appear to Google

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Blog Post Timestamps and How They Appear to Google daily-golden-nugget-1187-54
Every week, I receive at least one question from my readers through Facebook, Twitter, comments on jwag.biz, and even direct emails. Sometimes I reply privately, but sometimes I use those questions as source material for future Nuggets, like this one.

Here's a question that arrived via email about a week or so ago:
Regarding Blogging... Can post-dating a blog that you "should've" written months ago help you now if you date it the date from before (i.e. it's Feb and...
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AT: 02/10/2015 01:37:17 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, February 09, 2015

The Value of Content Creation and Content Curation, Part 3

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The Value of Content Creation and Content Curation, Part 3 daily-golden-nugget-1186-34
What's your favorite type of content? Given that content includes written articles, videos, podcasts, photography, and every other type of creative digital experience. There's a labor cost associated with creating a digital experience for your customers, a cost that's not easily understood by small business owners.

There's also a competing value of the content that swings between the long term value to attract quality customers and the short term value of getting a lot of attention. S...
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AT: 02/09/2015 02:11:44 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, February 05, 2015

The Value of Content Creation and Content Curation, Part 2

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The Value of Content Creation and Content Curation, Part 2 daily-golden-nugget-1184-93
What is the real value of the content you produce? Should you be creating your own content or hiring someone to do it for you? What about content curation?

This is part 2 of my in-depth answers to those questions. I've identified 6 levels of content and list them here in order of their most valuable to least valuable:

1. Business Owner Creates Content
2. Business Owner Curates Content
3. Business Owner Socially Engages
4. Hire Content Creator or...
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AT: 02/05/2015 09:42:48 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 04, 2015

The Value of Content Creation and Content Curation, Part 1

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The Value of Content Creation and Content Curation, Part 1 daily-golden-nugget-1183-78
Over the last two days, I've provided you with some content creation cost guidelines and how to use content curation as an alternative to creating your own. In this Daily Golden Nugget, I'm explaining how y...
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AT: 02/04/2015 11:18:26 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, February 02, 2015

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

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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...
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AT: 02/02/2015 09:53:20 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 24, 2014

'Twas The Jeweler's Night Before Christmas...

by Matthew Perosi and George Blair IV
'Twas the night before Christmas, and time to close doors
after a long four weeks, the time still soars.
Did you break record sales with engagement rings sold?
Hope she says yes tomorrow; the future's untold!

While it's usually children dreaming the morning's delight;
the guys that you helped are filled with horrible fright.
You're the town's best jeweler; the men come to you;
your jewelry's the best at getting an "I do."

The times, they have changed, and there's much online chatter,
you've to to keep up, or else you won't matter.
You made mistakes then, when your website used Flash,
but you took steps; improvement when sales came to a crash.

Your jewelry designs always win Best in Show,
but your website's sad ranking had fallen too slow.
With new learning, you hoped an answer'd appear...
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AT: 12/24/2014 08:30:38 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Holiday Season Email Marketing and Landing Page Review

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Holiday Season Email Marketing and Landing Page Review daily-golden-nugget-1148-17

The 2014 Holiday Season is flying by. Hanukkah began last night and Christmas Eve is one week from today.

Holiday decorations are everywhere, even on Google's search results...

Holiday Season Email Marketing and Landing Page Review 1148-google-holiday-serps-97 VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/17/2014 08:05:12 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Reporting The Number of Black Friday Related Emails in November 2014

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Reporting The Number of Black Friday Related Emails in November 2014 daily-golden-nugget-1137-resized-99
It's time to kick off my yearly report of email subject lines throughout the holiday season. This is my breakdown of "Black Friday" emails throughout November 2014.

As part of my email tracking, I'm subscribed to hundreds of different email lists. Every month, I monitor trends and techniques to see how email marketing is evolving. During the month of November, I received almost 1000 emails building towards the launch of the holiday season. VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/02/2014 12:33:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, December 01, 2014

How To Drive Website Traffic and Sales on Cyber Monday

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How To Drive Website Traffic and Sales on Cyber Monday daily-golden-nugget-1136-28
As the internet and online shopping have become more popular over the last few years, today, the first Monday after Thanksgiving and Black Friday, has earned the designation as Cyber Monday. This is the day when many e-commerce websites have 24 hour sales to lure shoppers to spend their money online instead of shopping in local stores.

Every year comScore.com reports the sales figures for different shopping days through the holiday season. Although the calendar date of Cyber Monday changes ever...
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AT: 12/01/2014 08:06:16 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Google Shopping and Double Management of Your Inventory

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Google Shopping and Double Management of Your Inventory daily-golden-nugget-1133-61
I've seen a lot of chatter online recently and in business magazines about the management of store inventory and how it relates to online advertising. Many of the conversations stem from the requirements for the new online advertising system called Google Shopping and how it will help online sales for this holiday season.

For today, the eve of Thanksgiving in the United States, I wanted to briefly cover the topic of online inventory, inventory uploads, and how that works with Google Shopping.<...
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AT: 11/26/2014 09:43:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The Timely Watch Promotion

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The Timely Watch Promotion daily-golden-nugget-1112-16
Around this time every year, my local fire department hangs out their "Change your clocks, change your smoke detector batteries" sign. It doesn't rhyme at all, but they want to make sure you get into the habit of associating a required action with a life saving action that we all would otherwise forget about.

Since daylight savings time is on everyone's mind, this is also a good opportunity to tie in some type of watch promotion. Selling watches isn't as glamorous as selling diamond covered jewelry, but it's still a sale that shouldn't be overlooked...
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AT: 10/28/2014 09:38:03 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 13, 2014

Google Analytics: Segmenting Mobile Traffic

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Google Analytics: Segmenting Mobile Traffic daily-golden-nugget-1101-95
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'll bring to a close a multi-part series of holiday marketing for the 2014 season. This is the 11th part of the series all based around the unified topic of marketing for the 2014 season.

In this series, I started with explaining how to organize your marketing, then showed you how to set up tracking of that marketing, and concluded with a few posts showing you how to read the tracking results.

I've including the previous 10 related posts at the bottom, but you don't...
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AT: 10/13/2014 11:25:03 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 02, 2014

Google Analytics: Exit Page Report

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Google Analytics: Exit Page Report daily-golden-nugget-1094-6
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'll show and explain the Exit Page report in Google Analytics.

Although this edition can stand alone as a single Nugget, it's actually part of a larger series on holiday marketing and how to analyze that marketing. This is the 8th part to that series. I've included the first 7 in a link list at the bottom of this Nugget.

Google Analytics Exit Page Report


Let's take a look at the Exit Pages report in GA. This is similar to the VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/02/2014 07:01:54 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, September 29, 2014

Planning the Online Tracking Needed to Help Sell Your Products

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Planning the Online Tracking Needed to Help Sell Your Products daily-golden-nugget-1091-23
Throughout all of last week, I've been laying the groundwork for a complete holiday 2014 marketing plan that you can use to promote a chosen suite of items.

Here a recap:

1. You need to select some items that you'll use in your holiday promotions. Read this to find out how to select the best items.

2. You then need to plan your o...
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AT: 09/29/2014 08:52:49 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 25, 2014

Domain Names Used to Track How You Sell Your Products

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Domain Names Used to Track How You Sell Your Products daily-golden-nugget-1089-50
Over the last three days, I've given you some specific marketing tactics that, as a whole, would equate to a large marketing campaign for the holiday season. I began with a discussion on choosing the right products for the campaign, then explained how to VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/25/2014 08:43:16 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Online Marketing Campaigns To Sell Your Products

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Online Marketing Campaigns To Sell Your Products daily-golden-nugget-1088-60
This is the third part of my Daily Golden Nugget series outlining a potential marketing plan for the upcoming holiday season. The first part explained how to select the items to promote during the holidays. The second part detailed how to set up your newspa...
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AT: 09/24/2014 06:18:19 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Offline and Email Marketing Campaigns To Sell Your Products

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Offline and Email Marketing Campaigns To Sell Your Products daily-golden-nugget-1087-57
This is the second part of my Daily Golden Nugget series outlining a potential marketing plan for the upcoming holiday season. The first part I began yesterday explained how you should select a specific set of jewelry items and then write blogs, take photography, and make videos for those items.

Today, I'll go into some detail about launching the ...
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AT: 09/23/2014 06:34:59 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, September 22, 2014

Building a Marketing Campaign To Sell Your Products

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Building a Marketing Campaign To Sell Your Products  daily-golden-nugget-1086-68
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'm outlining a potential marketing plan for the upcoming holiday season. My example will focus on specific items which we will build content around and share socially.

What I've written out in this guide will be good for anyone looking for a different approach to marketing for this upcoming holiday season. There's a lot of detail for the setup, implementation, and then the post-analysis of the entire campaign. You'll do the setup...
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AT: 09/22/2014 07:36:51 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 04, 2014

Important 2014 Marketing Dates and Sales Headlines

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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...
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AT: 09/04/2014 11:10:49 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, July 31, 2014

Adding and Deleting Content From Your Website

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Adding and Deleting Content From Your Website 8829-daily-golden-nugget-1049
Your business changes every day. Sometimes it's a small change like getting new inventory into your store and sometimes it's a big change like moving to a larger location.

The jewelry industry is highly competitive, and many times it's difficult to rank above your competitors if you don't have enough information on your website. You can't rely on a few educational pages, like the 4C's, and then small product catalog with images and simple descriptions. That's simply not enough in...
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AT: 07/31/2014 09:20:28 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, July 30, 2014

History and Special Uses of the Website Sitemap

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History and Special Uses of the Website Sitemap 4371-daily-golden-nugget-1048
How deep is your website? The depth of a website is measured by the number of times you would have to click on a navigation link in order to reach the most nested areas of your website.

I've read website design recommendations stating that every page of your website should be reachable within 3 clicks. Anything more than that supposedly won't be of interest by website users.

But when it comes to a product catalog, it's very easy to dive down into 4 levels very quickly. <...
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AT: 07/30/2014 10:56:09 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, July 24, 2014

How To Find 4 Years of Sustainable Blogging Topics

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How To Find 4 Years of Sustainable Blogging Topics 4541-daily-golden-nugget-1044
On Saturday this week, I'm celebrating another Daily Golden Nugget milestone--it's the 4th anniversary of when I published my first Nugget. Four years, and still going strong.

Blogging can lead to a lot of opportunities for business and in your personal life. I find it extremely rewarding. If you haven't started blogging yet, then read through this s...
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AT: 07/24/2014 01:11:17 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 14, 2014

Wixon Jewelers: 2014 Small Business of the Year

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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,...
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AT: 07/14/2014 09:22:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, June 30, 2014

The Evolution of a Swipe File

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 The Evolution of a Swipe File 9041-daily-golden-nugget-1026
Do a Google search for the phrase "there are no original ideas anymore" and you will find 57 million results explaining how the world has run out of ideas.

Can it be true? Has the world truly run dry of new concepts and ideas?

Although I've heard a few people make such statements, I never gave it much real thought until the summer of 2013. There were a lot of big changes that inspired me to write a Nugget detailing how SEO...
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AT: 06/30/2014 09:29:36 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 24, 2014

When Inspiration Strikes...

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When Inspiration Strikes... 8113-daily-golden-nugget-1022
My job requires the wearing of many hats. Some days I spend all my time analyzing tracking data, some days I'm writing these Daily Nuggets, other days I've reviewing programming code, and then there are those mundane days when I'm spending time with the bookkeeper and insurance agent.

Although all these different duties seem disconnected, they all drive my business forward and it's surprising to me how each one helps inspire ideas for making the others better.

In honor of my recent achievement of 1000 blog posts...
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AT: 06/24/2014 02:11:57 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, June 19, 2014

Email Subject Lines from Father's Day 2014

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Email Subject Lines from Fathers Day 2014 7885-daily-golden-nugget-1019In today's Daily Golden Nugget, I'm reviewing website traffic and email headlines leading up to Father's Day in the USA, which was June 15 this year.

Organic traffic doesn't usually increase much during the weeks leading up to Father's Day, although this year there was an overall 10.52% increase during the 5 weeks right before the holiday.


During the week of May 19th, I only saw 2 emails mentioning Father's Day with these subject lines:

Find The Perfect Gift For Dad...
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AT: 06/19/2014 10:47:26 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Email Subject Lines from Mother's Day 2014

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Email Subject Lines from Mothers Day 2014 3697-daily-golden-nugget-1018
In today's Daily Golden Nugget, I'm reviewing website traffic and email headlines leading up to Mother's Day in the USA, which was May 11 this year.

Every year, during the three weeks leading up to Mother's Day, the organic customer acquisition patterns repeat themselves. This year that pattern started on Monday April 21, 2014 with a slight rise of traffic. The increase in traffic occured from Monday through Friday followed by the typical dip in traffic over the weekends.

The week ...
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AT: 06/18/2014 12:31:42 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 17, 2014

15 SEO and SEM Related Tidbits You Should Know About Blogging

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15 SEO and SEM Related Tidbits You Should Know About Blogging 8726-daily-golden-nugget-1017
A lot has changed in the world of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) since I first started my daily blogging more than 1000 posts ago.

The most significant SEO changes over the last 4 years are related to Google Panda and Google Penguin, but there are dozens of other notable changes, and hundreds of subtle changes throughout the entire internet.

Although I'd love to write a "then and now" post about all the intern...
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AT: 06/17/2014 03:28:54 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 11, 2014

6 Tips To Help You Better Edit Your Blog Post

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6 Tips To Help You Better Edit Your Blog Post 8781-daily-golden-nugget-1013
Blog writing can be fun, educational, rewarding, and a boon for your business over the long term. If you're blogging just for the fun of it, then you might not spend the extra time to edit each blog post before publishing it. A quick read through for spelling mistakes and simple grammatical corrections might be all that's necessary.

Those of you blogging for business should take a slightly more professional approach to your blogging and spend a little more time on the editing proces...
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AT: 06/11/2014 02:41:40 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 10, 2014

12 Tips To Improve Your Blog Writing Process

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12 Tips To Improve Your Blog Writing Process 8233-daily-golden-nugget-1012
The process of writing a blog post is more involved than just coming up with an idea and typing it out. Writing has its own set of interesting experiences which were holding me back from my writing creativity until I started to identify them.

What I've itemized below are 12 things that I discovered about the writing process and how to deal with them. Your own writing experiences might differ, but you won't know until you start blogging on your own.

Here are the best tips on my...
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AT: 06/10/2014 09:13:08 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, June 05, 2014

8 Tips For Managing Your Blogging Ideas

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8 Tips For Managing Your Blogging Ideas 519-daily-golden-nugget-1009
Good ideas happen at the least opportune moments. When driving, while walking, brushing your teeth, watching TV, and of course the worst time is when you are just drifting off to sleep. You'll never remember that idea in the morning.

After writing more than 1000 blog posts, I came up with a few thoughts of my own for how to make sure I don't forget a good blogging idea when it comes to me.

Here they are:
  1. Blogging ideas will come whenever they want to come to you. You need to fig...
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AT: 06/05/2014 09:09:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 04, 2014

What I've Learned About Blogging from Writing More Than 1,000 Posts...

by
 What Ive Learned About Blogging from Writing More Than 1,000 Posts... 3479-daily-golden-nugget-1008
Blogging is a method of online marketing, but it also has many other personal and business benefits. When I started blogging 4 years ago, it was partially because jWAG was a paid subscription education service and partially because I honestly just had the desire to do it. About a year later, it was decided to deactivate the subscription portal and turn jWAG into a philanthropic endeavor.

I now find it much more enjoyable to write blo...
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AT: 06/04/2014 11:11:25 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 03, 2014

How To Plan For A Long Blogging Process

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How To Plan For A Long Blogging Process 1660-daily-golden-nugget-1007
Since I started blogging on July 26, 2010, I've written 1006 Daily Golden Nuggets. This is my 1007th. I'm sure an accomplishment like this is child's play for a daily journalist who is paid to write several news articles in a single day, but I'm not a trained journalist and I don't have an English or Communications degree. I started as a lowly tech geek who suffered from a mild case of dyslexia with degrees in Computer Engineering and Applied Mathematics.

I somehow found the motivation to li...
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AT: 06/03/2014 09:30:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Email Campaign Mistakes

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday Email Campaign Mistakes 5893-daily-golden-nugget-877According to a report from the National Retail Federation, the number of Americans out shopping during this past weekend was up from 139 million in 2012 to 141 million this year. However, the average amount of money each person spent was down from $423.55 last year to $407.02 this year.

Yesterday, December 2, 2013, was Cyber Monday. This "special" day is designated as the day when Americans replace their weekend shopping with shopping online. This trend started way back fo...
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AT: 12/03/2013 12:04:08 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 29, 2013

A Review of Two Black Friday Email Ads

by
I typically do a website review every Friday but this week I'm changing that up and going to review some recent email marketing that's associated with today: Black Friday 2013.

This was a very busy week for email blasts. On Monday, I received 31 emails from retail jewelers, on Tuesday 37 email, 43 emails on Wednesday, and even 35 emails on Thanksgiving day by the time I posted this. I sign up for new emails all the time and most jewelry stores never send any emails until the holiday season.

In fact, I saw a few emails on Tuesday from retailers I signed up with more than 6 months ago and had never heard from before then.

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AT: 11/29/2013 09:59:42 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, October 30, 2013

9 Tips to Energize Your 2013 Holiday Season Sales

by
For those of us working in retail, or those of us who provide services to retail businesses, we know the day after tomorrow is when we can official start promoting the Holiday Season. True, we will still get flack for "skipping Thanksgiving," or for beating the first snowfall (maybe!) to the punch, but after Halloween, it's finally fair game. Holiday movies start playing on TV, and new holiday albums came out today is the US, which will start to affect the iTunes charts this weekend.

The USA is one of the few countries that celebrates Halloween in such a big way, and that day now represents the dividing date between "Fall" advertising and Holiday advertising. Not too long ago, that dividing date was Thanksgiving.

Of course, I'm only referring to the USA. Other countries that don't celebrate or commercialize Halloween in...
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AT: 10/30/2013 09:40:05 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 30, 2012

We're Seeing Black. Black Friday Headlines

by
Were Seeing Black. Black Friday Headlines 591-daily-golden-nugget-592In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget I explained that there are 4 potential days in November around which you could base some type of marketing campaign or announcement. Those days are Daylight Saving Time, Election Day, Veterans Day, and Thanksgiving. Simple email announcements, Facebook posts, or Tweets could raise awareness of your special promotion and sneak in under references to those days.

On the first hand, most retail stores--including most retail jewelers with active marketing campaigns--would rather focus th...
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AT: 10/30/2012 10:26:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 15, 2012

4 Must-Do Holiday 2012 Inbound Marketing Strategies for Jewelers

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4 Must-Do Holiday 2012 Inbound Marketing Strategies for Jewelers 7119-imageIn preparation for the upcoming Holiday 2012 season you need to start adding information to your website now so Google will lead internet visitors to during the holiday website search season.

Today's Daily Golden Nugget gives you a few website content strategies that you can use for new content or for blog posts. No matter how you include these ideas on your website, they will bring a flurry of visitors during the holiday season... as long as you go do this right now.

Strategy #1:
Get photos of recent celebrity e...
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AT: 10/15/2012 09:25:19 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 23, 2012

Digesting Your Previous Blogs to Create New Blogs

by
There are so many different ways to create quality blog posts, and to keep your readers engaged. Today I want to explain how you can create a digest blog post using your previous blog posts.

Digest emails are quite popular, in fact, for the first 200 or so Daily Golden Nuggets we were sending digest Nuggets every Friday to readers that wanted them instead of the daily emails. Websites with active blogs and articles (like news sites) often send evening emails with blurbs of all the day's posts.

There's a difference between sending a digest email and creating a digest blog post. The email can use the same wording, perhaps even the first few sentences of each original blog, but if you intend on posting this digest online you need to write a brand new summary of the blog.

For SEO purposes, you need to have new words po...
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AT: 07/23/2012 02:19:16 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 16, 2012

Jewelers Can Beat the Writer's Block

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Some people have the "Gift of Gab," and some just don't. Knowing what to say and when to say it can make or break your popularity, and surprisingly it's the same way with Google.

Official directions from Google always say to post new content to your website. It's the new, fresh content that attracts attention. But for most jewelers there's only so many ways you can talk about diamonds, the 4 C's, diamond rings, and birthstones before the topics are beaten to death.

So instead of beating that same old horse in your blog posts, you need to look for alternative things to talk about on a regular basis.

Here are 2 ideas to prevent writers block while writing blog posts for jewelry stores.


Red Carpet Events - Keep a lookout for any celebrity or local event that generates a lot of hoopla. Although these events...
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AT: 07/16/2012 08:37:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, June 11, 2012

Getting Ready to Attract Holiday Foot Traffic

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So... it's June. What's on your agenda for this month? Perhaps you have holiday advertising planning on your mind. If not in the next 2 weeks, then certainly you'll be thinking about it over the next 6 weeks.

As you evaluate your advertising budget we want you to take a very close look at what you spent last year, and what the return on investment was for each method. Many jewelers reported upticks in sales last holiday season, but was that because the economy turned around or because advertising methods worked?

While at JCK we spoke to a few successful jewelers that were not selling online, but were heavily marketing their website. In fact, those successful retailers told us they were spending between 50% and 70% of their entire marketing budget through online marketing instead of traditional media.

Most of you ...
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AT: 06/11/2012 03:59:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, April 23, 2012

Add More Blog Posts, Never Delete Them

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Most of the SEO techniques we teach you are related to how you should manage your content, write your content, and topics to attract customers. In our previous Nugget we explained in great length by you should remove the word "bridal" from all your online marketing and replace it with the word "wedding." That's a contextual change that will attract the right customers from Google.

We suggest looking through your site and replacing most occurrences of the word "bridal," but not all of them. Some people will still search for the phrase "bridal jewelry" so you should still be there for those few.

However, don't run to your old blog posts and replace bridal with wedding. That's the wrong strategy. Instead, you need to rewrite all those old "bridal" blog posts from scratch!

To explain why we want to tell you about ano...
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AT: 04/23/2012 09:31:26 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Sapphire Examples of Blogging Strategies

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Over the past few weeks we were trying to get a better understanding of how Google will translate a long tail search query into a valuable SERP for users. Specifically, we were testing queries that started with this:

"What is the ________"

Have you ever tried a search query starting with either of those 3 words? Google understands that this query search is for information; therefore they try to return some type of quality educational article before any potential e-commerce site.

Google doesn't have an all-powerful artificial intelligence that would be able to directly return an answer to a question. They have to rely on mathematically matching a search phrase to phrases found on web pages. Other than the mathematical word matching, they also compare the results to more than 300 other ranking factors to give you th...
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AT: 03/20/2012 11:26:21 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, March 09, 2012

Just Blog; Don't Count Jewelry Keywords

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Sometimes we go months without thinking about a topic and then twice in a single day something comes up, like today when in depth conversations about keywords and SEO blossomed...

Tuning your website for keywords can be tricky. If you had a choice of tuning your website for only 5 phrases, what would you choose? Do you sell just 5 types of jewelry in your store? If you wanted to tune your website for "engagement rings" and "diamond engagement rings" that would already be 2 phrases. You could easily end up with a list of 20 or 30 desired keywords and phrase permutations.

From our point of view you should not be trying to narrow down SEO to a limited set of keywords, simply because that's not natural. Imagine if you were told to have a conversation about the rain storm outside, but you were not allowed to use the word "we...
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AT: 03/09/2012 09:10:51 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 06, 2012

How to Increase Website Visitors to a Jewelry Site Over the Long Term

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To follow up from yesterday's proposal location blogging suggestion, today we're giving you 2 more associated blogging ideas.

Our first suggestion is to blog about local locations where a wedding ceremony could be held. This list could include park locations, houses of worship, and even the mayor's office.

The second suggestion is a list of local banquet halls. Include the most upscale venue as well as the local firehouse or rescue squad hall.

You should include as many details about each location as possible, and remember to include a photo since those usually get the most attention by visitors. To get started, you should write one blog entry about each of the most popular places, or perhaps just the places you are most familiar with, then watch your website tracking for about a month.

In your website track...
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AT: 03/06/2012 11:42:32 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 05, 2012

Blogging: You can make their proposal memorable.

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The last time we analyzed the percentage of organic visitors to jewelry websites from the various search engines was July 12, 2011. Back then here's how the top 3 engines stacked up.

Google: 89.7%
Yahoo: 4.2%
Bing: 3.8%.

When we recently measured on February 22, 2012 we found this breakdown of organic traffic sources:

Google: 82.5% (expected leader)
Yahoo: 7.9% (wow, this one is still beating Bing)
Bing: 7.6% (new player and likely enhanced by Facebook users)
AOL: 1.1% (geesh, people still use this?)
Ask: 0.6% (amazingly still alive)
Search.com: 0.3% (never really caught on; obvious names don't always work!)

Remember, these numbers are only measured against websites for retail jewelry stores. Google is losing ground while Yahoo and Bing are gaining, but then, Google's numbers wou...
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AT: 03/05/2012 11:10:14 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Inspired By True Love: Jewelry Gifts

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It's Valentine's Day.

Here's a cool trick that you should do tonight that will help you prepare for a more successful Valentine's Day for NEXT YEAR.

Doing a quick search on Google right now for the phrase "valentine day gift ideas" or "valentine day gifts" will return millions of results, most of which are for chocolate and flowers. You won't find much in the way of jewelry mentioned on page 1 or 2 of the SERP.

It's interesting that, according to Google's published research (link below), they say that jewelry gifts will be about $3.5 billion this year. That far out paces the 1.7 billion in flowers and the $1.5 billion in candy. They also state that online searches for jewelry between December 25, 2011 and January 8, 2012 were up 42% over last year. Google's research also showed that people were starting their onli...
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AT: 02/14/2012 11:27:30 PM   0 COMMENTS
Sunday, December 11, 2011

Google Analytics and Last Minute Holiday Website Changes

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Have you looked at your Google Analytics data recently?
Is your holiday traffic up or down?
Do you know how your customers are finding you?

You may not be aware of it, but in the US, Google recently changed the way the SERP page works. Whenever Google or Gmail users are logged into their account, Google activates a secure web browser session.

In other words they are changing the browser from:
http://www.google.com
to
https://www.google.com

As more and more information is tied together between Google's various products, this seems like a safe measure to protect us all, however there's a serious downside. This security is going to change the way you read your Google Analytics because your search keyword data will slowly disappear.

The "https" feature is designed to block all information unless...
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AT: 12/11/2011 11:27:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, December 09, 2011

Holiday Smartphone Usage is Way Up Already

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It was predicted that this holiday season was going to see a huge jump in the number of smartphone users for holiday shopping.

Predictions from Google Think Insights and from data presented at the Mobile Marketing Summit in NYC on September 8, 2011 both stated that mobile would be a big player this year.

We decided to check in on the stats now that we are 2 weeks into the season.

75% increase is what we're seeing right now!

The actual numbers we're tracking are showing approximately 25,300 mobile users from a current total 38,300 mobile users. To put it differently, that's about 5.7 mobile users to your jewelry website right now.

Is your website mobile-ready or are you suffering your users through the pinch-zoom madness? Whether you have a mobile site or not, we'd like to give you a quick tip for you...
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AT: 12/09/2011 11:44:35 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, November 21, 2011

Google+ Page Setup for Jewelers

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It's 3 days before the big kickoff of the 2011 Holiday Season and we're hoping you are all set with your online marketing. Today's topic will help you set up a last-minute local internet presence.

We're going to give you some pointers on setting up your Google+ Page. The Google+ Page and Google Places Page are two different website properties, and you will need to manage both right now. Google has hinted that Google+ will eventually absorb the features of Google Places, but let's not hold our breath on that today. Instead we need to deal with 2 Google business profiles for your jewelry store.

Google+ Pages will help you win your local market, so you need to step up and get this done. Google+ Pages will be important for you because they are already showing up in the Google SERP. Here's an excerpt from the Google+ Pages...
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AT: 11/21/2011 11:51:16 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 18, 2011

Extending Your Jewelry Store's Holiday Well Wishes

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Every year your mail boxes are filled with holiday cards from friends, family, and sometimes even business relations who want to simply say how important you are to them. The typical "Happy Holidays and a Prosperous New Year" are among the common phrases inside holiday greeting cards.

Your Facebook Likes, email subscribers, Twitter followers, and Google+ Circles are supporting your business, and are very important to you as well. A message of holiday cheer and heartfelt warmth can make their holiday a little happier.

Sending messages to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are easy and you shouldn't feel worried about message overload during the last days of the season. On the other hand your email subscribers might be getting tired of hearing from you by the time December 20th comes around.

Depending on how much you've...
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AT: 11/18/2011 00:01:17 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 17, 2011

Jewelry Store Holiday Hours

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Many jewelry stores we've worked with do not have regular 9am to 5pm or 10am to 6pm store hours. Some have morning and afternoon hours and close for lunch, and many personal jewelers have morning hours some days and afternoon hours on other days. Most of the jewelry stores we know will also be closed on Sunday and Monday every week throughout the year.

Naturally these store hours start to shift during the holiday season. However you change your store hours, you need to make sure your customers know about it.

For starters, make sure you have an easy to find page on your website dedicated to your store hours. Yep, a dedicated page that actually says "Store Hours" as the link/button name in your navigation.

We've also seen some jewelers post their store hours on their home page, which might be a good strategy to cha...
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AT: 11/17/2011 00:01:58 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Last Minute Reminders Ideas for Jewelers

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It's crunch time! Well, maybe not really, not yet, but that's the mindset we want you to be in today. Imagine it's the last few days before the holiday. This year the major holidays of Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, and Kwanzaa are all within the 7 days of one another, and last minute reminders on December 19th could really boost your season end sales.

All of our Daily Golden Nuggets so far have concentrated on selling new merchandise, but one of the easiest last minute reminders should be about jewelry cleanings, prong checking, and watch battery replacements.

You have to admit that most of us will want to look our best when entertaining family and friends over the holidays. Not only do people dress to impress but they also want their jewelry to impress. What good are those 2ctw., IF, D earring studs if they are so dirty t...
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AT: 11/16/2011 00:01:20 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Tis The Season for Jewelry Product Positioning

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Marketing campaigns in early December each year shift from talk of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to campaigns mentioning the "12 Days of Christmas." Many of these marketing campaigns will align themselves with the 12 items in the popular song in hopes to create memory retention.

If you are looking for ways to create memory retention, you don't have to limit yourself to the overly popularized use of those 12 days and items; instead, you should try to be a little more creative. Let's look at some ideas that might spark your own.

The Holiday Season comes jam-packed with many religious traditions, cultural traditions, and popularized TV/movie/theatre traditions. Any one of these can be adapted to help your own brand or specific product positioning.

Creating branding or product positioning for your store or jewelry shoul...
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AT: 11/15/2011 00:01:00 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, November 14, 2011

Holiday Tools for Jewelry Gift Buyers

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It's the season of giving. Combine that with the social web and you could come up with some creative ideas to weave through your website, email, Facebook, and Twitter marketing. If all your holiday marketing is simply attempting to sell, you will quickly lose your audience, so how can we spice up your website and email messages?

A good place to start is to think about what people do during the holidays other than buy gifts. They get together with family, catch up with friends, decorate their homes inside and out, watch seasonal movies and TV shows, bake, sing carols, and anything else you can think of. What are your traditions during the Holiday Season?

Actually that's a good question to ask on your Facebook Page: What are your Holiday Traditions? You could even make it a contest and have every shared story entered int...
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AT: 11/14/2011 00:01:28 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 11, 2011

Cyber Monday Suggestions for Jewelers

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We've spent each day this week reviewing important marketing tips and SEO ideas as they relate to key shopping days in the holiday season. Today's topic is Cyber Monday, the heyday for those of you that have e-commerce websites.

This year Cyber Monday falls on November 28, 2011. Cyber Monday of 2010 was reported to have 1,028M in online sales according to comScore, but according to our own data it wasn't the highest day for online visitors to jewelry store websites. The biggest traffic day award goes to December 20, 2010, the Monday before Christmas.

The philosophy behind Cyber Monday is that disappointed shoppers from Black Friday and the weekend are still trying to complete holiday shopping but ran out of time over the weekend. Many e-commerce websites will announce Cyber Monday specials to capture the online sales. VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 11/11/2011 00:01:57 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 10, 2011

Small Business Saturday SEO Suggestions for Jewelers

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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...
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AT: 11/10/2011 00:01:35 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Black Friday Email & Social Suggestion for Jewelers

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Black Friday emails continue to surge every year. According to Responsys.com there was a 67% increase in Black Friday emails in 2010 from previous years.

Black Friday shopping starts very early in the day, so if you're planning on sending an email that day you need to send it out at 3AM or 4AM local time so shoppers are reminded of your deals and include you in their shopping schedule.

Here are some suggested subject lines for Black Friday, a few of which come from Responsys.com.

"Wake Up! Don't Miss BLACK FRIDAY DEALS"
"Black Friday Deal Buster Specials on Jewelry"
"Black Friday Only - Free Necklace with every Pendant"

Naturally that last suggestion of a free necklace would be a loss leader. Take a look at yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget for some recommendations on low cost suppliers.

Within the...
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AT: 11/09/2011 00:01:20 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Thanksgiving Email Suggestion for Jewelers

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Advertising in the days leading up to Black Friday will be flooded with "Door Buster Deals" that entice those potential shoppers looking for the best deals of the Holiday Season and you can easily participate in that advertising strategy with minimum, last minute investments.

Hopefully with our Lookbook suggestion yesterday, you have a clearly defined strategy of which products you will be pushing for the holiday season, but if you haven't yet selected a line of jewelry with retail prices of under $200 and under $100 then we've got some ideas for you. It's these price points that consumers will be attracted to on Black Friday, and it's these items that you need to announce in your Thanksgiving Day email.

Yes, we're actually suggesting you send a Thanksgiving Day email this year. According to Responsys.com there was a 46% ...
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AT: 11/08/2011 00:01:30 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, November 07, 2011

Black Friday Holiday Jewelry Lookbook Preview Ideas

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Today we're going to give you some ideas for email and website content that you should launch on the Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving. That's 2 weeks from today, so if you jump on this right now, you can still get it done.

To begin, we'd like you to take a moment and think about all the emails your vendors have sent you in the past week or so. This year it seems like many vendors are promoting their low-cost jewelry lines. These low-cost lines include silver charms, woven jewelry, alternative metals, and we've seen a few specials on traditional jewelry including pearls.

Black Friday shoppers will probably be more interested in finding gift items for people on their list than directly interested in spending time looking at your expensive ring showcase; so stay focused on the holiday buyers on Black Frida...
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AT: 11/07/2011 09:18:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 31, 2011

Scary Email Tactics You Should Follow

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Officially we have closed the last chapter on our Holiday 2011 Run-Up. The book was getting to be too long and we wanted you guys to read it instead of being frightened to death by its magnitude. If you haven't downloaded it yet, you can still do so from our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/JewelerWebsiteAG.

We still have a lot of important research data that will help you make the most of your marketing dollars during the most important part of your year. Although not included in the Run-Up book, it makes sense for us to continue presenting our findings.

A few weeks ago, and on page 32 of the Run-Up, we gave you several days of subject line examples for your holiday email marketing. They were straight forward examples to get you thinking, but we didn't present ...
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AT: 10/31/2011 01:46:51 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, October 14, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up: Cyber Monday Email Ideas

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Cyber Monday is the Monday immediately following Thanksgiving Day in the USA. Last year the company comScore tracked $1,028M (that's a Billion) in online sales that day. Sales were up 16% from 2009.

Cyber Monday got its name from the idea that holiday shoppers who were discouraged by their in-person weekend shopping experience would continue their shopping on-line that Monday morning.

This year Cyber Monday is November 28, 2011. Your strategy, should you decide to accept it, is to remind your customers early that morning about your jewelry store and what you have to offer. Even if you don't have an e-commerce jewelry website, you still need to get their attention.

According to our research we expect that on Cyber Monday morning, your customers will be tempted by emails from Macy's, Kay, Tiffany, David Yurman, Jar...
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AT: 10/14/2011 12:01:18 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 13, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up: Black Friday Email Ideas

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Today's Daily Golden nugget is a continuation of the holiday email research from the website Responsys. During the Holiday 2010 Season, Responsys tracked emails from more than 100 large retailers and published a report of holiday email trends.

We've taken their generic retail research data and reworked it for the retail jewelry store. The ideas presented here come directly from Responsys, with a little jWAG tweaking.

Let's turn our attention to the flurry of emails sent to consumers on the morning of Black Friday. For 2011, Black Friday in the USA is November 25th.

Any emails for Black Friday should be sent out during overnight hours, perhaps about 3am or 4am, so customers can find them waiting on their Smartphone first thing in the morning. Remember that many shopping malls and large department stores will open a...
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AT: 10/13/2011 10:57:47 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up: Thanksgiving Day Email Ideas

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Many large retailers and department stores have started a new trend of promoting online sales on Thanksgiving day and even opening their retail stores late in the evening on Thanksgiving Day. Responsys.com tracked a 32% increase on Thanksgiving day email traffic in 2010 and according to comScore, online sales for Thanksgiving Day 2010 jumped 28% to $407 million.

With this data it's obvious to us that that people are reading emails from their smartphones after their Thanksgiving dinner. They might be relaxing on the couch with the family, even watching the big game on TV, but secretly they are planning their holiday purchases.

You don't need an e-commerce website to benefit from a Thanksgiving Day email blast. You could use the email to plant an early thought and/or direct the person to your mobile website so they can view...
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AT: 10/12/2011 12:06:12 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up: Pre-Black Friday Email Ideas

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During the months of November and December, email marketing experiences a huge spike in usage as the entire retail industry seems to remember that they can contact consumers through this "old fashion" communication method.

We have been monitoring emails from a handful of jewelry stores over the years, but we know that some of the best holiday email research comes from the website Responsys. For this Daily Golden Nugget and for this part of our Holiday Run-Up 2011, we're going to directly reference their research.

During the Holiday 2010 Season, Responsys tracked emails from more than 100 large retailers and found that every holiday related message contained one of the following types of messages somewhere in the body of the email. As usual, we've modified these where appropriate to make your job easier.

- Shop our h...
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AT: 10/11/2011 12:11:36 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Huddles and Hangouts: Useful Google Plus Features for Jewelers?

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Google Plus continues to dominate tech news on many websites as Google publishes new tweaks of the service every day. I've been reading and testing to figure out how and why you, as a retail jewelry store owner, should get involved in Google+.

I suppose I should tell you about the video chat feature called a Hangout. Google gave us a brand new way to video conference between people. This feature allows you to video conference up to 9 friends to communicate directly through your webcam.

In a Hangout, you can all see each other in small thumbnail videos while the person talking is presented in a larger video window. The Hangout also has a chat, and a way to watch YouTube videos together.

It's quite fascinating and I know I'll find it useful when I want to hold a conference with my team when I'm traveling, but at the...
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AT: 07/13/2011 01:25:22 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Ideas for Succeeding with Groupon

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As you might already know, we usually don't publish Daily Golden Nuggets unless we have enough data to substantiate what we're saying. Although recently we've published a few "Front Line SEO" nuggets that were based on developing SEO observations, we felt they were important enough to talk about.

Today we'd like to finally examine Groupon. Is it worth it for a retail jeweler? What's the typical result? How can you make it work for you?

Groupon recently filed for their S-1 and is moving forward with their IPO as soon as possible. They've had an amazing success in only 30 months, but is their business model actually a success for the retail stores that use it?

We've spoken to a few jewelers that have used Groupon and to many other retail business owners outside the jewelry industry. They've all reported the same e...
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AT: 06/15/2011 12:29:10 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Jumping Into The Deep End of Video

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Universal search results pages contain organic web page listings, product information, Wikipedia information, local businesses and video. Recent additions also include bookmarks from friends, tweets and other social interactions.

Let's talk about video.

Both Google and Bing will include videos from sources including YouTube, eHow and TED, DailyMotion, MSN, Tudou (TF1), Allocine, MySpace, 5min, VideoJug, MTV, and perhaps other sources. However, it's obvious that YouTube is the most popular video website right now.

Video acts as a magnet to your product or service. You can use video to illustrate your specific talents and provide customer education. It also creates a bond between you and your customers that is solidified when they meet you in person or talk to you on the telephone for the first time.

Creating...
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AT: 05/04/2011 01:46:53 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 24, 2011

Do You Think You are Funny?

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Blogging is such an important part of website content. Using your blog, you can add real content that Google loves to index and use in the search.

You blog is a forum for so many different things. One day you can use it to showcase a new line of jewelry in your store, and the next you can use it to talk about your sponsorship of the local Little League.

Everything you post in your blog will feed Google's ability to bring you traffic. But what if you would rather have people share your blog posts on Facebook or Twitter? How can you get them to do that?

Google is a machine, programmed to do what it does and it doesn't care if your content is boring. It only cares if your content matches a search query.

To get interest from real people, you need to make your blog posts interesting. Give people a reason to b...
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AT: 03/24/2011 01:10:51 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Bloggorama Thin or Fat?

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Blogging is a great way to increase traffic to your website. A blog entry allows you to create conversational information and use words more naturally than simply trying to keyword stuff all the other pages of your website.

Let's look at a good way to use blogging to increase organic traffic to your website.

Perhaps you have a landing page for the category "Diamond Wedding Sets" and on this page you have links to 4 sub pages:
* Round Diamond Sets
* Princess Cut Sets
* Marquise Diamond Sets
* Vintage Wedding Sets

This would be a "thin" page of information because you probably only have 1 photo and 1 sentence with each of those links. You don't want to keyword stuff that page because it would be unnatural. What does that actually mean? Well, don't use the words "diamond sets" or "wedding sets" or "diamon...
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AT: 03/02/2011 12:02:39 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, February 07, 2011

How-To Blog on Your Site

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Let's jump back to the very basics for a moment. The word "blog" is a portmanteau of the words "web" and "log." In 1997, the process of writing and publishing online was considered a weblog, but then in 1999 it was shortened to just "blog."

Blogs are extremely popular now. In fact, we might even say they have become one of the largest driving forces of the internet. Everyone with an opinion (or a passion) has the ability to get online and offer a piece of their mind.

We'd love to see all our jewelry stores add a blog to their website. Naturally, we hear opposition to this all the time because "who has the time?" Right?

For business purposes you should consider your blogging time as "necessary advertising." But you should not consider it to be a chore; after all, aren’t you passionate about jewelry?

Ple...
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AT: 02/07/2011 11:41:54 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 26, 2010

Ready? Set. SELL!

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It's Black Friday in the USA and that means millions of people are out spending money and hopefully many of you retail store owners are bringing in some good sales. Which, by the way, we hope you are reading this from your cell phone or tablet while out on the sales floor.

Speaking of cell phones and tablets, here are a few good ideas you should think about over the next week.

#1.
This one's for iPad users. Get yourself a nice photo frame stand that the iPad can sit in. A clear plastic frame will work, too. Load the iPad with some photos of items you have in stock. On Windows, you can easily load photos as if the iPad is a camera by using the standard iConnect-to-everything-iRelated-cable. On a Mac, you can use the iPhoto program to load and organize your photos.

Once your photos are loaded, place the iPad in...
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AT: 11/26/2010 09:00:07 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 25, 2010

Blogging Success Without Sucking Your Time Up

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Can you come up with a list of 52 little tips for your customers? There are 52 weeks in a year and it would be great if you had a tip to share with your customs every week.

Here are some ideas:

* Announce the birthstone of the month each month. That's already 12 weeks.

* Give a tip each month on the colors of the season and the type of jewelry, whether a style or a specific charm, that will match the season and fashions. That's another 12 weeks.

Only 28 more ideas needed. Can you come up with those on your own?

Once you have them all written out take an evening or a weekend afternoon and type them all into your blog.

Then set up an account with Hootsuite.com and attach your Store's Twitter and Facebook Business Page.

Next grab the URL of each blog post and create a status update in Hootsuit...
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AT: 10/25/2010 11:42:48 AM   0 COMMENTS
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