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Friday, September 15, 2017

Retailer Future: First Steps Towards Online Catalog and Ecommerce Websites

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Retailer Future: First Steps Towards Online Catalog and Ecommerce Websites daily-golden-nugget-1574-57
After many years of talking and teaching about it, I'm finally starting to see retail jewelers embracing the reality of catalog and ecommerce websites. The reality I'm referring to is the tedious process of photographing your inventory, maintaining a website, and handling all aspects of order fulfillment.

Within the jewelry industry, there are several ways to mimic an ecommerce website without actually setting it up or managing it yourself. Many large man...
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AT: 09/15/2017 07:11:02 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 21, 2017

Make Smarter Decisions Based On Your Website Reports

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Make Smarter Decisions Based On Your Website Reports daily-golden-nugget-1553-21
Retail is being redefined every day. Everyone still looks at their bottom line sales, but it doesn't matter anymore if the sales are from foot traffic through the front door or via shipping boxes out the back. While most retail businesses are still struggling to figure out how to bring foot traffic back in the front door, I submit that it's probably easier to learn what it takes to build your ecommerce business and increase the flow of shipped product instead.

With regard to marketing, the common p...
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AT: 04/21/2017 11:17:22 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 14, 2017

6 Most Frequently Broken Or Missing Website Features

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

Today, I'll share 6 of the most frequently broken or missing website features that I have seen over and over again, and provide some suggestions for maki...
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AT: 04/14/2017 09:35:50 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, January 27, 2017

Mike's Custom Jewelry #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Mikes Custom Jewelry FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1541-10
This is the #FridayFlopFix website review. The goal of this review is to learn from someone else's mistake by randomly choosing and dissecting a website that has problems, and explain potential fixes. Hopefully there is something we can all learn from.

Websites with mistakes usually don't rank very high in Google, so when I search for review candidates I usually look lower in the SERPs, and even deep within the forbidden-nowhere-zone on Google... Page 2.

This week, I started my search with the phr...
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AT: 01/27/2017 02:06:12 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, January 13, 2017

Bruce G. Weber #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Bruce G. Weber FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1539-61
One of the marketing testing methods I use is to put myself out in the real world, away from my desk, to observe what an ad will look like when encountered out in the wild. Although I do test my digital marketing ads on different devices and browsers when sitting at my desk, it's difficult to get into the same headspace that a consumer would be in then viewing an ad or a website. This is my own interpretation of the proverbial "walk a mile in their shoes."

This is why I like writing my website reviews when I'm trave...
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AT: 01/13/2017 07:52:48 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
Friday, November 25, 2016

Amidon Jewelers Black Friday Email & Website Review

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Amidon Jewelers Black Friday Email & Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1532-98
Over the last 6 years, I've subscribed to more jewelry email lists than I can remember. Whenever I do a website review, I look for the newsletter signup and add myself to their list. Most of the time, I never hear from those retail jewelers because they don't follow through with their email list.

Amidon Jewelers, in New Hampshire, is one of the few independent retail jewelers that I know that has consistently sent me emails since I signed up to their list way back in 2012. Years ago, they were sendi...
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AT: 11/25/2016 12:53:57 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 18, 2016

Franzetti Jewelers Website Re-Review

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

My review process was pretty unsophisticated 3.5 years ago. It took a while for me to realize that I should be ...
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AT: 11/18/2016 01:00:33 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, October 14, 2016

Jeweler's Choice #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Jewelers Choice FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1526-70
In honor of the jewelry shows taking place in Miami this weekend, I've chosen a Miami Beach jeweler for this week's website review. It all started with a Google search for "jewelers miami beach, fl" and these search results:

Jewelers Choice FridayFlopFix Website Review 1526-jewelers-miami-beach-fl-serp-49VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/14/2016 12:16:48 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 09, 2016

Abraxas Jewelers Needs A Lot Of Online Help

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

With all these changes happening in the world around us, it's hard to im...
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AT: 09/09/2016 12:13:39 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 05, 2016

Pugh's Diamond Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Pughs Diamond Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1516-77
It's time for the weekly case study of a website that's pretty old and in desperate need of a makeover. I call these weekly posts my Friday Flop Fix review. During these reviews, I look for websites that are implementing search engine optimization strategies poorly, or have poor website designs and I suggest ways to make them better.

This week, I searched Google for the phrase "jewelers Zanesville, OH" and was shown these results:

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AT: 08/05/2016 09:32:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 15, 2016

Marco Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Marco Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1513-10
In this edition of my weekly website review, I searched for "jewelers Stamford, CT" and Google suggested these results:

Marco Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review 1513-jewelers-stamford-ct-serp-17

I decided to jump right past all the top listings on that page and went down to the eighth,...
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AT: 07/15/2016 06:32:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 08, 2016

Happy Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Happy Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1512-39
Welcome to my weekly website review. Every Friday, I randomly look for a jewelry store website that has a few problems, that I call flops, and then I suggest ways to fix them. These short website reviews are not meant for the store itself but rather you, the reader. My hope is that you will discover something here that you also need to fix on your own site.

This week I used the phrase "jewelers Newport, RI" to search for my review candidate. Instead of choosing a jewelry store from the first page of the Google res...
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AT: 07/08/2016 11:03:44 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 01, 2016

J Mason Custom Jeweler #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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J Mason Custom Jeweler FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1511-47
Every Friday, I venture out into the unknown to find a website that needs some help; I call them flops that could use some fixing. My hope is that you, the reader, will be able to learn a thing or two from someone else's mistakes, so that's what I look for.

This week I searched Google for the phrase "jewelers in Chapel Hill NC," and got these results:

J Mason Custom Jeweler FridayFlopFix Website ...<br />
							<span class=VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/01/2016 10:56:28 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 17, 2016

Hancock Jewelers#FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Hancock JewelersFridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1509-71
Reading the latest website optimization and marketing methods online, and putting them into practice on your own website is a daunting task for most business owners. Many question their own actions and simply don't know where to start. For this reason, every Friday I present these mini case study website reviews. My goal is to find a website that has a few obvious (to me) problems, or flops, and then I suggest first steps fixes to get them on the right track again.

Learning from mistakes, yours or some else's, i...
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AT: 06/17/2016 11:31:28 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 10, 2016

Murphy's Mountain Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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

I write these website reviews every Friday to demonstrate how to apply new SEO techniques, online usability, and content building to pre-existing websites that need help. ...
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AT: 06/10/2016 11:15:22 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 03, 2016

Precious Metalsmith #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Precious Metalsmith FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1507-87
This is my weekly #FlopFix website review. Each week, I find a random retail jeweler's website and suggest fixes that could make it better. I never know what I'll find when I start these reviews and I do my best to document my first impressions as I look at the site.

This week I'm venturing to Olympia, WA where I'll search Google for "jewelry stores in olympia wa." Here's a screen grab of the returned SERP:

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AT: 06/03/2016 11:31:36 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 27, 2016

Island Butterfly Jewelry and Jubilee #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Island Butterfly Jewelry and Jubilee FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1506-65
Welcome to my weekly random website review. In these reviews, I search for website candidates that have problems (aka flops) with their website, and I suggest fixes to make them better. This week, I'm taking a drive down to Accomack County, Virginia in search for a jewelry store. Accomack is near the famous Route 13 Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel that I once had the pleasure, and slight fright, to drive over. There are fewer bus...
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AT: 05/27/2016 06:26:33 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 29, 2016

Trimarco Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Trimarco Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1502-91

Maintain Your Momentum No Matter Where You Are


Your customers and online followers will eventually become familiar with the routine and presentation of your content. Your content, and how you post it online, eventually becomes part of your brand's positioning, which is why planning ahead is so helpful for building that brand identity. The routine is just as important as the visual look because eventually your followers, whether paying customers or just readers, will expect things from you.

In my ca...
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AT: 04/29/2016 09:18:18 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Understanding DPI and PPI Resolutions Used in Print and Web Images

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Understanding DPI and PPI Resolutions Used in Print and Web Images daily-golden-nugget-1497-91
Although I frequently write about the importance of VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/19/2016 07:35:01 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, April 07, 2016

How To Rank Your Website When Someone Searches For Your Offline Ad #TBT

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How To Rank Your Website When Someone Searches For Your Offline Ad TBT daily-golden-nugget-1489-85
The axiom of search engine optimization is that your website will only rank for words that search engines can find on your website. If you learn nothing else about search engine optimization you must learn that one point. If you have learned that already; good, you don't have to read today, but before you go consider that many people aware of that axiom are still not applying.

Back in December 2014, I explained VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/07/2016 06:35:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 06, 2016

How To Get Customer Consent For Marketing and Social Media Photos

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How To Get Customer Consent For Marketing and Social Media Photos daily-golden-nugget-1488-71
When it comes to social media photographs, it's easy to forget that every person has a legal right to prevent you from posting a photo of their face online. Paid photographers and media companies are very aware of your legal rights, and they require people to sign a model release form.

Those release forms grant ownership and permission to use the photos for any purpose, even to sell the photos or use in promotions to sell a product. A quick Google search for "sample mode...
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AT: 04/06/2016 11:57:55 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, March 25, 2016

Fisher Jewelers & Silversmiths #FridayFlopFix Review

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Fisher Jewelers & Silversmiths FridayFlopFix Review daily-golden-nugget-1480-74
This is the #FridayFlopFix edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Each week, I look for candidate websites that are not ranking very well in Google search results and dissect them to figure out why they are ranking poorly.

This week, I searched for "jewelry stores Florence, SC" to find that poorly ranked site. I found an interesting situation with the store Fisher Jewelers & Silversmiths that I'll investigate today. I first noticed the AGS listing for the store shown here:

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AT: 03/25/2016 11:30:56 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 21, 2016

Social Media is The Glue Holding The Customer Life Cycle Together

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

Customer Life Cycle


There are specific steps that every customer must travel throug...
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AT: 03/21/2016 06:46:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, March 11, 2016

Diamonds Fine Jewelry #FridayFlopFix Review

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Diamonds Fine Jewelry FridayFlopFix Review daily-golden-nugget-1470-62
It's time for the #FridayFlopFix where I review a random website from a local retail jeweler. The goal is to find some obvious mistakes, or flops, and suggest ways to improve upon, or fix, things.

This week, I'm looking for a candidate jeweler in Meridian, Idaho. This is the Google search results page I saw when looking for "jewelers Meridian, ID":

Diamonds Fine Jewelry FridayFlopFix Review 1470-jewelers-meridian-id-se...<br />
							<span class=VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/11/2016 01:12:10 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 10, 2016

Good Photography Can Boost Your Overall Appearance Online and In-Store #TBT

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Good Photography Can Boost Your Overall Appearance Online and In-Store TBT daily-golden-nugget-1469-37
In preparation for this weekend's MJSA and JA Expo at the Jacob Javits center in NYC, I'm jumping way, way back to my fifth Daily Golden Nugget from July 30, 2010 about photography. I've written about photography many times since then, written product reviews about the VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/10/2016 12:52:27 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, February 15, 2016

Top 10 Daily Golden Nuggets of All Time

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Top 10 Daily Golden Nuggets of All Time daily-golden-nugget-1451-43
I'm going back to my own jWAG website tracking today to look at the top 10 Daily Golden Nuggets of all time, that are still relevant today. I see that some of the Nuggets with the highest reader count are out of date because Facebook and Google have changed things, and a few others are very similar so I'll have to do some consolidating.

Popular Screen Resolutions


1. The most popular screen resolutions change constantly as new mobile devices and laptops are introduced. I publish an updated version of screen resol...
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AT: 02/15/2016 09:58:17 AM   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
Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Minimalist Website Design Causes The Revival of The Splash Screen

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Minimalist Website Design Causes The Revival of The Splash Screen daily-golden-nugget-1428-42
Mobile websites are important, but a growing trend of mobile website design has me a little worried that websites are accidentally turning back the clock to a time of poor usability.

Splash Pages


The splash page was a very popular type of website home page design prior to 2010. A splash page was supposed to welcome a visitor to your site with a pretty image or an animation, and sometimes even music. Typically, there was a big arrow or the words "enter site" lik...
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AT: 01/13/2016 08:26:52 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Holiday Season 2015 Search Impression and Click Results for Retail Jewelers

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Holiday Season 2015 Search Impression and Click Results for Retail Jewelers daily-golden-nugget-1422-54
Now that we closed the book on the 2015 Holiday Season, it's time to review the results. Over the course of the holiday season, I captured more than 47,000 different keyword queries related to retail jeweler websites. I'm sifting through all that information to find something actionable for retail jewelers. I've been looking for things like a list of good keywords, or popular designer brands to carry, or even where to focus your energy over the next few month...
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AT: 01/05/2016 12:24:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, December 21, 2015

Using Google Image Search and Shared Images to Increase Web Traffic

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Using Google Image Search and Shared Images to Increase Web Traffic daily-golden-nugget-1411-14
We're all visual people. Smartphones and social media give us the freedom to snap and share photos all day long. Google has gotten much better as locating socially shared images and surfacing them in their image search.

When analyzing websites, I often find that there's more organic traffic arriving from Google image search than from web search. You can see this in your own Google Search Console data by looking at the Search Analytics report an...
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AT: 12/21/2015 12:50:59 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, November 02, 2015

Jewelry E-Commerce Sites Can't Succeed Without Crystal Clear Photography

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Jewelry E-Commerce Sites Cant Succeed Without Crystal Clear Photography daily-golden-nugget-1376-99
A few weeks ago, I was privileged to present a photography workshop at MJSA ConFab. Even though I don't necessarily like to be known as "The Jewelry Photography Guy," I seem to be gaining that reputation. After all, this was the 4th time I've enjoyed teaching jewelry photography techniques at an MJSA event.

I'm always being asked the same few questions about photography, which usually includes questions about macro lenses, lighting, and ...
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AT: 11/02/2015 06:57:27 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, October 30, 2015

Jewelry & Timepiece Mechanix Website Review

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Jewelry & Timepiece Mechanix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1375-48
Welcome to the Friday Website Review. In honor of Halloween, I went searching for a spooky or horror related city name in which to find a candidate jeweler to review. Sadly, populated places like Devil's Peek, Hells Corner, and Pumpkinville are nothing more than tourist traps in the middle of nowhere with nothing more than a general store.

I then tried a search for Haddonfield, Illinois, the city portrayed in the Halloween movie series. But as it turns out Haddonfield, Illinois is a fictiti...
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AT: 10/30/2015 09:41:25 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
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
Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Prevent Your Facebook Boosted Posts From Getting Rejected: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Prevent Your Facebook Boosted Posts From Getting Rejected: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1358-88
This is Part 9 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 I'...
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AT: 10/07/2015 11:13:20 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
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
Friday, September 25, 2015

Carlson's Jewelry Smithing Website Review

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Carlsons Jewelry Smithing Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1350-68
This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. I'm starting my Google search this week with the phrase "jamestown ny jewelers" to find the review candidate for today. That search yielded these results:

Carlsons Jewelry Smithing Website Review 1350-jamestown-ny-jewelers-serp-37VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/25/2015 12:04:02 PM   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
Friday, September 11, 2015

Thomas Michaels Designers Website Review

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Thomas Michaels Designers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1340-40
This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. The goal of these weekly reviews is to evaluate a random retail jeweler's website against website design methods, SEO strategies, usability, and technology trends. I use Google Chrome in incognito mode to find every review candidate with a basic local search phrase. I also try to capture my first impressions in these reviews and write them during my initial pass through the website.

The local search phrase I'm using this week is...
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AT: 09/11/2015 06:30:40 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 04, 2015

Kuehn Sisters Diamonds Website Review

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Kuehn Sisters Diamonds Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1335-78
In this week's Friday website review, I'm heading to Morgantown, WV to find a candidate jewelry store to review.

When I started my search with the phrase "morgantown wv jewelry stores," I saw these Google results:

Kuehn Sisters Diamonds Website Review 1335-morgantown-wv-jewelry-stores-serp-82 VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/04/2015 11:03:57 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 28, 2015

Kevin Main Jewelry Website Review

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Kevin Main Jewelry Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1330-38
This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Each week, I dig down into a random retail jewelry store website to discover the good and bad of what they've done with their online identity. The goal is to learn something that you can also apply to your own online identity.

This week I've decided to search San Luis Obispo, CA for my candidate jeweler. I'm starting my search with the phrase "wedding rings San Luis Obispo, CA." This is the Google SERP that was returned:

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AT: 08/28/2015 12:54:39 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 14, 2015

Jensen Jewelers Website Review

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Jensen Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1320-97
This is the weekly random website review where I search for a website candidate in a town near you and review how well their website is put together.

I never know what I'm going to find. Sometimes I find great sites and sometimes I find sites with a lot of problems. I do my best to write down my first impressions of the sites in an attempt to illustrate how a consumer might be reacting.

No matter what, there's always something to learn from.

To kick off the review, I'm searching for "engagement rings ho...
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AT: 08/14/2015 11:42:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 07, 2015

Beaudet Jewelry Design Website Review

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Beaudet Jewelry Design Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1315-56
For this week's review, I'm using my iPad to look up a review candidate. Every week, I use the Chrome browser in incognito mode to search for a random jeweler. In case you don't know, the iPad version of Chrome also has an incognito mode.

This week, I'm searching for "jewelry stores Eugene OR." Here's the Google SERP I saw on the iPad:

Beaudet Jewelry Design Website Review 1315-serp-jewelry-stores-Eug...<br />
							<span class=VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/07/2015 11:44:07 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 10, 2015

Rogers and Co Fine Jewelry Website Review

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Rogers and Co Fine Jewelry Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1295-82
This is the weekly website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Each Friday, I work through these reviews to help you understand the good and bad ways a retail jewelry store website works. I look for good and bad website design, content, photography, usability, and search engine optimization in hopes that we can all learn something new.

Each week, I use Google Chrome in incognito mode to search for review candidates. Incognito mode allows me to hide potentially personalized search results ...
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AT: 07/10/2015 09:34:02 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, July 09, 2015

Tuning Your Website For Fast Mobile User Experiences #TBT

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Tuning Your Website For Fast Mobile User Experiences TBT daily-golden-nugget-1294-31
For this week's Throwback Thursday, I'm jumping to April 11, 2011 and my topic of speeding up your website images. This is an important topic that never gets old.

The internet has sped up tremendously since the days of dial up 14400 baud modems. Back then, it would take 45 seconds to download a 62K image; today, it takes only 1 second to download through cable and 4G connection spee...
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AT: 07/09/2015 07:43:36 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 05, 2015

The Jewelers of Las Vegas Website Re-review

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The Jewelers of Las Vegas Website Re-review daily-golden-nugget-1270-61
In honor of the big jewelry shows in Las Vegas that came to a close on Monday this week, I'm searching around Las Vegas again for this week's website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget.

I was still in New Jersey when I wrote last week's review of another Las Vegas jeweler, but this time I'm sitting in my hotel room at The Excalibur writing this weeks.

Last week, I simply searched for...
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AT: 06/05/2015 12:55:26 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Don't Ruin Your Ads; PhotoShop Disasters are Avoidable

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Dont Ruin Your Ads; PhotoShop Disasters are Avoidable daily-golden-nugget-1268-97
I angst a lot over the poor photo quality I often see used on jewelry websites and in print ads. Someone will never know the detail of intricate fine jewelry unless they are holding it in their hand or looking at a perfect quality photo.

I have a simple idea of a perfect quality photo: just be in focus and properly lit.

I like to use photos with interesting backgrounds to attract attention and then high definition photos with pure white backgrounds on the product det...
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AT: 06/03/2015 06:53:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Keep The Logos On Your Website Up To Date

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Keep The Logos On Your Website Up To Date daily-golden-nugget-1267-22
The internet is a very visual place. Photos, videos, memes, animated graphics, and company logos flood every social network. When used incorrectly, they also create clutter on websites.

One of the methods I use to gauge how often a website is updated is to look at the 3rd party logos used throughout the website. I'm especially critical of search engine optimization companies that tout their modern SEO services next to search engine logos that are more than 10 years old.

Here's one such c...
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AT: 06/02/2015 07:23:46 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, May 14, 2015

Optimize For Speed: Mobile Users Don't Need Your High Quality Images

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Optimize For Speed: Mobile Users Dont Need Your High Quality Images daily-golden-nugget-1254-43
In today's #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back to April 2011 when I wrote about image sizes. You can read the old Gold Nugget here. This is still a very relevant topic today that's worth revisiting.

In this age of high speed internet, there are many times when you can get a faster connection through the 4G on your smartphone than through the wired connection y...
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AT: 05/14/2015 12:19:46 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 12, 2015

E-Commerce Isn't The Answer for A Declining Business: Learn Who Your Customer Is First

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E-Commerce Isnt The Answer for A Declining Business: Learn Who Your Customer Is First daily-golden-nugget-1252-91Last week, Rob Bates, News Director for JCK wrote an interesting article with theories of why the jewelry industry is in a funk.

You can read that article yourself, but in brief, the 6 theories posed were:
  1. People are disappointed... Which I guess means all of us in the jewelry industry are wondering when our industry will rebound from the recession like...
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AT: 05/12/2015 11:10:32 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 08, 2015

Goldirocks Jewelers Website Review

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Goldirocks Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1250-36
Way back on May 3, 2013, I reviewed the website for Alletti Jewelry. In that review, I explained that they were using the GoDaddy WebsiteBuilder and showed why it was a pretty bad content management system (CMS).

Recently. I came across a different retail jeweler's website using the new version of GoDaddy's Online Store CMS. The store is Goldirocks Jewelers and their website is VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/08/2015 06:14:51 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 24, 2015

McCary's Jewelry Website Review

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McCarys Jewelry Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1240-97
In this edition of the Friday website review, I'm traveling to Shreveport, Louisiana in search of my review candidate. Using the Chrome browser in incognito mode, I searched for "jewelers Shreveport, Louisiana" and saw these SERP results:

McCarys Jewelry Website Review 1240-jewelers-shreveport-louisiana-serp-89VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/24/2015 07:57:57 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 17, 2015

Adams Fine Jewelry Website Review

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Adams Fine Jewelry Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1235-64
This is the Friday jewelry website review where I find a random retail jeweler and review their website for design, usability, and SEO. In each one of these reviews, my goal is to show how the information from my other Daily Golden Nuggets can be directly applied to a website.

This week, I'm using the Google Chrome browser in incognito mode to search for "jewelers st joseph mo." Here's a snapshot of the results:

...<br VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/17/2015 09:30:38 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Image Quality As a Factor in Customer Satisfaction and Ranking

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Image Quality As a Factor in Customer Satisfaction and Ranking daily-golden-nugget-1223-39
Apparently Google is turning a few more heads with its recent search engine ranking algorithm changes again. I'm not talking about Mobilegeddon, which will happen on April 21, 2015, but their latest announcement about e-commerce product images.

Google has put a lot of effort into improving how it understands images and the types of images that people would like to se...
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AT: 04/01/2015 09:49:16 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, March 20, 2015

Delson Jewelry Website Review

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Delson Jewelry Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1215-66
Last week I wrote my weekly jewelry website review while I was waiting for my flight to France in Newark Liberty Airport, in Newark, NJ. Because I was sitting in the airport, I had the opportunity to present that review from the point of view of an actual mobile user.

As I usually do, I chose the first organic result from t...
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AT: 03/20/2015 09:05:48 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 25, 2015

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

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

Facebook has become a very visual social network and they try to offer all users the best possible shared images from every web...
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AT: 02/25/2015 08:05:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 01, 2014

Hood River Jewelers Website Review

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Hood River Jewelers Website Review 2536-daily-golden-nugget-1050
This is the Friday edition of the Daily Golden Nugget where I randomly choose a jewelry store's website to review.

This week I found my review candidate by searching for "jewelers in hood river Oregon" and choosing the top listing shown here:

Hood River Jewelers Website Review 311-1050-serp

This is a case where a jew...
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AT: 08/01/2014 09:25:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Home Page Sliders and Rotators are Bad

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Home Page Sliders and Rotators are Bad 2050-daily-golden-nugget-1023
Website usability is always a point of contention between visual website designers, data analysts, and website owners. The website owner always wants their website to look good, the designer is always trying to satisfy the owner, and the data analysts seems to always be in a losing position of 2 against 1.

Of course, then there's the uncomfortable situation some months later when the website owner is upset that the website is not driving more business the way they had hoped. Usually this is when ...
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AT: 06/25/2014 10:01:47 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, January 05, 2012

Set Google's Image Search On Fire

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Our last two Nuggets explained the importance of naming your images more effectively for greater SEO value. But what if you don't have the time, or the ability to name your images?

Built into standard HTML coding is the ability to include an "alt" tag and a "title" tag for every image. These are parameters that would be placed inside the HTML image tag. Here's what it looks like...

Generic HTML image tag:
<img src="IMG_0001.jpg" />

HTML image tag with alt and title parameters:
<img src="IMG_0001.jpg" alt="Zeevoog Diamond in a Diamond pendant" title="Zeevoog Diamond in a Diamond pendant" />

The alt/title parameters serve many very useful functions online, here are a few:

1. When you hover your mouse over the image, you will see the alt/title text in a popup bubble.
2. Screen readin...
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AT: 01/05/2012 04:38:12 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, August 15, 2011

Are You Spamming Your Customers?

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What's the difference between email you send to your friends and family and the email you send out in bulk to your customers?

Constant Contact is one of the popular, easy to use email newsletter management systems. They provide colorful email templates that you can manipulate and turn into beautiful masterpieces of email creativity.

Perhaps you sit and marvel at the beauty of those email newsletters before sending, only to have your excitement crushed by those built in statistics that show how few people open the email (called open rates).

There are many reasons for low open rates, including spam filters, firewalls, poor subject lines, and customers who don't view images in email. You can only track when an email is opened if the person views images. Have you ever see that "Having trouble viewing this email? Click ...
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AT: 08/15/2011 11:13:37 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 17, 2011

Interesting Findings When Analyzing a Jewelry Website

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While recently cleaning up an old jewelry website and the jewelry product catalog, we noticed something that dates back to our Daily Golden Nugget #183 (read it here http://bit.ly/erFrbU) and we'd like to tell you about it.

In #183 we said that you should include Alt and Title attributes for all the images on your website. Our feeling is that if you make your website user-friendly it will rank better. In this case, the Alt/Title image attributes are used by screen readers for the visually impaired.

We also mentioned in last Friday's Nugget #230 (read it here http://bit.ly/m1N2D0) that the Alt/Titles also help get your images indexed in Google's Image search.

Just to add some more proof of the importance of the Alt attribute, there is a report from...
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AT: 06/17/2011 11:28:21 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, January 31, 2011

Sizing and Cropping Images

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Determining the correct size of an image to use on your website can be tricky. Your website probably has a standard image size setting, and if you learn to size your images correctly your users will have a quality visual experience and a pleasant browsing experience.

The first thing you need to understand about website images is that no two web designers use the same terminology. Some designers will ask the "size" of an image when they want to know the pixel dimensions as they appear in the web browser; whereas the "size" for someone else actually refers to the kilobyte size of the file saved on the hard drive.

Jewelry photography is very difficult. You won't sell anything online or attract attention to your store if your photos are too small to see detail, of if the images are too grainy. Grainy images are also referre...
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AT: 01/31/2011 12:14:20 PM   0 COMMENTS
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