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Friday, October 06, 2017

Attribution Modeling: Do You Know Where Your Sales Leads Are Coming From?

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Attribution Modeling: Do You Know Where Your Sales Leads Are Coming From? daily-golden-nugget-1575-60
Between your website, local newspaper, direct mail, radio ads, billboard, social media, and word of mouth, it's difficult to calculate exactly how your customers are finding you and what ultimately convinced them to make a purchase. What was once an easy task of calculating the ROI for an individual ad is now impossible because of so many different ways a customer can engage with you online.

"Attribution modeling" is the modern process of analyzing and assig...
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AT: 10/06/2017 11:09:48 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 08, 2017

Using Instagram and Snapchat Stories For Marketing

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Using Instagram and Snapchat Stories For Marketing daily-golden-nugget-1573-91
Earlier this year, I explained why Instagram should be your primary marketing channel and how to use photography and hashtags to build a following. If you're struggling with Facebook marketing for your business, then you should really go back and look at that previous post of mine.

Although I explained Instagram photography, I did intentionally exclude details about Instagram Storie...
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AT: 09/08/2017 09:33:27 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 01, 2017

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

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

It seems like every business industry has figured out how to use the internet to improve the efficiency of their business and their c...
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AT: 09/01/2017 11:27:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 25, 2017

Facebook Algorithm Cleans Up The News Feed Spam

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

Their goal was to cut back on the amount of spammy content that is published by Pages that deliberately try to game the Facebook algorithm. Their algorithm measures the popularity of a post by the number of likes, comments, and shares it gets an...
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AT: 08/25/2017 09:42:13 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 11, 2017

Resurgence of QR Codes Brings The Real World and Cyberspace Closer Together

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Resurgence of QR Codes Brings The Real World and Cyberspace Closer Together daily-golden-nugget-1569-47
The digital screen on my bathroom scale has been on the fritz more and more every day, and I finally decided to do something about it today. I've owned different wearable devices over the past 7 years to monitor my health and daily activity, but I didn't yet have a smart bathroom scale to monitor my BMI or other health factors. Today was the day I would finally get one.

I contemplated buying one off Amazon.com but decided that I'd rather compare models ...
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AT: 08/11/2017 06:48:55 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 21, 2017

How to Promote Your Online Store In A Cost-Effective Manner

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How to Promote Your Online Store In A Cost-Effective Manner daily-golden-nugget-1566-12
I recently came across a seminar titled "How to Promote Your Online Store In A Cost-Effective Manner" and thought it was an extremely misleading headline. Whenever business owners ask me about cost effective online advertising, they usually mean "least expensive" rather than asking me how to achieve the best ROI with their online ads.

I've also found that many business owners believe that online marketing is simple, and that anyone can do it. Preying upon this belief, there are ad a...
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AT: 07/21/2017 07:07:25 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 23, 2017

Building A Business Directory Website: A brief case study

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

Directory websites make money either by p...
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AT: 06/23/2017 06:21:22 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 16, 2017

The Ecommerce Business Plan

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

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

Why Bother With A Business Plan? VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET



AT: 06/16/2017 11:08:15 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 02, 2017

6 Common Website Problems That Business Owners Don't Understand

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6 Common Website Problems That Business Owners Dont Understand daily-golden-nugget-1559-54
It's the hope of every business that they will build a website that helps make them a lot of money, but few websites ever achieve that goal. Turning a website into a money making machine won't happen overnight, and it won't magically happen without a lot of help from employees and the business owner.

Most small businesses don't know how to update their websites once they are launched; indeed, many will continually pay for website updates even though they can edit the website on ...
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AT: 06/02/2017 07:25:39 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 26, 2017

Time To Admit When You Need Help

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Time To Admit When You Need Help daily-golden-nugget-1558-90
I have met and helped many different entrepreneurs during my time as a volunteer business coach for my local chapter of SCORE, a division of the U.S. Gov. S.B.A. While I've helped them make their businesses better, I've also learned that most entrepreneurs of all ages share several similar personality characteristics and daily practices.

Life of an entrepreneur


Most entrepreneurs start out small and quickly learn all the jobs needed to make their business run. If you're a small business owner, then you are probably the best s...
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AT: 05/26/2017 11:15:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
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, May 05, 2017

The Marriage of Websites and Social Media

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The Marriage of Websites and Social Media daily-golden-nugget-1555-43
Your website is the cornerstone of all your online marketing; it's what people find when they search for a local business type or a specific product by name or by model number. People go to Google with an instigated need for an immediate purchase, when they need a specific service, or when they need to start research on a longer term decision making process. Those with immediate needs will take action based on what they see on your website or your social accounts. Those looking for an immediate purchase will look for an onlin...
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AT: 05/05/2017 11:12:51 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 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 30, 2016

Why Do So Many Bite Off More Than They Can Chew?

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Why Do So Many Bite Off More Than They Can Chew? daily-golden-nugget-1537-14
We each have our own set of specializations and talents. Someone in your family is probably better at cooking than all the others, while someone else is a better writer, carpenter, or a musician. The world would be a very boring place if we all had the same level of skill and proficiency in everything.

The Entrepreneurial Journey


At some point, you probably got the idea that you could make your favorite baubles or provide a service better than others you'd seen, and so you launched a business o...
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AT: 12/30/2016 10:46:07 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, December 09, 2016

The Jewelry Source Website Review

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The Jewelry Source Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1534-15
Record breaking ecommerce sales have been in the news this week; in fact, online sales have been higher this year than ever before. One of the headlines from comScore this week was "Eleven Consecutive Billion-Dollar Days of Online Desktop Spending from Thanksgiving through Cyber Week Mark the Longest Streak Ever". It's importan...
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AT: 12/09/2016 12:11:51 PM   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, 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, September 02, 2016

Van Atkins Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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

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

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


AT: 09/02/2016 06:56:26 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, 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
Monday, April 25, 2016

Time To Change The Channels

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Time To Change The Channels daily-golden-nugget-1501-55
Over the last 6 months I've been writing a lot about the importance of associating all of your marketing channels together. Your website is the cornerstone of your marketing because that's where you can fully control the user experience, but social networks, offline ads, and online ads should now tie together to create a road of intriguing discovery for your customers.

While I've been following the ins and outs of exactly how to build that path of discovery, and explained it to you, I've not been following that path myself. Since July 27, 2010 I'v...
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AT: 04/25/2016 12:40:28 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Hellberg's Jewelers Website Review

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

I find my website candidates by searching Google using the Chrome browser set to incognito mode. Incognito mode is good to use whe...
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AT: 04/20/2016 12:16:41 PM   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, 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, April 01, 2016

Stonecraft Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Review

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

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

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

Using Your Smartphone To Improve How You Engage With Customers Socially

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

At some local networking events, you might have the opportunity to hand out ...
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AT: 03/28/2016 07:32:49 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 22, 2016

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

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

I've spoken to many jewelry designers who had a rough start with their busines...
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AT: 03/22/2016 12:38:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 21, 2016

Social Media is The Glue Holding The Customer Life Cycle Together

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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
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
Monday, March 14, 2016

4 Ways To Prep Your Website For Eventual Ecommerce

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4 Ways To Prep Your Website For Eventual Ecommerce daily-golden-nugget-1471-33It seems like only yesterday when it was thought that email addresses would become more important than telephone numbers, and now a website address is more important than both a telephone number and a physical address. A website is the most important representation of your business, yet most jewelers don't treat it that way, and many still view it as an online brochure that needs to be made once, and then forgotten about.

The local retail jeweler is losing a lot of business to the internet. The younger gen...
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AT: 03/14/2016 01:21:56 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
Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Business Startup: Entrepreneurs Should Hire Marketing Professionals

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Business Startup: Entrepreneurs Should Hire Marketing Professionals daily-golden-nugget-1458-18
Entrepreneurs face many challenges when they first open their business. Frequently, business owners don't even know how to get started with registering their business on a local, county, state, or federal level. During my time as a business mentor with SCORE, I've been surprised by the number of aspiring entrepreneurs who come in asking for legal and accounting advice to help them get through their initial start-up peri...
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AT: 02/24/2016 07:58:55 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The Unbalanced Branding Relationship Between Retail Jewelers and Jewelry Designers

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The Unbalanced Branding Relationship Between Retail Jewelers and Jewelry Designers daily-golden-nugget-1457-37
I have this love/hate relationship with the words "branding" and "brand." When I became an entrepreneur and started studying different marketing approaches, I still remember my initial confusion of seeing those words used in connection with advertising. Up until then, I only knew of branding as a method of marking livestock, such as cows. The origin of the word brand, in fact, has Germanic origins relating to burning an identification mark into ...
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AT: 02/23/2016 02:12:48 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, February 22, 2016

Top 10 Misfit Children Nuggets from 2015

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Top 10 Misfit Children Nuggets from 2015 daily-golden-nugget-1456-24
Bloggers have an unyielding passion to write and share their expertise with the world. Unlike a freelance writer for hire that is paid to create an editorial, most passionate bloggers write because they care greatly about the topic, and many do it for free. Those of us who write for free are often disappointed by posts that don't get the attention we wish they did; after all our blog posts are our children and we want our children to grow up and be successful and not unacknowledged misfits.

Much to my chagrin, not every b...
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AT: 02/22/2016 07:36:26 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 17, 2016

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

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


AT: 02/17/2016 01:38:21 PM   0 COMMENTS
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
Monday, February 08, 2016

Top 10 Daily Golden Nuggets According to Facebook

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Top 10 Daily Golden Nuggets According to Facebook daily-golden-nugget-1446-29
Everyone loves a Top 10 list. Last week while summarizing my top 10 Daily Golden Nuggets from 2015 according to Google Analytics, I realized I should go through the list to see what the top Nuggets are according to Facebook.

Tracking the most active social media content might seem silly, but there's real value to this activity. When you first start blogging or otherwise buildi...
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AT: 02/08/2016 01:13:30 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, February 04, 2016

Landing Page Planning #TBT

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Landing Page Planning TBT daily-golden-nugget-1444-39
In this edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping way back to September 2010 to the topic of landing page planning, although I didn't specifically call it landing page planning back then.

Planning your landing page long before you need to use it is an important part of a successful online marketing strategy, but before I get in too deep of how to help with the success, let me just briefly explain what a landing page is.

What is a Landing Page?

<...
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AT: 02/04/2016 12:09:52 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 03, 2016

2015 Holiday Season Keyword Data: Query Word Count and Unique Keywords

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2015 Holiday Season Keyword Data: Query Word Count and Unique Keywords daily-golden-nugget-1443-70
Throughout the past month, I analyzed different sets of keywords that I collected during the 2015 holiday season. Most of that research focused on overall analysis of the keyword data without breaking it down into the desktop, mobile, or tablet categories of devices. I chose that approach to save time, and quite frankly, so as not to bore everyone with too much similar information.

That said, in this edition, I am splitting apart the results to show you how the u...
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AT: 02/03/2016 08:05:17 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, January 28, 2016

Get Customers to Check-in to your Facebook Page #TBT

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Get Customers to Check-in to your Facebook Page TBT daily-golden-nugget-1439-92
Welcome to the #ThrowbackThursday edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Today, I'm jumping back to one of my early posts about location based services and checking-in on Facebook.

It was all the rage during the summer of 2010 to have a check-in app on your smartphone check-in everywhere. Gowalla, Foursquare, Whrrl, and Loopt were competing heavily when Facebook tried getting into the game. Facebook's initial eff...
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AT: 01/28/2016 12:05:14 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, January 25, 2016

Mobile Website Personalization using Responsive Content and RESS

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Mobile Website Personalization using Responsive Content and RESS daily-golden-nugget-1436-77
If technology and website design are not your cup of tea, you might want to skip this one. On the other hand, if you're a business owner who wants to understand the future of how to make your mobile customers happy, and want to learn some advanced concepts that will help with the future of customer detection and personalization, read on.

Mobile Personalization


There are a lot of mobile devices out there. The data I analyzed while writing my latest VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 01/25/2016 08:20:12 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, January 11, 2016

jWAG Celebrates Its 6th Year Helping You To Better Understand The Internet

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jWAG Celebrates Its 6th Year Helping You To Better Understand The Internet daily-golden-nugget-1426-45
It all started six years ago; that's right, we're celebrating the jWAG's 6th anniversary today with the ambitious and philanthropic mission to surface our research about the internet and how the jewelry industry could best use technology to improve their business.

When my business partner and I launched the Jeweler Website Advisory Group (jWAG), we never expected it to blossom into the resource that is now referenced by so many people, even outside the jewe...
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AT: 01/11/2016 01:02:33 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, January 04, 2016

Website Session Stats from the 2015 Holiday Season

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

I have a lot of data to from various retail jeweler websites. The set of data I'm referencing below was recorded across retail jewelry websites that have been active with updating their website regularly over the last 12 months. These same websites are also mobile friendly. This includes a combination of retail jewelers and ecommerce sites. Remember, the results show...
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AT: 01/04/2016 12:20:09 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, December 31, 2015

ThrowbackThursday to 2015 Predictions

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ThrowbackThursday to 2015 Predictions daily-golden-nugget-1419-42
Coincidently, this is the final Daily Golden Nugget for 2015 and it falls on a #ThrowbackThursday, giving me the perfect opportunity to check back in on my 2015 predictions from last year this time. Was I right, or very wrong? Let's find out...


Content Marketing Will Become More Important


My specific prediction was that the word "blogging" would be replaced with the phrase "content marketing" by the end of 2016...
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AT: 12/31/2015 10:47:43 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Insights for 2016

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

Social Media Change with the Young Generation


The current teenage generation is struggling to hide from their parents online. Many of them want nothing to do with Facebook because the grown-...
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AT: 12/30/2015 08:23:36 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, December 28, 2015

The Usefulness of RSS Feeds in a Post Google Reader World

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The Usefulness of RSS Feeds in a Post Google Reader World daily-golden-nugget-1416-16
I enjoy all the feedback and questions I receive from my readers. Last week, I received a question about RSS feeds which I'll address today. This is a higher level topic that I last mentioned in my Nugget from December 16, 2010, but have never explained in full detail. The detail I'll cover today might be of some interest to those of you who blog on a regular basis, and...
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AT: 12/28/2015 01:00:45 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
Monday, December 14, 2015

Comparison of Organic New Users Between November 2014 and 2015

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Comparison of Organic New Users Between November 2014 and 2015 daily-golden-nugget-1406-58
I recently did a comparison of the total user sessions between November 2014 and 2015 including a breakdown of usage on mobile, desktops, and tablets.

I'm continuing my analysis of the same data as measured across retail jeweler websites; this time I'm comparing the increase or decrease of new users between November 2014 and 2015.<...
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AT: 12/14/2015 02:53:24 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, December 07, 2015

What To Do With Landing Pages Once A Marketing Campaign Is Over

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What To Do With Landing Pages Once A Marketing Campaign Is Over daily-golden-nugget-1401-37
Do you have a specific question about your website or want more details about something I've previously written about? Don't be afraid to write in and ask; you might just see your question in an upcoming Daily Golden Nugget.

Last week, I received a follow up question regarding the Nugget about 302 redirecting your home page for special even...
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AT: 12/07/2015 10:03:55 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
Tuesday, December 01, 2015

Organic Traffic Results For Thanksgiving and Black Friday Weekend 2015

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Organic Traffic Results For Thanksgiving and Black Friday Weekend 2015 daily-golden-nugget-1397-78
Reports from the first weekend of the big holiday season in the U.S. are in, and they are quite mixed.

Businesses both large and small tried to get a jump on the Black Friday specials this year by advertising "Black Friday" discounts throughout the four weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Early in November, a blog post on C|Net speculated that VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/01/2015 02:14:40 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, November 30, 2015

Comparison of Total User Sessions Between November 2014 and 2015

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Comparison of Total User Sessions Between November 2014 and 2015 daily-golden-nugget-1396-43
Internet technology and search engine optimization changes continue to affect small businesses and the marketing methods they use. Google forced everyone to think seriously about their mobile website in April 2015 with #mobilegeddon, creating a surge in businesses that finally took mobile websites seriously.

I'm closing out this month with a comparison of websit...
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AT: 11/30/2015 01:35:48 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 27, 2015

Kuhn's Jewelers Website Flop Fix

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Kuhns Jewelers Website Flop Fix daily-golden-nugget-1395-3
Welcome to the #FridayFlopFix edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, and it's also Black Friday in the U.S., the largest retail shopping day of the year for U.S. retailers.

The goal of these weekly flop fixes is to identify something on a retail jeweler's website that should be fixed. My suggestions are based on my previous experience and research. In honor of the upcoming Cyber Monday, I decided to specifically look for a retail jeweler with an e-commerce website to find some flops that need fixing. I made my search f...
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AT: 11/27/2015 12:20:42 PM   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
Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Customer Selfies and Testimonials that Follow FTC Guidelines

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Customer Selfies and Testimonials that Follow FTC Guidelines daily-golden-nugget-1393-39
Today is the eve of the official start of the "holiday season" in the U.S. Retail businesses have been preparing their inventory, ads, and employees for the last few months in hopes to really boost sales this year.

In a perfect world, most holiday season ads are already finalized and scheduled, but there's always the opportunity for retailers to gain a little extra publicity every day through different types of engagements with their customers.

Typ...
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AT: 11/25/2015 12:09:07 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Let Your Website Evolve Into What It Should Be

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Let Your Website Evolve Into What It Should Be daily-golden-nugget-1388-91
Every business experiences some type of growing pains; these usually have something to do with lack of time, hiring the right employees, and supply and demand of products, but there's also a website growing pain that's very real.

Eventually you will grow beyond the needs of your current website. The next time you rebuild your website it should take a lot more thought and plann...
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AT: 11/18/2015 12:53:18 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Building Your First Website; Then Growing Beyond It

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Building Your First Website; Then Growing Beyond It daily-golden-nugget-1387-39
There are a lot of easy ways for business owners to build their first website. WordPress is a good option for businesses that just want to put information online, and Shopify is a good option for those hoping to sell online quickly. Both of these systems offer out-of-the-box jewelry website templates and setups to get your website live in just a few days. GoDaddy also runs a marketing campaign...
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AT: 11/17/2015 01:03:45 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 12, 2015

Don't Buy Your Fans #TBT

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Dont Buy Your Fans TBT daily-golden-nugget-1384-61
For today's #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping to the topic of buying your friends, or more specifically, not buying them.

Buying Website Links


There are plenty of online services offering to increase the traffic to your website, increase the number of links pointing to you website, increasing the number of Twitter followers you have, and increasing the number of people who like your Facebook page. More often than not, these services ...
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AT: 11/12/2015 07:35:43 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
Thursday, October 29, 2015

Most Popular Smartphone Resolutions for September 2015 #TBT

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Most Popular Smartphone Resolutions for September 2015 TBT daily-golden-nugget-1374-56
In this edition of #ThrowbackThursday, I'm jumping back to a year ago to the last time I updated my report on the most popular smartphone resolutions used by visitors to retail jewelry websites.

The last time I reviewed smartphone screen resolutions was only a week after the iPhone 6 had been released. For several years, the iPhone has been the most...
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AT: 10/29/2015 09:32:29 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
Thursday, October 22, 2015

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

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


AT: 10/22/2015 12:25:28 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Instant Gratification and Long Term Investment in Your Website: 2015 Holiday Run-Up

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Instant Gratification and Long Term Investment in Your Website: 2015 Holiday Run-Up daily-golden-nugget-1367-37
As I write this, I'm indulging in a very large pumpkin muffin. It will quite possibly be my lunch for today even though I know it's just a quick fix of food and not the type that could sustain me for more than a few hours.

Our lives are filled with quick fixes of one type or another. Many advertising tactics feed into the need to satisfy the human nature for a quick fix. In the website and e-commerce realm, we of...
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AT: 10/20/2015 12:35:50 PM   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
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
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
Wednesday, September 30, 2015

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

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

In this edition, I'll show you how to use the Facebook Audience Insights tool to build and save a target audience fo...
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AT: 09/30/2015 07:01:37 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Uploading Your Customer List to Facebook Custom Audience: Holiday 2015 Run-up

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Uploading Your Customer List to Facebook Custom Audience: Holiday 2015 Run-up daily-golden-nugget-1352-38
This is Part 4 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...

Choosing Your Target Audience


When deciding on the items to promote...
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AT: 09/29/2015 11:28:54 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
Monday, September 14, 2015

3 Mobile Website Considerations for 2015 and Beyond

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3 Mobile Website Considerations for 2015 and Beyond daily-golden-nugget-1341-56
Last week I explained what I've been seeing with regard to mobile trends and your business future. Because of those trends, I strongly urge all businesses to start migrating their approach of reaching customers using the internet from a desktop computer point of view to a smartphone point of view. Doing so will be a complete shift in how you think, and what you...
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AT: 09/14/2015 06:27:31 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 10, 2015

Using Google Trends To Evaluate A New Designer Line #TBT

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Using Google Trends To Evaluate A New Designer Line TBT daily-golden-nugget-1339-26
For Throwback Thursday today, I'm jumping back to the topic of having designer brands on your website.

When it comes time to consider a new jewelry designer for your store, you have an extra tool at your fingertips to help decide if you should buy into the line or not. However you evaluate a new line, you can also use Google Trends to help you decide.
<...
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AT: 09/10/2015 11:12:32 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Business Considerations In Light Of Mobile Device Usage Trends

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Business Considerations In Light Of Mobile Device Usage Trends daily-golden-nugget-1338-86While there's a lot of chatter about TV cord-cutting, I'm starting to see the another type of cable being cut: the ethernet cable.

Although the majority of my reporting is based on measured data, I also feel it's important to report on the unscientifically tracked trends that I observe in my daily life, trends I notice when interacting with my own customers, and how I obser...
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AT: 09/09/2015 07:47:29 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
Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Time Management For The Retail Jeweler: Part 3

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Time Management For The Retail Jeweler: Part 3 daily-golden-nugget-1328-72
This is final part of my 3-part series on Time Management. I realize it's a bit ironic that I've written Daily Golden Nuggets on Time Management and it's taking forever to read through them.

In the first two installments, I explained my methods of how I prioritize time, how I figured out the best time of day for me to work, how I deal with time consuming tasks, the time suck of social media, and how delegating tasks saves me time.

This 3-part series builds upon itself, so please g...
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AT: 08/26/2015 07:16:50 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
Saturday, August 08, 2015

Should You Trust Random SEO Email Solicitations?

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Should You Trust Random SEO Email Solicitations? daily-golden-nugget-1316-12
I was recently asked if I could help evaluate an SEO agency based on their email solicitation. SEO, or search engine optimization, changes so quickly it's difficult to know if an agency will be providing the most up to date services.

Here's the email I was asked to evaluate:







Reminder-SEO starts from just @99 USD per month
Hi,
First of all thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read and consider this, We are of...
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AT: 08/08/2015 08:35:35 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 05, 2015

These Yelp Reviews Are Worthless

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

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

After my Local Marketing seminar at the RJO show, a jeweler was explaining that they often ask for their customers to write ...
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AT: 08/05/2015 07:04:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Don't Sell Over Social; Just Build Connections

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

I was very impressed with all the jewelers I spoke to this weekend and I'm starting to think that the need for social media is starting to be understood as a necessity for marketing, even though the results can't be tracked. Many jewelers told me...
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AT: 08/04/2015 08:37:15 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, July 23, 2015

Avoid Article Spinning, It's Bad SEO #TBT

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Avoid Article Spinning, Its Bad SEO TBT daily-golden-nugget-1304-58
In this edition of Throwback Thursday, I'm jumping back to September 2011 and the topic of Article Spinning.

To understand what Article Spinning is you must first understand the importance of having a blog on your website. My avid followers will already know that I'm all about the blogging. High value blogging content... High value blog content that you post on your main website!

Times...
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AT: 07/23/2015 07:48:08 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Reporting on Alternate Domain Names: Practical SEO Guide

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Reporting on Alternate Domain Names: Practical SEO Guide daily-golden-nugget-1303-79
Did you know that it's possible to track the effectiveness of your offline marketing, as in, print ads, TV commercials, and even billboards? Yep, it's true, and it's simple too... Just use a different domain name on each ad.

You can then set up each domain name with special UTM variable tracking like I explained yesterday to see how often people respond to ...
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AT: 07/22/2015 08:20:14 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Using Alternative Domain Names: Practical SEO Guide

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Using Alternative Domain Names: Practical SEO Guide daily-golden-nugget-1302-66
In yesterday's Nugget I quickly showed you how to read the Google Analytics Acquisition Channels Report. I quickly mentioned that you can use the "(Other)" channel to see how well your offline and online ads are running, but that type of information doesn't just magically appear; in...
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AT: 07/21/2015 11:45:36 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 20, 2015

Acquisition Channels: Practical SEO Guide

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Acquisition Channels: Practical SEO Guide daily-golden-nugget-1301-82
In today's Practical SEO Guide, I will show you how to access the Google Analytics Acquisition Channels report and explain how to read it.

The Acquisition Channels report provides a high level view of the different marketing channels that brought people to your website.

Log into Google Analytics and click on Acquisition -> All Traffic -> Channels as you see here:

Acquisitio...<br />
							<span class=VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/20/2015 01:02:15 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, July 15, 2015

My Jeweler Website Review

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My Jeweler Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1298-70
Once a week, usually on Friday, I write a website review for a randomly chosen retail jewelry store. This week the review is being moved to Wednesday.

For this week's review, I'm searching for "jewelers in Sedona, AZ" using Google Chrome in incognito mode. The results I saw during last week's review were formatted for a smartphone. This week the results are formatted for a desktop browser again. Oddities like that are usual...
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AT: 07/15/2015 07:03:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Designer Spotlight: ANZIE

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Designer Spotlight: ANZIE daily-golden-nugget-1288-99
The 2015 Las Vegas jewelry shows came to a close one month ago today. On the morning of June 1, 2015, I was on the search for designers who would be willing to work with retail jewelers the way I explained in this pre-Vegas post here..

A quick recap from that Nugget:
  • Don't rely on your inventory management software to tell you what to buy.
  • Don't trust your own judgment for selec...
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AT: 07/01/2015 06:41:40 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Marriage Equality: How Retail Jewelers Can Embrace It

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Marriage Equality: How Retail Jewelers Can Embrace It daily-golden-nugget-1287-3
Over the last few days, we've all seen our share of rainbows exploding from our computer screens and smartphones. The Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS) ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment requires States to allow same-sex marriage in their State and recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

While the legal fight for legal same-sex marriage rights is now over, the personal conflict and religious views will continue for quite a long time to come. Regardl...
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AT: 06/30/2015 11:53:08 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
Wednesday, June 17, 2015

JCK Talks 2015: How the game is changing: Big Data in Retail

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JCK Talks 2015: How the game is changing: Big Data in Retail daily-golden-nugget-1278-47
The term Big Data is one of the internet's latest buzz words that everyone is talking about but no one seems to know what it is, why they should care about it, how to collect it, or how to use it.

Put simply, Big Data is the collection of massive amounts of demographic and tracking information you gather about your customers. Once gathered, you then churn that information into reports that help you better plan future marketing and provide interesting insights ...
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AT: 06/17/2015 11:29:07 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Learning Branding and Social Engagement From IHOP's New Logo and Social Campaign

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Learning Branding and Social Engagement From IHOPs New Logo and Social Campaign daily-golden-nugget-1277-46
It must be summer. That's the only time I ever go to IHOP. In fact, this is the second time this month I've visited this family favorite. I was preoccupied with JCK work during my first visit earlier this month, but this time around I'm able to relax and leisurely enjoy a Saturday morning breakfast.

I always know what to expect when visiting IHOP. The menus always show crystal clear, large photos of mouthwatering stacks...
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AT: 06/16/2015 09:51:50 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
Thursday, June 11, 2015

What Is A Money Site?

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What Is A Money Site? daily-golden-nugget-1274-3
This is the Throwback Thursday edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Today I'm jumping back to Nugget number 55 and the topic of money sites.

The topic of marketing funnels came up during the 2015 JCK Talk on multi-channel marketing. The original idea of a marketing funnel was that you would reach a lot of people with a broad scope...
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AT: 06/11/2015 08:44:10 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
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
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
Friday, May 29, 2015

Summerlin Jewelers Website Re-Review

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Summerlin Jewelers Website Re-Review daily-golden-nugget-1265-51
This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Usually I choose a random city around the U.S. to find a retail jeweler, and this week, in honor of the Las Vegas jewelry shows, I'll search around Las Vegas, Nevada.

The following is a screen grab when I searched for "jewelers in las vegas." The top listed store is The Jewelers of Las Vegas. They have updated their website since I last re...
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AT: 05/29/2015 01:14:58 PM   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 13, 2015

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

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

The New Jewelry Designer


Since 2013 I've been networ...
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AT: 05/13/2015 09:58:46 AM   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
Monday, May 11, 2015

Learning From the Marketing of a Marvel Mouse

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Learning From the Marketing of a Marvel Mouse daily-golden-nugget-1251-76
I'm one of those people. I admit it... I don't turn my cell phone off in a movie theater.

It's not that I want to be rude; I do put it on silent; but I have to keep the vibrate setting on. The nature of my job is such that I'm always on call to monitor a few very important websites for a few of my clients. So I can't be out of touch from those computers and servers. In fact, the only times I'm unplugged is when I'm at 38,000 over the Atlantic. WiFi isn't available on the transatlantic f...
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AT: 05/11/2015 11:43:41 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Email Marketing Won't Ever Die

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Email Marketing Wont Ever Die daily-golden-nugget-1247-67I remember back in the late 1990s when I was helping people set up their first email addresses and told them that email would eventually be more important than their telephone number. Since then, the internet evolved in ways we never imagined and, although email didn't cause telephone obsolescence, some say that both methods of communication are going away.

According to this report from Pew Research, the most popular use for smart...
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AT: 05/05/2015 11:07:40 AM   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
Monday, April 27, 2015

Future Progress and Profit is Unattainable Without Proper Planning

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Future Progress and Profit is Unattainable Without Proper Planning daily-golden-nugget-1241-76
I've been online since 1988 and I began programming websites professionally in 1994. With 36 years experience online, you certainly can say I'm one of the internet "old timers." In the mid 1990s, we had no idea how the internet would transform the world. Indeed, just watch any sci-fi movie from the early 90s and you'll see how their portrayals of the future completely lack the everyday technology we take for granted today.

The Early Internet<...
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AT: 04/27/2015 12:24:32 PM   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
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
Friday, April 10, 2015

Klutts Jewelers Website Review

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Klutts Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1230-23
In this week's edition of the Friday Website Jewelry Website Review, I'm beginning my search in "jewelers morgan city, la" to find a website review candidate. I go through these website reviews every Friday as a way to monitor and show you what's happening in the world of jewelry websites. I never know how the review will turn out, but the hope is that something is learned.

Here's the Google SERP for Morgan City:

Klutts Jewe...<br />
							<span class=VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/10/2015 06:23:19 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 08, 2015

Planning Your Jewelry Store's Profitable Future

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

Shrinking Number of Retail Jewelry Stores


The data shows that there were only 16,847 corporations that classified themselves as "jewelry stores" in 2012, and there were 2...
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AT: 04/08/2015 11:55:34 AM   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?

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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
Friday, March 27, 2015

Spinelli Jewelers Website Review

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Spinelli Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1220-81
This is the Friday Jewelry Website Review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Every week, I randomly choose and dissect a retail jeweler's website to see what makes it tick. I never know what I'm going to find each week; sometimes it's something new to learn or a refresher on topics I've previously written about.

To find this week's review candidate, I searched Google for "jewelry stores in Bridgeton, New Jersey" and was given this SERP:

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AT: 03/27/2015 11:41:41 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Landing Pages and Doorway Pages Created for Good Purposes

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Landing Pages and Doorway Pages Created for Good Purposes daily-golden-nugget-1217-89
Popular pages on your website are often called "Landing Pages." That popularity can be measured as the number of people who click on a page while browsing around your site, or the number of people that Google and Bing send to your site.

When you place an ad in the newspaper or send out a direct mail piece, you usually include a website address on that ad. Most of the time, that website address will just be your domain name, like exampledomain.com, in which case the...
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AT: 03/24/2015 11:53:06 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
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
Wednesday, March 18, 2015

You Should Fear Mobilegeddon

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You Should Fear Mobilegeddon daily-golden-nugget-1213-17
Over the last two weeks, I've been detailing why it's important to have a correct mobile setup for your website. Google's decision to use mobile friendliness as a ranking factor has a lot of people worried that...
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AT: 03/18/2015 06:49:38 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, March 16, 2015

10 Ground Rules For Employees When Using Social Media

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

It's difficult to allocate the time needed to engage on social media amidst the daily routine needed to run a jewelry store. Instead of doing it all yourself, you could allow your employees to engage soc...
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AT: 03/16/2015 07:10:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Fix Mobile Usability Issues Found On Your Website

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Fix Mobile Usability Issues Found On Your Website daily-golden-nugget-1208-55
Search engine optimization was once a game of pure guesswork. SEO specialists would simply watch their own efforts of what worked and what didn't work, then simply follow the same steps over and over again.

Companies like MOZ.com and SearchEngineLand.com have communities of users always trying to figure out which supposed SEO techniques work, and which don't. Search Engine Land even published their of VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 03/11/2015 09:44:00 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Avoid the Faulty Mobile Redirect

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Avoid the Faulty Mobile Redirect daily-golden-nugget-1207-5
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'll cover one of the nagging mobile website issues that Google doesn't like any more. Well, I don't know if they ever liked it, but in this video they've clearly pointed it out.

It all started a few years ago when people first started dabbling in mobile websites. It's difficult to retrofit a desktop site to include a mobile version, unless you are willing to redesign the entire site again. Setting up a parallel mob...
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AT: 03/10/2015 07:46:58 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
Friday, February 13, 2015

Paula's Fine Jewelry Website Review

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Paulas Fine Jewelry Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1190-22
If you believe the (mostly North American) superstitions, Friday the 13th (today) is supposed to be an unlucky day. Perhaps it will be unlucky for some couples that breakup before tomorrow, Valentine's Day, arrives. I prefer the optimistic point of view and would rather believe that love is in the air today.

This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, and to honor Valentine's Day I decided to search for a jewelry store in or near a town with "love" in the name. This was not as easy a...
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AT: 02/13/2015 12:32:35 PM   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
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
Friday, February 06, 2015

Ornamentum Jewelry Gallery Website Review

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Ornamentum Jewelry Gallery Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1185-73
Welcome to the Friday retail jewelry website review. In this week's review, I'll be searching for a random website candidate to critique in the hopes that we can all learn something useful to implement on our own websites.

To start this week's review I started searching for jewelers in Hudson, NY. Specifically, I used the Google search query "jewelers in Hudson ny."

Here's a screen shot of what the Google SERP looked like:
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AT: 02/06/2015 12:07:57 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

by
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

by
Content Marketing Costs Will Change Based On The Target Need and Who Creates It daily-golden-nugget-1181-56
I'll be the first to admit the website content creation difficultly level is pretty high. Content includes infographics, photos, podcasts, PDFs, videos, testimonials, and, of course, the written word. It takes hours to prepare each of those types of content but the return on that time investment come in the form of several years of attracting customers throu...
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AT: 02/02/2015 09:53:20 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, January 14, 2015

2014 Holiday Keyword Report for Repairs, Watches, & Services

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2014 Holiday Keyword Report for Repairs, Watches, & Services daily-golden-nugget-1168-52
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'll provide some research based information about mobile keyword search data collected during the 2014 Holiday Season.

Cross reference your own sales figures and website analytics against this data, and use it to improve your future marketing. The findings here should be useful to you all year long, but especially as you start planning your website content and marketing for the 2015 Holiday Season.

My analysis today will focus on a ...
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AT: 01/14/2015 08:21:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, January 12, 2015

2014 Holiday Keyword Report for Jewelers, Jewelry, and Jewelry Stores

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2014 Holiday Keyword Report for Jewelers, Jewelry, and Jewelry Stores daily-golden-nugget-1166-83
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'm exploring keyword data collected between November 1 and December 31, 2014 from many retail jeweler websites.

I collected a large amount of keyword data from people using Google's desktop search, mobile search, and image search. The mobile search data is very interesting. Last week, I presented th...
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AT: 01/12/2015 10:02:43 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, January 08, 2015

2014 Holiday Diamond and Engagement Ring Mobile Search Report

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2014 Holiday Diamond and Engagement Ring Mobile Search Report daily-golden-nugget-1164-16
When using Google Webmaster Tools, you can view which search queries will trigger your website to appear in search results. In the past when we SEO guys would spew the phrase "search queries" it was just a fancy name for saying "keywords." In fact, you can say "search queries," and "keywords," and "search phrases" and mean the same thing.

Regardless what you called it, all you wanted to do was put the right words on your website that correspond to what people search for in the dif...
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AT: 01/08/2015 09:54:29 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, January 07, 2015

November and December 2014 Web Keyword Data for Retail Jewelers

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November and December 2014 Web Keyword Data for Retail Jewelers daily-golden-nugget-1163-36
Throughout 2014, Google made several advancements in their search engine and gave us some new reports in Google Webmaster Tools to see the results of those advancements.

Specifically, from within Webmaster Tools you can easily see when your website appeared in web search results, images search results, and mobile search results. During the first quarter of 2014, I started noticing retail jewelry websites appearing in image results more than ever before, and the Webmaster Tools ...
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AT: 01/07/2015 12:27:16 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, January 01, 2015

How Many 2014 Predictions Came True?

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How Many 2014 Predictions Came True? daily-golden-nugget-1159-75
Welcome to 2015! Before we forge ahead into the New Year, we need to look back on the predictions and changes from 2014.

Here's a quick review of my 2014 Predictions from a year ago.

2014 Prediction Review



Facebook Becomes More Worthless for Jewelers


Prediction: "Facebook will become more worthless for jewelry stores that are unwilling to pay for ads."

This prediction turned out to be 100% true. Facebook ...
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AT: 01/01/2015 09:54:59 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Website Session Stats from 2014 Holiday Season

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Website Session Stats from 2014 Holiday Season daily-golden-nugget-1158-30
With the 2014 Holiday Season at an end, let's take a look at some website tracking results from the Thanksgiving week through Christmas.

The following data was recorded through more than 100 jewelry related websites. This includes a combination of retail jewelers and e-commerce sites. Results shown here only apply to the jewelry industry.

Holiday 2014 Sessions


Here's a screen shot of my Google Analytics tracking across the retail jewelry websites I'm tracking:

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AT: 12/31/2014 01:52:45 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Email Marketing Stats From 2014 Holiday Season

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Email Marketing Stats From 2014 Holiday Season daily-golden-nugget-1157-38
The 2014 Holiday Season has come to a close and it's time to review your marketing strategies and record the results for next year's season.

I've compiled some email details that you can use as a benchmark for your own strategies.

I've subscribed to hundreds of email newsletters from retail jewelry stores, large and small e-commerce jewelry sites, and a few chain stores. This is a graph showing the quantity of emails I received from all those senders from November 1, 2014 through December 26, 2014:
...
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AT: 12/30/2014 08:03:56 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, December 29, 2014

2015 Predictions

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2015 Predictions daily-golden-nugget-1156-31
As the final hours of 2014 tick on by, I would like to share some of my predictions for 2015.

1. Content Marketing Will Become More Important for Jewelers

In order to understand why this will be important, you first need to understand what Content Marketing is. "Content" is anything that you publish online with the intention of influencing a customer's buying decisions. Written content is usually absorbed into Google and Bing and returned in search results, while all other content (photos, graphics, videos) are shared socially.

Instead of focusing on a s...
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AT: 12/29/2014 09:20:45 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, December 25, 2014

Wake Up With the Same-Sex Engagement Ring Market

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Wake Up With the Same-Sex Engagement Ring Market daily-golden-nugget-1154-6
According to this marriage proposal survey 45% of marriage proposals for the year will take place on Christmas Eve (last night) and Christmas Day (today), but as a jeweler you probably already know that.

Can you count how many engagement rings did sell over the last 3 months? How many nervous boyfriends did you help through the process of learning about the 4C's of diamonds and the difference between an SI1 whose inclusion is di...
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AT: 12/25/2014 07:32:22 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
Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Researching Keywords for your Content Marketing

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Researching Keywords for your Content Marketing daily-golden-nugget-1152-68

You probably already know that Christmas is the most popular day of the year for a marriage proposal. No doubt you've been helping with the selection process for the past few months leading up to tomorrow's inevitable day of celebration for many couples.

According to this marriage proposal survey, the most popular day of the year for popping the question is still Christmas Eve, followed by Valentine's Day, then Christmas Day...
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AT: 12/23/2014 01:51:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, December 18, 2014

2014 Holiday Season Website Statistics

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2014 Holiday Season Website Statistics daily-golden-nugget-1149-70
Here are the website tracking statistics from mid-November through mid-December 2014. As usual, these results are pulled from the group of 100+ retail jewelry websites that I monitor and the results might not apply to any other industry.

4-Weeks of Holiday Data


Here's the graphical representation of the sessions I've been tracking:

2014 Holiday Season Website Statistics 1149-google-analytics-sessions-overvie...<br />
							<span class=VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/18/2014 08:10:01 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 16, 2014

Prenuptial Agreements With Your Online Agency - Part 2

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Prenuptial Agreements With Your Online Agency - Part 2 daily-golden-nugget-1147-82
Managing the online identity for your business is time consuming. Although you might have found the best agency to build your website and help your marketing online, the relationship you have with them probably won't last forever.

Eventually, you will have to divorce your marketing agency.

This is the conclusion of the Daily Golden Nugget I began yesterday detailing how your agency should be setting up your business accounts and what you need to do to guarantee you always have login acce...
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AT: 12/16/2014 08:12:22 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Internet Marketing Agencies - Changing With Technology

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Internet Marketing Agencies - Changing With Technology daily-golden-nugget-1143-44
The internet has seen many changes over the last 4 years since I started writing these Daily Golden Nuggets. Undoubtedly, a lot of that change was informed by Google, but really there are a lot of other factors involved.

Through the Great Recession, a lot of easier and less expensive technology emerged that now allows us to access information from anywhere at any time. You could argue that the technology companies forced fancy new mobile devices on us; or you could say that the technology devel...
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AT: 12/10/2014 08:20:17 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 03, 2014

2014 Website Activity for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and November

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2014 Website Activity for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and November daily-golden-nugget-1138-68
Here are the website tracking statistics from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday in 2014. As usual, these results are pulled from the group of 100+ retail jewelry websites that I monitor and the results might not apply to any other industry.

November 2014 Sessions


Let's first take a look at this chart from Google Analytics:

2014 Website Activity...<br />
							<span class=VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/03/2014 12:59:17 PM   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
Thursday, November 27, 2014

Reason Why Online Ad Costs Increase During the Holiday Season

by
Reason Why Online Ad Costs Increase During the Holiday Season daily-golden-nugget-1134-45
It's the Thanksgiving Holiday in the United States. For many years, this day marked the official point on the calendar as the start of the holiday season in the US. Not too long ago, you wouldn't see a single Christmas Tree or holiday decorations in a store until the Friday morning after Thanksgiving. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade would march down the streets of New York and not a word about Christmas was mentioned until Santa Claus went by on that last float, giving us the go-ahea...
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AT: 11/27/2014 08:51:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Social Signal Ranking Factors

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Social Signal Ranking Factors daily-golden-nugget-1118-29
If you ever get into a conversation with a search engine optimization professional (aka SEO), they usually bring up the topic of how Google ranks your website and that there are "more than 200 different signals" that Google uses for their ranking algorithm. It's Google's standard message that they are using more than 200 signals, but they've been saying the same thing for more than 10 years now.

Surly they must be using more than 200 signals now, but they'll never admit it.

From time to time, I'm able to measure the effects of certain t...
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AT: 11/05/2014 12:22:33 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The Timely Watch Promotion

by
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
Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Google Analytics Benchmarking Channels Report

by
Google Analytics Benchmarking Channels Report daily-golden-nugget-1108-45
Have you ever wondered how your jewelry store's marketing compares to other jewelers? Well, wonder no more because there's a way you can view that comparison in Google Analytics.

It's called the Benchmarking report, and it's available under the Audience -> Benchmarking -> Channels menu as shown here:

Google Analytics Benchmarking Channels Report 1108-ga-benchmarking-channels-menu-57VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/22/2014 08:43:32 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 20, 2014

Referral Websites That Work for Retail Jewelers

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

Your customers will find you through many online sources. Some of those sources will be your own paid marketing, while other people arrive through organic tra...
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AT: 10/20/2014 12:24:11 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 16, 2014

Most Popular Landing Pages For Mobile Users to Retail Jewelry Store Websites

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Most Popular Landing Pages For Mobile Users to Retail Jewelry Store Websites daily-golden-nugget-1104-1
We know from yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget that people who browse jewelry websites prefer the iPhone over the Android. In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'm investigating exactly what mobile visitors are searching for.

During the month of September 2014, I collected and analyzed all the landing pages for mobile visitors across m...
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AT: 10/16/2014 01:47:17 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Most Popular Smartphone Resolutions for September 2014

by
 daily-golden-nugget-1103-31
What role will smartphones play in the lives of the everyday average consumer during the 2014 holidays? The mobile audience is becoming more important in marketing as mobile devices become more ubiquitous in everyone's daily lives.

Everyone has a different opinion of which smartphones are better. Many software developers prefer the Android devices because they provide more flexibility, whereas the Apple devices are designed to be more user friendly for the non-technically oriented.

As a follow up to yesterdays report of VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 10/15/2014 09:22:38 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

by
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
Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Google Webmaster Tools: Top Pages Report

by
Google Webmaster Tools: Top Pages Report daily-golden-nugget-1093-10
In today's edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'd like to show you how to find the keywords that people are using to find particular pages of your website.

Although this Nugget does stand on its own, it's actually part of a series of post I've written for the 2014 holiday season. This is part-7 in that complete series. I've included links to the first 6 parts at the bottom of this post.

Today we'll be looking at Google Webmaster Tools, so if you don't already have your account set up and ve...
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AT: 10/01/2014 09:06:28 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, September 29, 2014

Planning the Online Tracking Needed to Help Sell Your Products

by
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

by
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

by
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

by
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

by
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 11, 2014

Website Redesign Case Study

by
Website Redesign Case Study daily-golden-nugget-1079-88
The other day, I was helping a business colleague of mine review a website design his customer gave him. For storytelling simplicity, I'll refer to my colleague as Joe and his customer as Sue. Although Joe doesn't work in the jewelry industry, the early steps in designing a website are very similar across all industries, and I bet all website programming companies have the same experience working with their customers.

Sue wants to open a brand new e-commerce store by December 1st. She already owns an old e-commerce store w...
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AT: 09/11/2014 08:24:52 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Share the Content Creation Burden and Then Share Socially

by
Share the Content Creation Burden and Then Share Socially daily-golden-nugget-1078-56
Content creation is a continual task for every website owner. It can also be a very challenging task to come up with new content all the time without suffering from mental burnout or writer's block. That burnout will have a bad effect on your long term SEO, so it needs to be prevented.

One way to prevent content creation burnout is to spread the task around between several employees on your sales staff. Remember that website content isn't just blog posts. Content...
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AT: 09/10/2014 07:44:50 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 04, 2014

Important 2014 Marketing Dates and Sales Headlines

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

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

September 7, 2014: Grandparents Day
October 13, 2014: Columbus Day
October 31, 2014: Halloween
November 2, 2014: Daylight Savings Time Ends
November 11, 2014: Veterans' D...
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AT: 09/04/2014 11:10:49 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 03, 2014

The Speed of Social Media and Its Influence As A Driving Force on Sales

by
The Speed of Social Media and Its Influence As A Driving Force on Sales daily-golden-nugget-1073-54
A few times of the year, a simple turning of the page on the calendar reveals not simply tomorrow's date, but triggers a complete shift of thinking.

Early September heralds the beginning of the fall season in the northern hemisphere. Summer vacations are over and school starts again. It's an overnight shift in thinking from leisurely days into a regimented structure for the next 8 to 9 months.

It's time to pack up those summer clo...
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AT: 09/03/2014 06:35:41 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Improve Your Website's Success With These 3 Methods

by
Improve Your Websites Success With These 3 Methods 1664-daily-golden-nugget-1063
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I gave a list of four things that could improve the success of your website and how you use the internet.

Here's a quick refresher of those four:
1. Anticipate customer needs...
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AT: 08/20/2014 02:03:44 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, August 18, 2014

Don't Hire a Social Media Management Agency While Blindfolded

by
Dont Hire a Social Media Management Agency While Blindfolded 773-daily-golden-nugget-1061
Although I'd like nothing more than for every jeweler to manage their own social media accounts, the truth is that many business owners don't, or can't do it. I'm told many reasons why they can't, like not having enough time, or not knowing where to start, or how to do it, or even which social network they should be using.

And which social network should you be using VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/18/2014 10:48:40 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Is it Worthwhile to Advertise on a Local Community Website?

by
Is it Worthwhile to Advertise on a Local Community Website? 531-daily-golden-nugget-1057
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'm going to explain an often overlooked way to advertise your website locally. It comes at a lower cost, and with a higher return, than most other online advertising methods.

It's very easy to get swept away by the hype of online advertising methods like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, and to buy into the claims of large online advertising agencies. While you can get a lot of good results from agencies, Facebook, ...
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AT: 08/12/2014 09:35:25 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, August 11, 2014

Proven Results of On-Site Blogging

by
Proven Results of On-Site Blogging 8461-daily-golden-nugget-1056
The other day, I presented some historical data showing why it's bad to have an offsite blog instead of a blog on your website.

I'm going to continue this on-site/off-site discussion today with a presentation of measured results for when you do have a blog on your site.

The data I'm presenting today is part of the ...
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AT: 08/11/2014 09:23:45 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Who's Using Google Remarketing: Sleazy Reality Slap

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Whos Using Google Remarketing: Sleazy Reality Slap 940-daily-golden-nugget-1053
Google AdWords Remarketing is an online marketing method that allows you to show ads to people who have already visited your website. You and Google control who sees the ads by secretly tagging every visitor to your website, then choosing what ad to show to them around the internet.

I always like to refer to AdWord Remarketing as a separate type of online marketing, but...
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AT: 08/06/2014 02:04:47 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Imagining Possibilities With Facebook Retargeting and Dark Posts

by
Imagining Possibilities With Facebook Retargeting and Dark Posts 4977-daily-golden-nugget-1052
In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I detailed the difference between boosting a Facebook post vs. targeting an audience with a specific post or ad. I also provided a strategy to use Facebook advertising more effectively using Google AdWords Remarketing...
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AT: 08/05/2014 09:18:51 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
Monday, July 28, 2014

Are Yellow Pages Bad For Your Business?

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Are Yellow Pages Bad For Your Business? 5316-daily-golden-nugget-1046
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting a seminar at the JA show in NYC. The seminar was "Should You Pay For Website Traffic? Understanding How and Why."

During the seminar, I detailed what I know about Yelp, Pandora Radio, Google AdWords, and a few others methods of online advertising that can work for or against you.

One of the online marketing methods that generally works against you is Yellow Pages. Once upon a time, it was common for everyone to "let their fingers do the walki...
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AT: 07/28/2014 09:14:09 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 25, 2014

SERP Review of Jewelers Near Elma NY

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SERP Review of Jewelers Near Elma NY 8987-daily-golden-nugget-1045
This is the Friday Review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Every week I analyze the online properties of a jewelry store found during a random search in a random city.

For this week's review, I searched for "jewelers near elma ny" to find this search result:

SERP Review of Jewelers Near Elma NY 5356-1045-serpVIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/25/2014 09:26:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, July 23, 2014

A Forward Look At Mobile Websites

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A Forward Look At Mobile Websites 8384-daily-golden-nugget-1043
The number of mobile users is still rising, but the rate at which jewelers are intentionally deploying mobile websites is slowing. In the month of June 2014, I tracked 43.12% of visitors to jewelry websites using either a smartphone or a tablet. This is up from the 39.88% I reported in April 2014.

This mobile usage level during the recent slow summer months is now higher than ...
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AT: 07/23/2014 10:21:19 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 21, 2014

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

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

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

It's easy ...
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AT: 07/21/2014 03:40:53 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 18, 2014

Avalon Park Jewelers Website Review

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Avalon Park Jewelers Website Review 2960-daily-golden-nugget-1040
Five months from today, you will be launching your last minute Christmas advertising campaigns and counting down the last 7 days before the big holiday. Have you started to prepare your website and holiday ads yet?

The other day, I was walking through one of those stores that sells Christmas items all year long and I couldn't help but remember that now is the time for those "Christmas in July" sales events. However, considering that today is Friday, I immediately started to wonder how many towns were n...
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AT: 07/18/2014 12:31:34 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
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
Wednesday, April 30, 2014

What's Better? SEO or SEM...

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Whats Better? SEO or SEM... 8783-daily-golden-nugget-983

Everything you add to the Internet will either help or hurt you tomorrow. Every piece of content has a long shelf life.

Your marketing strategy today could be a onetime use, or it could add to the cumulative benefit you create to build your brand awareness.

Typical search engine marketing includes paid ads or paid strategies that only have a value while you're paying for them. That value goes away as soon as you stop paying for it.

This can clearly be seen in any large marketing company service, like Y...
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AT: 04/30/2014 03:22:54 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Promoting Your Extreme Jewelry Niche on Your Website

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Promoting Your Extreme Jewelry Niche on Your Website 480-daily-golden-nugget-968Talk to any search engine marketing professional and they will say that you need good content on your website in order to rank well search engines, and engaging content on social networks if you want to interact with your existing audience, and gain new followers.

For competitive industries, like retail stores and retail jewelry stores, there's so much stuff being published on the internet daily that your website can fall behind in its search engine ranking for generic phrases unl...
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AT: 04/09/2014 09:20:53 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 11, 2014

What's The Best Free Online Marketing Method?

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Whats The Best Free Online Marketing Method? 470-daily-golden-nugget-947It was a pretty exciting day yesterday at the MJSA Expo in New York City. It was my honor to be one of MJSA's Business Experts where I had the pleasure of answering direct questions from jewelry designers, retailer, and manufacturers.

It was a wonderful experience to freely share all the stuff I write about here on jWAG.biz in a face to face setting. One important question t...
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AT: 03/11/2014 07:57:16 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 26, 2014

How To Pair Your Marketing Methods - Part 2

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How To Pair Your Marketing Methods - Part 2 555-daily-golden-nugget-938This is a continuation of yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget. I'm explaining how you can tie together different combinations of marketing methods to use as a unified marketing approach.

Please refer to yesterday's Nugget to see the first 5 of this list. Here are the next 5...

Newspapers and email - Depending on who you talk to you will hear different reports on the successfulness of...
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AT: 02/26/2014 09:43:19 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, February 25, 2014

How To Pair Your Marketing Methods - Part 1

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How To Pair Your Marketing Methods - Part 1 6394-daily-golden-nugget-937In a previous Daily Golden Nugget, I explained that you need to avoid a single point of marketing failure and I listed a few ways you could pair up your marketing methods. As I wrote that Nugget, I realized I needed to prepare this follow-up post to better explain how those pared marketing methods actually work together.

I've pulled those bullet points from that previous post and listed the...
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AT: 02/25/2014 09:40:00 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, February 20, 2014

Avoid the Single Point of Marketing Failure

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Avoid the Single Point of Marketing Failure 32-daily-golden-nugget-934As a computer engineer, programmer, and networking engineer, I have seen my share of technical disasters since I first got involved with computer in, um, 1984. I got my first computer, a Timex Sinclair, in '84 and quickly learned the BASIC programming language.

Early computers were very fragile and their storage ability even more so. You never knew if your program would work the next time you tried to load it after saving it to a tape drive. Early floppy disks were also fragile and could easily be ...
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AT: 02/20/2014 05:15:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Step-by-Step Content Creation Strategy for 2014 and Beyond - Part 1

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Step-by-Step Content Creation Strategy for 2014 and Beyond - Part 1 6519-daily-golden-nugget-918In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget, I reviewed a simple method for keyword research that would help you discover clusters of words for content creation.

Using that same technique, I did my own keyword research relating to "custom jewelry design" and came up with this group of phrases:

* custom jewelry design
* custom jewelry {town nam...
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AT: 01/29/2014 06:33:45 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Keyword Research to rank for Website Topics

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Keyword Research to rank for Website Topics 1314-daily-golden-nugget-917 Back on September 10, 2013 I told you that your website needs to target specific topics rather than individual keywords. Eventually other SEO companies started saying the same thing.

The problem with ranking by "topics" rather than "keywords" is that most people still think in keyword...
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AT: 01/28/2014 04:43:01 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, January 01, 2014

New Year's Resolutions for Jewelers

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New Years Resolutions for Jewelers 2633-daily-golden-nugget-898Yesterday, I gave you my list of predictions for 2014. Those predictions were things that might happen whether you want them to or not. Today, as we start a New Year, I want to give you a list of things that would make good New Year's resolutions for jewelers. Any one of these alone would help improve your business if you stick with it all year long.


1. Resolve to Get Employees Involved With Content Creation

Train all your employees to help with the content creation process. Photos, reviews,...
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AT: 01/01/2014 01:15:54 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, December 19, 2013

The Longterm ROI of Content Marketing

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The Longterm ROI of Content Marketing 4923-daily-golden-nugget-889In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget I briefly explained that you need to build various types of content in order to rank well in the new version of Google's search results. Higher ranking in Google Search means more customers will find you.

This is the new world of content marketing, which is much different than direct marketing. With traditional online and offline advertising you have various w...
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AT: 12/19/2013 01:30:47 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Understanding the Need for a Longterm Content Plan

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Understanding the Need for a Longterm Content Plan 5218-daily-golden-nugget-888People search for random phrases during the holiday season. Here's one such random, and very specific search:

"18 karat gold double sided St Christopher medal with a car on one side"

Here's another:

"2 or 3 strand 14k gold bracelets with a center gemstone"

Google is trying to entice everyone to search using more natural questions rather than "search speak," and every month I'm tracking more than 1000 random search phrases just like those two above.

Ge...
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AT: 12/18/2013 10:22:07 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, December 12, 2013

How to Create a Landing Page to Support a Marketing Campaign

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How to Create a Landing Page to Support a Marketing Campaign 4516-daily-golden-nugget-884Back in October 2013, I wrote a Nugget about Google AdWords and Landing Pages and then this week I followed that up with some test results explaining how general landing pages are good for AdWords targeting. Today I'll give you an example of ...
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AT: 12/12/2013 12:11:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Email Analysis of a Large e-Tail Jeweler

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Email Analysis of a Large e-Tail Jeweler 6729-daily-golden-nugget-883This is the fourth edition of my Daily Golden Nugget series of holiday email reviews. In the previous reviews I showed you emails from early November, then a few emails from Black Friday, last week I explained a few VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 12/11/2013 09:56:05 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 29, 2013

A Review of Two Black Friday Email Ads

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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
Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Outline of an Online Marketing Plan Retail Jewelers

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Outline of an Online Marketing Plan Retail Jewelers 3878-daily-golden-nugget-872There's really no way to point at any one type of online service as "online marketing." Google, Microsoft, and Apple have taken all the pieces of the internet and woven them together. Ultimately you should be involved with all social networks, mobile ads, search ads, e-commerce, and a fantastic website.

Achieving all of that is the hard part.

If you started from scratch, this is how it would work:

1. Set a long term business goal

This could be to s...
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AT: 11/26/2013 09:45:20 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 14, 2013

Holiday Season 2013 Email Marketing Review

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The 2013 Holiday Season is off to a running start with many large and small retailers starting their advertising already. I've heard many different news outlets say that the holiday season is shorter this year, but it's still the same number of days between today and Christmas.

Actually, it's really only the US market that is looking at this year as a "shorter" season because we have a self inflicted border on the calendar (Thanksgiving) that sends everyone into a shopping frenzy the next day.

I've been tracking email marketing campaigns for the last 3 years and every year I'm seeing "holiday" emails earlier and earlier. This year the "holiday super sales" and "doorbuster" emails were already hitting my inbox at 4:24 AM on November 1st.

WHEW, I'm pretty sure some people were just getting home from Halloween parties ...
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AT: 11/14/2013 09:04:25 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, November 04, 2013

Setting up GA Views and Filters to Track All Your Promotions

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In this installment of the Daily Golden Nugget I'm going to explain how to correctly set up your Google Analytics account structure to correctly track your marketing activity.

Almost as if they knew I was planning this topic for today, Morgan Stanley reported last week that that we would see the weakest Holiday Season since 2008. One of the reasons they cited in their report was that "increased promotional activity likely inhibits 2013 Holiday sales."

It seems like they are referring to the idea that too many promotions will cause people to buy less. Of course that almost seems like a paradox unless you are aware of all the consumer studies that measure choices vs. sales. This topic is widely e...
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AT: 11/04/2013 10:18:35 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 31, 2013

How to Avoid Business Disasters on Your Busiest Retail Day of the Year

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 2716-daily-golden-nugget-854Happy Halloween!

Today I'd like to tell an interesting story about websites and customers service that you might be able to learn a thing or two from. It's not about jewelry, but about websites and business in general.

And honestly, it's a business disaster.

There's a costume and magic shop not too far from my home in New Jersey. It's been there for at least 35 years. My mom took me there as a young boy and bought me lots of fun magic tricks, professional quality, like bags that make things disappear and scarves that change color, oh and card tricks that would ch...
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AT: 10/31/2013 05:23:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, October 30, 2013

9 Tips to Energize Your 2013 Holiday Season Sales

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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
Monday, October 21, 2013

Halloween Headlines and Halloween Ideas for Jewelers

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Halloween Headlines and Halloween Ideas for Jewelers 5915-daily-golden-nugget-846Even though Halloween is 10 days away, you are probably heavily planning your Holiday Season advertising without really considering any last minute Halloween ads. You don't have to plan too much to whip up some last minute marketing for Halloween. Your website's home page, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and any email marketing over the next 10 days could use a dash of Halloween humor.

Here are some of the products that are popularly advertised for Halloween and some headlines an...
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AT: 10/21/2013 05:46:03 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 08, 2013

SEO is Dead! Long Live SEM!

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I've never been a fan of long term search engine optimization services where a small business is expected to pay large sums of money for some type of online work that's suppose to increase your website ranking. So much of the SEO industry was built on scams and false claims that it's hard for anyone to really trust someone who says they can do the job. SEO scam artists used to give you long lists of technical jargon to explain what they were going to do for you and most people blindly trusted them because they were "the experts."

My personal philosophy has always been one where the bulk of the basic SEO work is handled immediately and then the website owner is trained how to maintain it on their own without having to perpe...
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AT: 10/08/2013 06:16:36 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 07, 2013

How to Merge Your Online and Offline Marketing with Your USP

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Rosser Reeves was an American advertising executive from the 1950s, who changed the way the world thought about advertising. He had a style of writing sales copy that drew people in and made them think about themselves rather than the product.

He's credited to many tag lines that are still well known today, like "it melts in your mouth, not in your hands."

His view of marketing was that you always need to state your "Unique Selling Proposition," or USP. He coined that phrase which so many online marketer use today without understanding where it came from or what it actually means. Reeves' philosophy was to state your USP over and over again until people remember you for it.

Now that ranking fo...
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AT: 10/07/2013 06:13:39 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Creating Content Marketing from a Press Kit

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Creating Content Marketing from a Press Kit 1654-daily-golden-nugget-782In yesterday's Nugget I explained the importance of carefully choosing which vendors and designers to carry in your store based on their willingness to help you with the marketing for their product line. The suggestion I presented yesterday was that the vendor should have a press kit with photos of their products, finished ads, write-ups in magazines, designer bios, stories about the making of the j...
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AT: 07/23/2013 12:47:47 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 22, 2013

Choosing Jewelry Vendors Based on Their Content Worthiness

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Choosing Jewelry Vendors Based on Their Content Worthiness 3863-daily-golden-nugget-781How many sterling silver lines should you carry in your store? Over the last few years the increased price of precious metals had all fine jeweler wondering that same question. The answer is probably as many as it takes to satisfy the desires of your local customers. The sterling silver jewelry from Frederic Duclos is known for forward thinking new styles whereas Thistle & Bee VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/22/2013 02:06:12 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 15, 2013

Stop Pipe Dreaming-The Internet Doesn't Work That Way

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Stop Pipe Dreaming-The Internet Doesnt Work That Way 372-daily-golden-nugget-776All business owners want to see more people walk through their door. Obviously you can't grow a business if you don't have customers. Repeat customers are good and most of the jewelers I talk to say word of mouth referrals from those repeat customers seem to be the biggest source of new customers.

It would be wonderful if we could rely on word of mouth advertising to grow our businesses, but we can't. Every business owner hopes that each new customer will be longstanding with many return visits...
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AT: 07/15/2013 09:35:47 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, June 20, 2013

Explaining Search Engine Marketing

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Prior to computers and sophisticated tracking methods, it was difficult to organize your customers into groups. With the advent of computers and the internet it's much easier to group your customers and target your marketing, but most people incorrectly assume that only your internet advertising can be specifically segmented and targets.

In the last 3 Daily Golden Nuggets, I provided ideas on how you could use segmentation to increase the response rates of your traditional media in hopes that I could dispel the myth that segmentation is only for digital advertising. In today's Nugget I'll briefly explain the idea of "Search Engine Marketing" (SEM) and why so many online marketing guys use it as one of their buzz words.

Let me first give you an overview of what Search Engine Marketing is... It's basically the overall catc...
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AT: 06/20/2013 11:33:40 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 21, 2013

Understanding and Implementing Agile Marketing

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Understanding and Implementing Agile Marketing 5373-daily-golden-nugget-694How Agile Can Your Marketing Be?

On Sunday, February 3, 2012, Super Bowl XLVII was brought to a screeching halt by a blackout during the third quarter. For a brief moment the television went black and the announcers were silent. My friends and I sat there wondering if our television broke.

Up until that point throughout the game we were already interacting with our smartphones and iPads to read game related tweets from friends, and watching our respective Facebook pages for other commentary. Ther...
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AT: 03/21/2013 08:25:07 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Learning Internet Marketing From a Cat

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Learning Internet Marketing From a Cat 539-daily-golden-nugget-688Internet memes are everywhere. Add a profound or funny statement to any picture of a cat and you might just have your own meme that goes viral today.

You can learn a lot from a cat. They teach us humans that we should simply sit around and do nothing every once in a while. House cats seem to sit around all day enjoying their free time. All they care about is a clean litter box, frequent petting or brushing, and being fed. And when you run out of food, you better make a quick run to Petco otherwise little kitty will stomp...
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AT: 03/13/2013 02:45:56 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Eleven Advertising Points for 2013

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Eleven Advertising Points for 2013 9456-daily-golden-nugget-658Yesterday I detailed the differences between online advertising in 2008, 2010, and then my suggestions for this year. Here's my unified advertising suggestion list again in case you missed it:

1. Offline advertising
2. Website landing pages
3. Email advertising
4. Google AdWords Remarketing
5. Advertising with Facebook sponsored posts
6. Google+ Page posts
7. Google +Local
8. Blogging using Google Authorship
9. Mobile Website
10. YouTube
11. Twitter

Let me explain what each of those 11 items ...
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AT: 01/30/2013 06:30:27 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, January 01, 2013

9 Top Rated Daily Golden Nuggets of 2012

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9 Top Rated Daily Golden Nuggets of 2012 3574-daily-golden-nugget-637It's time to take a quick look back through 2012 to find the best and brightest of our Daily Golden Nuggets. I'm splitting these into 3 categories of the most read of 2012, top landing page for 2012, and my personal top picks from 2012

#1 Most Read 2012 Nugget was on July 3, 2012
Google Free Merchant Center is Now Paid Shopping
I can't blame Google for wanting to increase their revenue. They provide so much for free that it's easy to balk at them when they start charging for a service that was so succes...
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AT: 01/01/2013 01:57:47 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, December 31, 2012

Jewelry Website Predictions for 2013

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Jewelry Website Predictions for 2013 925-daily-golden-nugget-636It's the end of one year and the beginning of another, and that means it's time for predictions for next year.

I have 4 predictions for retail jewelry stores for the 2013 year. Here they are...

Prediction #1.
The problem of easy tracking of users from point of origin online to an in-store sale will NOT YET be solved. This is one of the largest problems that retail jewelers face; in fact all businesses that use online marketing to increase the business of their brick and mortar stores face this problem. The true ROI ...
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AT: 12/31/2012 06:13:33 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Holiday Marketing is Well Under Way

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Holiday Marketing is Well Under Way 8054-daily-golden-nugget-603"Hello, Holidays!"
"Want to get beautiful gifts?"
"Beat the Rush with these Early Christmas Gifts"
"Just in time for holiday parties!"
"Ready for the Holidays?"
"Start Planning Your Holiday Gifts"
"Early Cyber Monday Deal!"
"New Early Black Friday Specials Online Now"

There's no doubt about it this year. In the United States is seems like every big brand launched their holiday marketing campaigns exactly at the same time on November 1, 2012. In fact I received a cute email from Tiffany & Co. at 5:07pm on ...
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AT: 11/14/2012 10:11:46 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 01, 2012

Put The Costume Away. It's time to use social networking correctly.

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Put The Costume Away. Its time to use social networking correctly. 9044-daily-golden-nugget-594It's the start of a new month and for many of you it's the official kickoff of the holiday season. Hopefully your marketing strategy is in place and you're ready for the flood of customers... of course in the United States we actually need to wait until after Election Day for those customers to start flooding in since no one likes to spend money during an "election season."

All joking aside, there are marketing methods that you should be including in your mix this y...
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AT: 11/01/2012 10:03:54 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 29, 2012

Talking Turkey in November, and Other Holiday Headlines

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Talking Turkey in November, and Other Holiday Headlines 1169-daily-golden-nugget-591Last week I gave you a list of Halloween themed headlines that you could use in your marketing messages for this week. Today I'm going to give you a list of headlines that you could use throughout November 2012. These headlines were recorded during November 2011 as part of one of my long term continuing research projects on email marketing and website headlines.

November is a very robust month with more opportunities to broadcast a marketing message than you may realize. The general th...
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AT: 10/29/2012 11:24:20 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Value Added Customer Service with This Photo Sharing Tactic

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Value Added Customer Service with This Photo Sharing Tactic Daily-Golden-Nugget-572I'd like to share with you a specific tactic to increase customer service, create immediate social marketing, lower buyer remorse, and create long term online marketing. This tactic will cost little or no money, and your customers will do it for you.

Facebook and Google+ are common apps on smartphone and tablets. They allow all of use to interact with our friends and family throughout the day with nonsensical things, photos, shared memories, and random quotes of something you overheard. ...
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AT: 10/02/2012 05:13:05 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 21, 2012

Write an Email Once, Reuse it On Your Website

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In the last few days I've give you several business building ideas and methods to use email marketing. Now it time to take those emails and make money with them for the next two years... yes, 2 years.

My point of view is that each of your customer emails should be more editorial content than just images with a coupon or sale announcement. The daily emails that I send out are pure editorial content without any graphics because they are intended to be educational, but for your jewelry store you should try a few different formats of emails to see what your response rate will be.

As a retail store you should avoid 100% text emails and you should avoid 100% image emails. Somewhere in between is the perfect balance for your store.

Successful emails typically include blurbs of text but also nice looking "creatives," whic...
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AT: 09/21/2012 09:19:10 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 20, 2012

How Jewelry Stores Can Use Promotions in Their Emails

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The other day I wrote that you could ethically bribe your customers into signing up for your emails by telling them you "occasionally send out offers and promotions." I only call it a bribe because that's a much more acceptable reason for someone to hand over their email address to a jewelry store.

Let's face it, most customers will not sign up for yet another email list, and potentially open themselves up to spam, unless they feel there will be a strong benefit for them. Service businesses have an easier time convincing people to sign up for "informational newsletters" than a jewelry store will. Let's face it, when was the last time you were willing to hand over your email address to the cashier at your favorite shoe store, or clothing store. They, just like you, are a retail store that customers will expect to get promotional...
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AT: 09/20/2012 09:03:04 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Smarter Jewelry Websites Send Smarter Emails

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Here's a brief topic you probably already know about, but just didn't know it had a name.

Have you ever signed up to a website and had a confirmation email sent to you? Have you ever forgotten your password and requested the website send you an email confirmation to prove your identity? Have you ever received a purchase confirmation email from a website after placing an online order?

All those emails are referred to as "Transactional Emails." In fact any email that someone requests from a website in some form or another falls into this transactional category. It's important to understand the value of these emails because in 2003 the CAN-SPAM Act specifically defined what they were and that you (the website owner) do not need permission to send this type of email.

Although the internet industry refers to these as "...
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AT: 09/19/2012 04:50:10 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Jewelry Store Email Marketing Ideas

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Here are some email marketing ideas that will boost sales in your jewelry store.

One of the most powerful ways to grab someone's attention via email is to send them an email on their birthday and anniversary with the simple subject of "A special Birthday/Anniversary Wish From Your Jewelry Store."

Many of you reading this probably have customer relationship software that tracks birthdays and anniversaries. There are several direct mail marketing companies that will take your customer information and send out batches of post cards every month for all the birthdays and anniversaries.

When it comes to email you NEVER want to batch send all the emails to everyone with a birthday in that month. The better strategy is to send individual emails on the actual day. Inside that email you can offer a free gift or perhaps a d...
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AT: 09/18/2012 04:33:50 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, September 17, 2012

Jewelers Can Boost Sales Through Email Marketing

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I can't say enough about the importance of regular email newsletters. They boost traffic to your website, remind people that you exist, show people you are smart in your field, and of course are useful for promotions.

The success of your email marketing depends on which of those strategies you decide to use, and if you stay with it. Email marketing might sound like a thing of the past since so many social media sites seem to be better the better, more modern methods of communication. You might also be scared off by the low email open rates, email bouncing, and that horrible "but why did they do that" feeling you get when someone unsubscribes.

It's all worth it because you control the email marketing, not the social media sites; because it's a method of communication that you can rely on; because most people don't read eve...
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AT: 09/17/2012 04:52:12 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 31, 2012

Hauntingly Flexible AdWords Remarketing Tactics

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In yesterday's Daily Golden Nugget I explained how Google AdWords Remarketing could be used to tag your customers so your ads would follow them around the internet. Here's the link if you missed it: http://ow.ly/diFTj

I'm continuing the discussion of Google AdWords Remarketing today with a little more in depth explanation of how versatile Remarketing can be.

To make Remarketing work on your website you have to add a small piece of JavaScript code to the programming code of your site. This usually requires the help of your programmer since most websites don't have the ability to insert code like this on the fly. When it comes to adding Google JavaScripts most programmers know that you usually just insert the same code globally to the footer of all pages.

The simplest version of Remarketing is implemented with a glob...
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AT: 08/31/2012 11:44:05 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, August 30, 2012

Shoestring AdWords Budgets with Remarketing

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Google AdWords has several different uses depending if your website is e-commerce or not. With an e-commerce website, it makes a lot of sense to pay for online ads that drive traffic and hopefully result in sales. Remember that driving traffic does not result in sales unless people like your website and it's easy to use.

Normally when people think of AdWords, they think it will cost a lot of money for per click, and that the monthly cost will drown you. Honestly it's no different than the money a jewelry store pays for a billboard or a radio ad, and the results are at least trackable. There's no way to track the number of people who read your billboard and take action, and there's only guessing when it comes to tracking radio ad results. So switch your billboard and radio budget to AdWords and don't worry about being drowned.<...
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AT: 08/30/2012 02:10:25 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, August 02, 2012

Start Your Holiday 2012 AdWords Remarketing Prep Now

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How's the holiday 2012 marketing planning coming along?

In this Daily Golden Nugget I'm going to give you some exact strategies to build up holiday marketing strategy using Google AdWords Remarketing. With these ideas you can build your audience starting today but they will not see your ads until you activate them in November.

To accomplish this you will already need a Google AdWords account and to create an audience remarketing tag. I usually recommend multiple remarketing tags to better segment your audience, but in today's Nugget I'm only going to refer to a single tracking tag; let's call it the "Holiday Tag."

Google AdWords Remarketing uses a web browser cookie to track users. The cookie is activated by a small JavaScript, called a "tag." Since JavaScript runs almost everywhere, you have the ability to cooki...
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AT: 08/02/2012 05:13:21 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 01, 2012

5 Things Jewelers Need to Know About Remarketing

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Here's a boiled down cheat-sheet of what it takes for a jewelry store to get started with Google AdWords Remarketing.

I recommend hiring a marketing company that has experience with Google AdWords. They will help save the aggravation of getting this to work for yourself. A good company would work through these steps with you.


1. Look at your Google Analytics account for the usual Exit Pages where people leave your site. Try to figure out why people leave after looking at those pages. Determine if you can create a marketing campaign around those reasons.


2. In Google Analytics, look at the page path people go through on your website. This is in the Audience > Visitor Flow area of GA. Identify a few combinations of pages that people visit that you would consider potential quality customers.


3. C...
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AT: 08/01/2012 11:51:44 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Google Remarketing to Jewelry Website Visitors

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In this installment of the Daily Golden Nugget I'm going to explain how you can use Google AdWords Remarketing to target market to people who have visited your website.

Over the last two days I've given you some brief introductions to Google AdWords--not so you would feel pressured to learn to do it yourself, but so that you would know what to ask for when hiring an internet professional to manage AdWords for you. There are a lot of people out there that know how to manage AdWords; some are certified by Google, and others aren't.

Just because someone is certified doesn't mean they know what they are doing; a sad reality I learned a long time ago when hiring employees for my own company. Use what I tell you here as part of the interview process before hiring someone to work on your AdWords.

AdWords Remarketing give...
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AT: 07/31/2012 10:52:51 PM   2 COMMENTS
Monday, July 30, 2012

Google Remarketing to Jewelry Interest Groups

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Today is the 2nd anniversary of the Daily Golden Nuggets. As I begin the 3rd year of writing about jewelry website SEO and online marketing tips I want to remind everyone that you can submit a questions or comment for a future Nugget. Just reply to a daily email or submit a question through the contact form on the jwag.biz website.

Last Monday I attended a special training session for Google AdWords to learn the latest stuff about Remarketing. AdWords Remarketing is a special form of AdWords that only shows ads to people who are part of an interest group, or those who have already been to you website.

Even though Google announced Remarketing in March 2010 very few people have heard of it or use it. Any AdWords adverti...
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AT: 07/30/2012 07:06:00 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, June 21, 2012

Do people actually sign up for email newsletters?

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I've worked closely with a few jewelers who didn't know anything about their own email list. These are jewelers who had newsletter signup boxes on their website but newsletters were never being sent out.

In most cases I found out that either the employee who set up their email newsletter accounts no longer work there, or they canceled the email marketing service. The store owner never saw a value in the email newsletter list but instead of removing it from the website, they just let it sit there.

Those I spoke to said they would figure it out eventually, but in the mean time they were still paying for the monthly subscription fee.

For my own ongoing research, I've lost track of the number of email lists I've signed up for. I fill out every email form I see, which is probably between 5 to 10 new lists per week.
<...
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AT: 06/21/2012 11:03:24 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, June 14, 2012

Increasing Your Email Open Rates With This Easy Step

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Today's Nugget Sponsor: http://thejrcms.com/1

Avid movie watches will often wonder what "landed on the cutting room floor" during the movie editing process. Today's Daily Golden Nugget is one of those snips that didn't make it into Matthew Perosi's Email Marketing seminar at JCK on June 2, 2012.

Typically your email program will hide images from you until you permanently add the sender to an approved list, or a white list. To load the images you simply click the "view images" or "show remote content" button.

While the images are still hidden, the email program will show you the alternative text behind the images. Do you take the time you edit the alternative text behind the images?

Many companies don't realize the importance of "alt" text and how it can make or break an entire email campaign.

On Mon...
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AT: 06/14/2012 04:19:54 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Hiding Holiday Pages from People but Not Google

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One of the most overlooked SEO pages of any website is the sitemap page. It might seem silly, but this is the single page from which a user can find any other page of your website.

This is especially important if your website has several layers of pages hidden deep from your home page and someone is quickly trying to get back to a page they were reading yesterday.

Other than functionality, sitemap pages are also important for Google. Most of the time Google will not bother to read more than 2 levels deeper into your site than the page they land on. If Google follows a link to your home page they will spider many of the 2nd tier pages that link from the home page, but they may not read the 3rd or 4th tier pages at all.

Think of your sitemap page as a cookie jar for Google. Every page of your site looks like a 2nd t...
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AT: 06/13/2012 08:10:49 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Holiday Email Timing Preparations Start June 28th

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When's the best day of the week and time of day to send an email? The answer is one which varies from year to year, and from person to person. It all depends on who you talk to and what industry they track.

MailerMailer.com is a good source for email research data, another good source we found last year was Kissmetrics.com. We've included links to both places at the bottom of this email, but we warn you, the data from both places contradict each other.

We've had our own research accumulating over the last 9 months and we're pretty confident in our own ideas. Let's share two things that will help with your holiday email planning.

The first thing you need to know is that you are being watched. We're not talking about the guy looking over your shoulder, but rather by your ISP, and by all other ISPs. These guys are ...
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AT: 06/12/2012 06:23:06 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, June 06, 2012

4 Tools for Every Jeweler's Online Toolbox

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"The local jeweler has done such a good job creating an experience, it needs to be done online" -Matt Lauzon, Founder & CEO of Gemvara

We grabbed that quote above during "The Great E-Commerce Debate" seminar at JCK on Friday June 1, 2012. It might be a simple idea Matt Lauzon is suggesting, but doing it is a different story all together. Later in the seminar he also added that no one in the jewelry industry, himself included, has completely figured out how to provide the online customer service that compares to what you provide in the store.

That's not to say you shouldn't try. You can't ignore the internet and hope your business will survive. You also can't keep waiting for better technology to come around before you start to get your feet wet. Ignoring change just leaves you further behind.

So where should you ...
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AT: 06/06/2012 08:52:58 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, June 01, 2012

Dealing With Emails When You've Been Blacklisted

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Managing your own email list can be tricky business when trying to do it on your own, whether directly from your own computer or when you are using the email program of a paid service.

Sending emails directly from your own computer is more likely to get you labeled as a spammer, and black listed, than if you pay an official email company. When doing it on your own, the first thing you need to watch out for is the number of email recipients you BCC in the email at once. We suggest not sending to more than 30 people at a time. Any more than that and your ISP will probably get angry with you and give you a warning about email abuse and spam. It assumes more than thirty people could not possibly be expecting an email from you all at once.

When sending emails from your own computer you don't necessarily have to follow the off...
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AT: 06/01/2012 02:41:27 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, May 31, 2012

Avoid Spam Black Listing: Send Fewer Emails Over Time

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Many retail jewelers tell us they are collecting names and emails but want to wait until they have 100, or 300 before doing anything with them. The truth is that you need to start with 10, or 30, then keep adding new emails every week as you collect them.

ISPs (the guys who actually control the internet) have hardware filtering which recognizes typical spam patterns. One recognizable spamming pattern is when too many emails sent at once from an email address that's never sent bulk email before. If you suddenly send out 1000 emails over a single night you will get blacklisted.

This is why if you've been collecting email addresses in your store for the last 5 years but haven't used them yet, you could be setting yourself up for a fall by sending an email blast to all of them in one day. Email marketing needs to start slo...
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AT: 05/31/2012 02:15:41 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Good Email Signup Practices for Jewelers

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As part of the best practices of opting in to newsletters and deals, you should require that everyone confirm their email address. To do this you need to send a confirmation email to the person after they sign up. Most paid email services take care of this process automatically for you as per of the newsletter signup form that you would add to your home page.

If you don't pay a service, you shouldn't simply capture an email address through your website and start sending special offers, you still need to send a confirmation email. You do this simply by manually sending an email out to the customer and having them reply. That's a lot of work, which is why you should just pay a monthly service to do it for you.

Many customers will type their email address wrong, or they simply do not understand the correct format of their e...
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AT: 05/30/2012 12:05:47 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Using QR Codes with m. and .mobi

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Yesterday we attempted to explain the difference between using m.domainname.com and domainname.mobi for your mobile website.

Our bottom line was that it all depends on how long your domain name is, and if you want your domain name to exactly match your jewelry store's name.

Shortened mobile domain names really do help users. Bank of America uses "bofa.mobi" on all of their mobile marketing literature.

Typing B O F A . M O B I on a mobile device is a lot easier than typing out M . B A N K O F A M E R I C A . C O M.

Although, the people over at Bank of America are clever because if you type bofa.mobi in the smartphone, it redirects you to www.bankofamerica.com/mobile/richui.do#_home, and that's a much longer URL that no one would want to type into their smartphone.

Continuing with this perfect example, t...
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AT: 05/01/2012 10:55:22 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, April 27, 2012

Inbound Marketing: Broaden Your Jewelry Store Message

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Over the past week we've given you several ideas for blogging. We hope that each Golden Nugget gave you actionable ideas how to make you blog better. Today's a great day to start blogging if you haven't yet started.

Google says "you need to build great content on your website" to be found in Search, and blogging on your website is the easiest method. Even though we say this day in and day out many jewelers do not listen to us, or worse, don't believe us. We don't take offense because, just like we don't quite know how a laser is used to weld a head to a ring, most jewelers don't know how the internet works.

We don't quite like blind faith, and so, it's now story time...

The ability to search Google for anything you want at the exact moment you want it has changed the world we live in today.

Access to inform...
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AT: 04/27/2012 11:13:01 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, March 23, 2012

Redefining the Center of the Marketing World for Jewelers

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Your website is not an island. It's now a crucial part of your full marketing strategy. Sure, back in 1997 it would have been safe to think about a website as an island.

Your jewelry store's website should be the most interesting, most informative, most accurate, and most up to date component in your entire marketing model. If you've not yet turned your website into the center of your marketing world, then you need to change your strategy... Today.

Here's how to turn your website from that bastard child into the beloved favorite...

Introduce all your marketing teams, and tell them they have to work together or you will be sad to replace them. Everyone needs to work together, and this includes your billboard guy, postcard gal, newspaper ad man, social marketing guru, email newsletter guy, and your website people. ...
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AT: 03/23/2012 10:30:12 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, March 02, 2012

Events: ROI Boost When 10K People Are Interested

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This is the continuation of our Events topic.

Yesterday we explained that you should first create a dedicated and permanent page on your website for each event you hold. You should include a link to that dedicated page in all email invitations and in the Facebook Event that you create.

We left off with the question of why would you want to create a dedicated, permanent page on your website for each event. Here are our 2 really good reasons why:

1. Regular Social Activity

It's good to show people you have activities year round. Remember that in the February 29, 2012 Daily Nugget (bit.ly/xQ9BPj) we told you that the Store Events page was the 2nd most popular viewed via mobile browsers. Even if you don't have a current event, you still need to give them something to find.

Listings of past events just ...
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AT: 03/02/2012 10:04:34 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 01, 2012

Events: Set Your Digital Invitations Up Correctly

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Events. Not every jewelry stores runs them, but we have to wonder why not. Ladies Nights, Super Bowl parties, Red Carpet parties, Facebook Fan parties... or just your everyday average, run of the mill trunk show.

You don't own an average retail store; you own a jewelry store, and sometimes people need to be invited in. And if you do it right, those invitations will keep bringing new customers into your store for years to come.

Inviting customers to an event is easy with today's technology. We remember in 2005 when some jewelers were spending more than $3500 to snail mail a box of very slick post cards. With today's marketing, you're more inclined to save that money and take advantage of the invite power provided by Facebook and regular email.

Facebook has an entire Event Application to invite your fans, and give ...
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AT: 03/01/2012 12:03:41 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Don't Dead End Your Mobile Website

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Your mobile website should be brief, only including enough information to accommodate the specific needs of the user. Of course the needs of the user will be dictated by your own advertising.

If your advertising invites customers to "shop from home using a mobile website" they will assume you have a fully functional mobile commerce system. On the other hand you can avoid the expectation of mobile commerce if you advertise that someone can "browse jewelry conveniently on the mobile website before coming into the store." Your subtle changes of words will make all the difference.

Many large retail stores already give consumers easy access to mobile websites loaded with detailed product information and consumer reviews. These types of websites are fantastic in-store shopper assistance tools. But that's not the shopping expe...
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AT: 01/18/2012 06:11:55 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, January 02, 2012

A New Year's Resolution for Jewelers to Follow

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Happy New Year!

We tracked some amazing data during the last 6 weeks. It will take quite a while to process it all, but as soon as we have something valuable to share we will publish it out there as an eBook, webinar, or other online blog post. Stay tuned!

The New Year marks a time when many people and companies will start new projects or set new goals... and make those infamous unrealistic resolutions that never last past February 1st. Well, this year we'd like to provide a little suggestion as well.

Try email marketing, and stick with it.

As expected, ever since December 25th our email box hasn't heard a sound; well, maybe a few crickets. Several months ago we signed up to the email lists/newsletters for nearly 100 different jewelry stores around the world. Our signup lists includes large retailers like ...
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AT: 01/02/2012 11:21:20 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
Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Two Suggestions to Immediately Spice Up Holiday Sales

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Headlong into the holiday season already and you are either hoping for better or already happily surprised.

We're already hearing it both ways. Depending on the location, some jewelers have higher sales, some are the same as last year, and we've even heard from one that didn't have a single phone call or walk-in at all last week!

We're pretty sure that no matter what situation you are in you would be happy to get a few more quick sales this season so here are two fast tips to fish for some extra customers today.


1. Send an email to your list.

Alright, so we published that entire Holiday Run-Up and many days of email examples, but have you used those ideas? A few months ago we signed up for email newsletters from several dozen large and small jewelry stores. We're monitoring the messages and intensity of ...
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AT: 12/06/2011 11:31:19 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, November 25, 2011

Black Friday Thoughts for Jewelers

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In the United States we refer to this day as Black Friday. Many businesses other than retail are closed to celebrate the long weekend of Thanksgiving. It's the only day off from work before Christmas and the Holiday Season is officially kicked off. A large percent of consumers will go shopping today.

It's time to make those lists and check them twice...

We've not spoken about Foursquare in a while, but it's still growing, and to us it's clearly the winner of the location based services. Facebook has moved away from promoting it's check-in service and Gowalla has reformatted itself more as a tourist guide map.

This Nugget was published on November 25, 2011 in hopes that our readers that morning would take action before their store opened that day.

On November 21, 2011, Foursquare announced the check-in st...
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AT: 11/25/2011 09:38:25 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
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
Friday, November 04, 2011

Holiday Event Email Announcement Ideas for Jewelers

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How's your holiday planning shaping up?

We assume many of you are doing last minute post card printing or are just about to mail out the invitations for November's pre-holiday store events. There are lots of last minute media buys being offered for strategic newspaper and local magazine and advertising.

What's happening with your online stuff? Have you planned your website content yet? Website theme? Email marketing strategies? Suffice it to say we've thrown a lot of ideas at you in the past 35 days, but if you've not taken any action yet you will miss the season.

Today we're going to throw more actionable email marketing ideas at you. As usual, these ideas are based off successful campaigns from previous years.

Let's start with emails focusing on upcoming events. You might have a few important events i...
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AT: 11/04/2011 01:05:52 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, November 03, 2011

Holiday Facebook Photos for Jewelers

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We avoided deep Facebook marketing topics during our official Holiday 2011 Run-Up. We hate Facebook entirely, but every time we try to do the research, analyze the data, and publish our findings, Facebook changes their interface again and voids all our work! It's rather frustrating.

Let's take a step back from our own work and look at what other experts are saying about using Facebook during the Holiday Season. We'd like to share some thoughts from Crystal Vilkaitis; she's the director of social medial for SnapRetail and she works with independent retailers teaching them how to use social media.

Crystal suggests to use Facebook for photo sharing on Facebook. As we already know, photos and videos attract a lot of attention in Facebook, and she agrees. In a recent blog post Crystal suggested a few strategies for Faceb...
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AT: 11/03/2011 12:10:53 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 02, 2011

302 Strategy for Jewelry Store Holiday Marketing

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

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

Blue Nile: http://www.bluenile.com
1. Their background was changed to include their signature snowflake.
2. BlueNile's website design signature is the home page large red ribbon. That red is now darker, less noticeable.
3. As of yesterday they added a small red bow next to "Find the Perfect Gift," which in...
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AT: 11/02/2011 01:04:52 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, November 01, 2011

All Gold Ring Roads Lead Back To Your Store

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

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

We're explaining this proc...
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AT: 11/01/2011 12:10:46 PM   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 28, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up: Holiday Mobile Website Tuning

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We've had an entire month of Holiday 2011 Run-Up Daily Golden Nuggets. All together, they are published as a 121 page book and available from our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/JewelerWebsiteAG.

Today's Daily Golden Nugget is the last one from the Run-Up book. There are a few lingering topics we didn't cover, so look for those throughout November.

Today we need to talk about your mobile website, and the need to appeal to the smartphone users. Regular phone owners will not be looking at your mobile site, so your target should be the technology users. Just like all marketing, you need to know who your target audience is and then how to appeal to them.

Some of the data we are presenting today comes from the Holiday Mobile Marketing Summit we attended in NY...
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AT: 10/28/2011 12:59:23 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, October 27, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up: Mobile AdWords for Jewelers

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Over the last 6 months we've monitored an average 97.52% increase of mobile visitors to jewelry websites across our network. The actual number of mobile visitors to a single website is pretty small each month, as in about 60 visitors, but that number has nowhere to go but up.

Did you know that you can create mobile AdWords ads? According to Google, 1 in 3 mobile searches have local intent.

According to what we mentioned yesterday, 87% of people walking are using their cell phone. Of those surveyed, it was found that people use mobile search 77% of the time spent on their phone. Finally, 33% of that 77% are searching for something locally.

What does that mean with real numbers?
100 people walk by, 87 of them are using their cell phone.
Of 87 people, 77% or 67 of them are using a search engine.
Of those 67...
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AT: 10/27/2011 01:16:32 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up: Mobile Marketing for Jewelers

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Of all the chapters in this Holiday 2011 Run-Up, this might be the most important. Consumers are using smartphones today, right now, this exact minute. The data is undeniable and we're going to step through it and show you what the experts are saying and how you can use mobile technology yourself.

In the past 12 months we've heard many retail jewelry store owners tell us that "their customers do not use smartphones" and they don't need to create a mobile website even though those same jewelers themselves have an iPhone or an Android. This is similar to what we heard in 2003 when jewelers claimed their customers didn't use the internet and they didn't need a regular website.

We have our own in-house mobile research methods, and we've been tracking mobile usage for more than a few years, but to get a broader view of the mo...
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AT: 10/26/2011 01:12:32 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 17, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up: Understanding AdWords for the Holidays

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You can spend 10 months trying to fine tune your Google AdWords campaign, really learning the ins and outs of how to attract your target customers to your jewelry store, but nothing you learn is going to prepare you for the affect that the Holiday Season has on AdWords.

The Holiday Season is about gift giving, and the holiday gift giving mentality is different than the rest of the year.

As you are most defiantly aware, jewelry is the gift to give throughout the year when someone is celebrating a birthday or job promotion, to say thank you, or to cheer someone up. Jewelry is given during economic hard times as a way of saying better times will come and during economic good times to celebrate what you have.

However, even though the Holiday Season has religious celebrations at its core, gift giving can greatly overshado...
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AT: 10/17/2011 01:27:20 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
Friday, September 30, 2011

Holiday 2011 Run-Up Begins Today

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Starting today and continuing for the next several days (yet to be determined) we're giving you our concentrated action SEO, SEM, and mobile marketing action plan for the Holiday 2011 season.

Welcome to the Holiday 2011 Run-Up!

Last year's Run-Up presented a 9-part Online Marketing Plan; how many will be in this year's? We don't know yet because we're still putting it together.

The 2011 jWAG Run-Up will have the most recent search engine optimization techniques, best search engine marketing ideas, methods to improve your online catalogs, and mobile marketing ideas presented as action items to plan for and then execute on specific days of the holiday season.

BE WARNED: This is where we tell you exactly what to do so you have the best chance of winning sales over your local competing jewelry store. We're not...
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AT: 09/30/2011 01:16:18 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 02, 2011

9 Things Jewelers Should Test On Their Website

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Yesterday's Nugget was pretty long to get through, but we really needed to explain how to use Google Website Optimizer ( http://bit.ly/qEVCUP ). It is such an important tool and it's easier than Google Analytics. Although, if you are still wondering what you would want to test then today's Daily Golden Nugget is for you.

Some basic things to test with Google Website Optimizer:
1. Captions on images
2. Font size, line spacing, and font family
3. Adding or reducing white space around the site
4. Culling your content or swapping it with bullet points
5. Font and link colors, underlined or non underlined links
6. Button sizes and colors
7. Jewelry photography methods using different background other than pure white
8. Headlines
9. Repositioning your call to action message<...
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AT: 09/02/2011 12:14:38 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 01, 2011

Google Website Optimizer in Plain English

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This Daily Golden Nugget is probably a little more advanced than most others. Thankfully, though, it's not too technical because the Google tool we're going to explain takes care of all the confusing tech stuff.

We want to introduce you to the world of website split testing, also known as A/B testing.

As we've said in the past, your website is never really complete. You need to keep working on it to improve your conversion rates, lower your bounce rates, and overall increase your sales. But other than simply watching the daily sales reports, how do you know if your website efforts are getting better?

The answer is A/B testing, and with it you can create 2 variations of the same web page and have Google run its magic until the better of the pages appears.

The magic is built into the Google Website Optimizer t...
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AT: 09/01/2011 11:24:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Hiring Someone To Help With Conversion Rate Optimization

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In case you're just tuning in, this post is one in a series of training for jewelry store owners. Today's topic is "Conversion Rate Optimization" and how to find someone to help you measure and improve it.

Measuring your conversion rate on any single web page will be tedious. We've previously said you could use the free Site Overlay tool inside Google Analytics to do it, but before you even get to the actual testing you need to outline your goals and how you will achieve them.

The Jeweler Website Advisory Group exists simply to share website education with jewelers. We actually hope you will take our ideas and use them directly, but if you don't have the time, then you will need to hire someone to help you.

Here are some things to think about when looking to hire an ad agency, web designer, or even an in-house empl...
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AT: 08/30/2011 01:34:18 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Psychology of Landing Pages

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Our previous 8 Daily Golden Nuggets covered many topics of email marketing. Today we'll switch gears into a new topic that is directly related to all your email marketing, and that's your website Landing Page.

Every marketing strategy should have a message and a call to action.

Typical calls to action are:
• "Visit our store"
• "Visit our large showroom"
• "Give us a call"
• "Fill this bag with unwanted gold and bring it to us to sell"
• "Visit our website"
• "Click this link for more information"
• "Sign up for your own wish list"
• "Scan this QR code for more information"

We assume you will have website links in all your digital advertising. Those links shouldn't simply direct people to your website home page, or to a web page which is only somewhat ...
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AT: 08/25/2011 11:32:46 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, August 22, 2011

Jewelers Using Facebook as an Email Service

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EDIT: This Nugget is Defunct because Facebook took away this feature.

In the previous few Daily Golden Nuggets we've analyzed emails and given you some times of the day, days of the week, and months of the year to send your emails. We've also explained the differences between HTML emails that have photos and plain text emails, and when to use each.

There are a variety of companies that you can purchase your email service through like iContact, Constant Contact, and AWeber. But what about Facebook?

Have you ever given a though to using Facebook for email marketing? Let's explore some ideas for doing just that.

First, forget about your personal Facebook account. We've been saying it for more than a year, and many other internet marketing professionals will say the exact same thing: Do not use your per...
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AT: 08/22/2011 01:45:21 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, August 18, 2011

Email Open Rate Statistics for Jewelry Stores

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Today we'd like to give you some quick statistics regarding email marketing, and how they relate to your jewelry store.

At the bottom of this email, you will find the links for the web pages we're getting our data from. Feel free to look over it all yourself.

First, let's talk about the time of day to send emails. A few years ago our own research showed that the best time of day to send emails was 1PM local time. That statistic is no longer true. Now that users are able to read emails in a wide variety of ways, we are not constrained to post-lunch time email reading.

Naturally you can send your emails at any time of the day, but what time will have the best chance for someone to read it?

It turns out there are 3 different times, and each has a different audience. You could have as much as a 20% chance of s...
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AT: 08/18/2011 12:41:31 PM   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
Monday, August 01, 2011

Passionate Designers Can Be Your Secret SEO Product Strategy

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Let's talk about buying shows, holiday inventory, and internet advertising.

We're right in the middle of the trade show season and every show you go to will have plenty of options for holiday inventory and new trends that could work in your store. What is the most important reason you select new inventory for your store? We'd love to hear your feedback on that.

We attended the JA show in New York City from July 26th to 28th and asked some very hard questions to many vendors both large and small. Today we're going to review some of our findings.

We tried to divide our time equally between small designers, new designers, and well established jewelry manufacturers. We asked all of them what marketing assistance they offered their retailers, specifically how each one would help the retailer add content to their websit...
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AT: 08/01/2011 12:24:12 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
Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Sharing is Good-Natured

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Link building is a difficult part of search engine optimization. It's better to have a real person creating links on other websites than to buy a software program to spin links for you, but it takes a lot of time.

A well-placed link will bring a lot of valuable Google PageRank, and increase your SERP ranking.

But what if your goal is to increase visitor traffic in addition to PageRank?

A good answer to that is simply to get social. Share links on social networks like Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Twitter and of course Facebook. Is your favorite not listed here? No problem, go ahead and use it anyway.

The goal to social sharing on these websites is to attract new people to your website. In this process, it's a numbers game; more shared links means more people see those links and potentially click. People who...
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AT: 04/26/2011 11:30:23 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Aggressive Marketing with Multiple Domain Names

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Network Solutions, GoDaddy, Register.com and Domain.com are just a few of the hundreds of companies that you can now buy your domain name from. They are called "registrars."

Each of them are trying to improve their profits, yet the prices of domain names have dropped as low as $1.99 for the .info domains. As a sales tactic, each of these registrars have started promotions to have you buy more and more domain names.

"Secure your biz, co, net, org domain name and protect your trademark" is a common slogan. But how useful is this really? Why would you want 5 domains, or 15 domains?

In reality, you only ever want to advertise one primary domain name. If you have jewelrystores.com and jewelrystore.net you should simply use the .com version. The .net becomes useful only for special purpose advertising where you can tr...
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AT: 03/29/2011 12:52:13 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, March 17, 2011

Big Brands vs. Your Jewelry Store

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As a local retail jeweler, you are faced with many advertising difficulties compared to large jewelry chain stores like Jared, Zales, Kay, JCPenny and so many others. They have millions of dollars to throw at their national advertising and branding.

These large companies create buzz around their brands and consumers naturally remember the ads, slogans, and jingles that are repeated effectively in large, unified branding campaigns.

The word of mouth alone creates online interest and random link sharing to all of these big brand websites. As a result of this link sharing, these companies gain incredibly super ranking in the search engines that will easily bury your search engine efforts as a local jeweler.

So don't fight those big brands. Instead, you need to compete on your home turf.

The local brands will not s...
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AT: 03/17/2011 10:46:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, December 28, 2010

SEO: Page Title

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As 2010 comes to a close and 2011 brings hopes of a better economy, we'd like to present to you some basic SEO ideas that we've not yet covered through our Daily Gold Nuggets.

Before we get into any specifics, let's introduce you to some basic terminology and search engine ideas.

First, you need to know that there is no magic silver bullet that will make your website show up in the search engines easily. It takes a lot of hard, tedious work.

Second, if you spend just one evening researching SEO techniques on your own, you will find huge inconsistencies between what all of the search engine optimization professionals say to do. There is no way that everyone is correct, yet every one of those professionals seem to get the job done using their "proven" techniques. Google and Bing do not freely publish a real how-to d...
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AT: 12/28/2010 11:53:54 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Why Are You Selling Burgers to Vegetarians?

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Ever wonder why your marketing strategy fails, or doesn't return any real investment? You spend thousands on a billboard just to have friends say "I saw your billboard." You spend thousands on a radio ad just to have the FedEx guy say "I heard your ad on the radio today."

Each and every time you spend money on an ad, it should return enough sales to at least cover the cost of the ad. If not, well, then you did it wrong.

Wrong demographic target, or wrong placement, or wrong words, or maybe simply no one cares about what you are trying to sell. Of course, there's always the possibility that your ad slogan has some other urban slang definition and everyone's laughing at you.

Now in the second week of online marketing attempts, we are seeing random and sloppy ads from many jewelry stores.

Here's what we've see...
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AT: 12/07/2010 01:05:21 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, December 06, 2010

Strategies for Collecting Email Addresses

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Back in October, we gave you some guidelines on marketing for this holiday season. Today is the second Monday of the season and we'd like to review your email strategy again.

1. If you have a list already you should send an email before the end of the day today. It doesn't have to be long, just say things like "Still searching for the perfect gift? Here are some gifts that just came in on Saturday..."

2. To build your email list in person, you could ask every customer for their email when they check out. However, customers don't freely give out their email addresses any more. You have to give them a reason to want to give it, and a simple weekly or monthly newsletter is not enough anymore. Here are some good ideas that currently work:

"If you give me your birthday or anniversary we will send you a $50 gift card...
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AT: 12/06/2010 12:02:29 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, December 02, 2010

Grand To-Do List of Website Marketing

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Sometimes the information we publish gets very focused on a single topic and perhaps those reading get confused with what is important from day to day. Honestly, it's difficult to really point a finger and say what's more important than another.

We're going to take a step back and try to list the most popular internet marketing ideas for retail jewelers according to specific categories. We always try to maintain or focus on local retailers, but even e-tailers can take advantage of our ideas.

Some of the items below are repeated in each category, and this list is by no means all-inclusive. The items in each list are also not in any particular order since different internet marketing experts will rank them all differently.

To attract new non-mobile customers to your store:
1. Need a website.
2. Website n...
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AT: 12/02/2010 11:43:01 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Sending Facebook Updates

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

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

Go to your Business Page.
In the left margin, under your image, click "Edit Page."
This will take you to the Management Page, where your Basic Information will be showing.
Now click on the "Marketing" link in the left margin to get to the screen that says "There are many ways to Promote Your Page."
Click on "Send an Update"
The next screen will look like an email compose screen, but it has a subtle difference.
You will see the "Audi...
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AT: 11/03/2010 10:28:39 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Tactics for writing blogs

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Are you aware of all the little nuances of Internet Marketing that could improve the conversion rates from your blog site to the main area of your site where you make money?

Internet Marketing is a learned skill. Even with many years of experience in traditional media marketing, you couldn't possibly know the how's and why's of Internet Marketing. We're giving you a few easy ones below.

By now, you should have an established blog set up. We hope you have it on your own website rather than a Blogger or WordPress account. Here are some tactics that you should be employing in each of your blog posts.

1. Your main headline needs to be the largest words on the page.
2. You should break up your blog entry into subsections with a sub-heading for each.
3. Headings and sub-headings should be in a Sans Serif font. Good ch...
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AT: 10/19/2010 11:22:43 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 24, 2010

Holiday Marketing to Him

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In yesterday's Gold Nugget, we described the strategy of changing your website home page in early November to take advantage of the women shoppers that purchase earlier in the holiday season.

Today we will briefly explain how to turn this idea around to target the men shoppers that typically wait until the first and second weeks of December to shop.

David Geller explains the many differences between the sales pitch toward men vs. women. Here's one example he used last time we attended his workshop: When selling a diamond to a lady, put it in a setting so she can try it on; however, when selling a diamond to a man, hand it to him in tweezers with a loupe. Men want to know more of the technical aspect than the beauty or emotion of it.

We don't consider large diamond ring purchases to be a last minute gift item; that ...
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AT: 09/24/2010 01:58:51 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, September 23, 2010

Holiday Marketing to Her

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We've given you several action plans for producing content for the holiday season, but so far we haven't told you how and when to use it. That information starts now.

If we asked you who procrastinates more--a husband or his wife--what would you say? Do we need to find statistics that state 99.999% of men procrastinate more than their counterparts? We don't really have that kind of measured data other than looking at our own family and friends. But it sure seems like all the women we know can plan way in advance for all parts of life, including printing out directions.

All joking aside, let's apply this idea to our marketing strategy: "Women shop early and men procrastinate."

Starting early in November you need to restructure your website's home page with large photos of jewelry and watches "for him." The captions...
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AT: 09/23/2010 02:15:14 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, September 13, 2010

Your 9-part Online Marketing Plan

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Marketing is your responsibility; not your bookkeeper's, not your salesperson's, not your bench jeweler's.

Owning the store means not only making sure it runs every day, but also planning marketing far enough in the future to ensure continual profits (or at least break even in this economy).

It's time for an online marketing plan that you can get running quickly.

Here's a list of things that we have measured successfully for retail jewelers. This list alone can be used as the basis for your online marketing strategy:
1. Add new information to a blog on your *website* regularly.
2. Manage a Facebook Business Page and give your customers a reason to Like you there.
3. Link your Facebook status feed updates to Twitter.
4. Maintain a Flickr account and post new photos of jewelry daily, properly labeled.
5...
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AT: 09/13/2010 02:14:35 PM   0 COMMENTS
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