"Low Cost" Marketing For Online Jewelry Store

Q: I just started my online jewelry wholesale site few days ago (URL Omitted). I worked very hard on this one. Since I am totally new, I want to save as much as I can on marketing? How to bring in traffic onto my site by spending no or low money?

A: First of all let me complement you on your site. It looks professional and appears easy to navigate to find products. Since you're looking for low cost ways to bring traffic to your site I would suggest learning some of the basics about search engine optimization (SEO) and applying them to your site. I believe that the Zen Cart shopping cart I see your site built on already has some features to make this a little easier.

What you'll find is when you create a main heading for a product page your heading will also be duplicated in the page title you see above the address bar. Page titles are one of the most important places to add the keywords and keyphrase people will type into a search engine. I notice many of your page headings are the model number you use for your products. While it's probably easy for you to keep track of things this way people won't search for your model numbers as they won't know them. A descriptive page heading and page title will prove more beneficial with both your customers and search engines.

You will probably find that the competition is lower for specific products than it will be for more general terms like 'jewelry' meaning it will generally be easier to have your pages rank well for these longer and more specific terms. Even better is that people who search with these longer keyphrases are often closer to making a purchase in their buying decision process.

Adding a paragraph of descriptive text about each product on your site will also help those pages to rank better. Try to keep all of the pages unique. You want to have unique page titles, page headings, and descriptive text on every page. It's ok to repeat some of the words, but try to make each page as different as possible.

Another way to promote your site and business is to join online communities. Look for communities where your customers are likely to spend time and become an active contributor. My first thought would be to look for something like 'beauty forums.' Typing the word forum along with related beauty terms should return plenty of online communities. The trick with online communities is not to actively promote your product. Instead you want to do your best to answer people's questions when you can and become part of the community. Most forums will let you add links back to your site in forum signatures so look for a few that allow these links.

As you become part of the community people will become interested in you and click your signature links to visit your site. If the communities you join have a membership that is in your target market in time they more than likely will start to buy products from your site. As long as you can deliver a quality product they should return for more. Give it time though. It doesn't happen overnight, but if you work at it you can see success.

Mostly you want to get your name and your site out there. Become active online and try to get other sites related to yours to add links back to your site. Look for sites that are related to yours, but not necessarily competitors. I would think sites about clothing, health and beauty, fashion, etc would be good place to ask for a link back to your site.

Good luck and please feel free to ask more questions if you have any.

Thanks,
Steve