Lake Giles of Thinkspace Jeweler was one of the speakers on the topic “Digital Strategy for Websites, Adwords and SEO” during the American Gem Society Conclave in New Orleans recently. (Thinkspace Jeweler is a cloud-driven website management system and Internet marketing service designed for jewelers.)
Think about it: When was your website last updated?
According to Thinkspace (and common sense as well!) you’re losing customers if your website isn’t current. In fact, Thinkspace recommends updating it monthly to keep customers coming to your site, and ultimately to your store.
5 GOALS
1
Show off your brands. Or if you don’t carry brands, show off pictures of the products that you do carry (custom, estate, etc.) that are representative of your store. If they can’t tell what it is you sell, visitors to your website won’t be sure they want to visit your store. Make sure vendor data is available directly on your site and they don’t have to leave your website to seek out more information about the product. That improves the customer experience tremendously.
2
Make it interactive. Equip it with wish lists, social-media sharing buttons, repair tracking functions, etc. Make sure they linger longer than 8 seconds.
3
Chat with customers. For about $5 a month or so, you can add a chat feature to your website, inviting visitors to chat with a live person in real time. Retailers can log in after hours and respond while watching TV on their couch. “It blows people’s minds, to be able to chat with an owner or sales person after hours,” Giles says. “It’s exciting to millennials because so few businesses are actually doing it.”
4
Tell your story on your website. Let visitors know who you are. Be sure to make your address and phone number easily accessible, because if they have to dig, they won’t. They’ll just give up and leave.
5
Make sure your website is mobile friendly. “You can’t ignore mobile. If you do you’re going to see a big drop in performance of your store, just because of the performance of your website,” Giles says.