June 4 2009
by Paula Gheorghiade

Search Engine Optimization and your Business

Search engine optimization or SEO for short is the process whereby one can improve the quality and volume of traffic to the specific website. For a business, this is desirable for a variety of reasons, depending on the type of business one possesses. One common denominator however for all businesses, is the increased number of visitors that are genuinely searching for a specific product or company, and are able to reach the product or company without wasting too much time using the search engine.

From a jewellery designer, jewellery wholesaler or bead store perspective this is beneficial for a number of reasons:

Less time for them, more money for you

In today's slow economy, starting up your own small business and competing against other, older, more established jewellery companies can often seem like a daunting and expensive enterprise. However, with a bit of clever thinking and some research, your jewellery or bead business can take advantage of the many free advertising opportunities available over the internet. By cleverly search engine optimizing your website, and propelling your jewellery or bead company's website into the top 5 pages that are searched, you are trumping the competition by placing yourself before their sites. This means, that essentially people will more likely click on your jewellery or bead website, and purchase your product because they viewed your site first. Convenience and time saving techniques like these translate into sales for you, and more time for the customer.

Increase Quality of Traffic

With the exponential increase of the world wide web, and the creation of thousands of websites everyday it is easy to get lost in cyberspace. In particular, when you are searching for specific jewellery or bead websites, it is very easy to find 3 useful ones out of a dozen. By placing your jewellery or bead website before the competition, and in the top 5 search engine sites, you are essentially better targeting your company and your product. For example, if you have the highest quality sterling silver findings, chains and components, you want to make sure that you target your product to the customer that is interested in purchasing quality sterling silver findings and chains, and not knitting kits. This increases sales, because you are only attracting those customers that are interested in your product.

Increase Volume

As mentioned, increasing the quality of traffic on your website, translates into an increase in the volume customers visiting the website. This happens for two reasons: first, your website is one of the first that comes up in a search, and therefore more likely to be visited especially because most people do not like viewing hundreds of search pages. Secondly, it increases the volume of quality customers, that is the customers who inputted specific search words such as "sterling silver jewellery" into the search engine, and came up with your jewellery or bead website. The increase in volume of traffic on your website also works in your favour, as some search engines also take this aspect into consideration when ranking websites. Thus the higher the volume, the higher your ranking and the closer you become to the coveted 1st search engine page.

Increase Sales

Increased volume and quality of traffic leads to increased sales. As mentioned, this is because you are making it easier for the customer who is searching for your product to find it and purchase it with the least effort and time wasted searching the web.

Therefore, Search Engine Optimization can be very valuable for your jewellery or bead company, for more than one reason. You are benefitting from increased exposure to potential clientele, specifically targeting those customers who are searching for your product, and increasing the number of such customers who are specifically searching for what you have to offer. All of this translates into higher sales for you, and less hassle for the customer.