I Always Forget About SEO... doh!

Who said jewellery making was all boho living and wistful creativity? Like many, I was probably guilty of thinking that would be the case after a particularly satisfying three-day course last summer in the art of silver-smithing. It's probably indicative of why my artistic side has caused me so many problems, fighting for expression in the 9-5 rat race. It's only recently through embracing a few philosophical teachings and exploring the concept of parallel careers that it has felt doable. Oh, and buying a whiteboard. And actually paying attention to SEO. Let's have an unreasonable debate...

Today has been spent wrangling Google SEO into submission for my new jewellery store. To be honest, Wix has made it fairly simple for the Core Business plan I have invested in - I have no complaints. Although it keeps telling me I have not put Alt text on all the images on the site, and it all appears ALT'ed to within an inch of its life, however, I digress. SEO is one of the things you need to implement when doing any online trading, writing or collaboration in order for your content to be seen, but it's often the last thing I think of when setting up. Bam! Instagram account setup - yay! Post post post. Huh, no hits. Oh yeah, SEO... forgot about that... traffic appears. While Social Media is great, it's a saturated market and until the internet evolves into its next form, search engines, and predominantly Google, are always going to be the main way to get discovered.

It's the same for ant any online enterprise, and I am now having to combat my natural instinct to treat everything like a playground. Worse, a playground that I am the new kid in that is just there, trying to survive and not be noticed by the bullies. As I look to develop a parallel career alongside my main job, it's difficult to find the best way to get 'eyes on' your efforts with the limited time available. I need to get a better daily routine, feeding the algorithms. I also need to be brave and embrace the horror that is 'craft fairs'. Shudder. I'm naturally good at engaging with people face-to-face and should be using every tool in my arsenal to get 'out there' but there's always the devil on my shoulder telling me that I am not good enough - stay online, it's safer.

A case in point is my father-in-law who, even with the onset of Alzheimer's and being 85 years old, is still going to his local craft-fair to sell his wood-turning items. We need to go with him to make sure he doesn't give everything away for free, he tells us the story about the bog-oak used in the mice eyes as if he has never told us before, but he is happy as a clam. My mother-in-law suggested I set up some jewellery alongside him on the table and I have generated a million reasons that I shouldn't but the main one being fear of humiliation at the stuff not being good enough and showing up my in-laws in the small village area they live in. They couldn't give two shits, to be honest, but it's too late - I have convinced myself that I will be ready to have a stall alongside him, next year. Always next year. If I can get my act together, I'll get a QR code sorted tonight and printed off so I can at least try and drive some traffic to my website.

This is a short post and little more than a moan directed firmly at myself, but I would welcome any comments on strategies and tools to improve visibility. And that whiteboard I mentioned at the start - amazing! Would recommend. No digital assistant or planner gives the same dopamine hit as crossing tasks off, wiping the board clean and starting again. Hasn't helped with visibility but has made me more organised. Maybe I'll just start putting stickers in phone boxes... oh... no... wait.

#jewellery #seo #visibility