14 Steps to setting up an online business - Priorities

When setting up an online jewellery business, or any business for that matter, there seems to be an an infinite number of things to do. Once you have set up your business plan, it can be overwhelming to know what to do and in what order.

Today I will be sharing my list of priorities, hopefully it will be useful to someone else setting up their business.

Please note, this post is not an 'How To' post, it is just a list of what I do.

1. Decide on business name (research online to find minimum competition for those key words).
2. Register business name with your local office to check availability.
3. Register your domain name, do at same time as Step 2 to check availability.
4. Choose the keywords to optimise for e.g. Organic - Fruit - Dublin
5. Write a paragraph about the business & post on webpage, incorporating keywords.
6. Register your website with Webmaster tools so it comes up on Google search results. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
7. Set up social media pages and link them to your website for SEO. Try to use the same name for them all, incorporating business name. Write a bio for each, incorporating keywords. I write off the top of my head rather than using same copy as Google does not to like block duplicate content. It may not matter for short Bio's, but I also prefer original content. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en
8. Manage expectations by posting a goal launch date on all the sites & pages.
9. Start working on your products. Steps 1-8 was to lay the foundation for search engines to find your site.
10. Develop your website with a basic homepage and about us.
11. List your products. Make sure to use your keywords throughout product descriptions. Basically your keywords should be naturally placed on every page related to you.
12. Register your page with SEO optimising site such as https://www.attracta.com/. Do this after listing products as you will understand better what to say about them. Once registered, I don't think you can change the information submitted.
13. Make sure to update your social media pages minimum twice a week throughout the whole process.
14. Once you are happy for your site to get some traffic, announce on your launch on social media pages.

My list is not perfect, but it's what I do on a generic level. I am selling my products through Etsy at the moment, but still working on my own site, so not ready to go fully live yet. 

Leave a comment if you have any suggestions. I am always keen to learn.

by Shen Wong

Renaming Dublin Designer to Shen Wong

Going forward this blog will be renamed under the Shen Wong brand.

For the purposes of SEO (explained in my earlier post), it was becoming too much to optimise for the Dublin Designer brand and Shen Wong Jewellery, so I had to merge everything into one. 

Over the week I will be refreshing the layout of this page. Keep an eye out for the new look. 

Sometimes we have to sacrifice preference for SEO. *sigh*

Goodbye Dublin Designer and hello Shen Wong Blog. 

Did you ever have to change your branding to suit SEO? Leave a comment to share your thoughts. 

by Shen Wong 

7 Steps to using Instagram for Online Business - Building SEO

Intro

You set up your website, put up good pictures of products with enticing descriptions and many people will think  your done. Well unfortunately that is just not enough. One of the (many) most important things with an eCommerce website is for it to be found. To do this you need to optimise your website for search engines, this process is called SEO. 

There are many thing you can do to optimise your website. One strategyis to create inbound links. This means setting up links to your website, Google loves this. The more relevant links that directs to your website, the better. Social Media is a great way to achieve this. 

The Social Media that I will be talking about today is Instagram.

    My Instagram page

How To 

1. Download Instagram to your smartphone. 
2. Set up your account with your business name. This will then be a relevant link to your website. Please be sure to use your business name & not anything else. For me, Shen Wong was taken across most SM platforms, so I used ShenWongCo as my alias. Ideally I should have used ShenWongJewellery so I could optimise for "Jewellery" also, but that was too many characters than most would allow and the competition for that word is too heavy anyway. 
3. Decide on the 3-5 keywords you would like to optimise for. Use these words in your description
4. Decide on the pictures you should be posting. I like to post pictures of my jewellery, me wearing my products and some 'behind the scenes' images of me preparing my creations. 
5. When posting up images describe it in a few words, but try to fit in some key words. Be sure to include your website!
6. Tag your pictures. Instagram allows up to 30 tags. By tagging your pictures, there are better chances of people finding them & then liking & following you. This is good for SEO & spreading awareness for your website. I use tags like #jewellery #bracelets which are both relevant to help people find my pictures & useful keywords for my SEO.
7. Post often so your followers don't lose interest. 

Tip: Set up a custom auto correct on your smartphone. I have a full list of possible tags I will use, plus a short bio with my key words that I add to all my image posts. When I type 'instabio' into my phone, my description and tags auto populates. Saves me typing it out each time.

That's it on this topic. If I have missed anything or if you have found this useful, please comment. 

You can find me on Instagram @ShenWongCo. 

Sample images that I post on Instagram

Written by Shen Wong  

Inspiring Sun

With the sun blazing my mood is at its best. The sun doesn't just give us life, but it makes us live life. Driving home from work today, I didn't feel just motivated, but invigorated and inspired. I want to throw myself into my new business, Shen Wong and be the maker of fun loving jewellery that people will come to love.

With all my researching into other jewellery businesses, trying to understand their language and the tone they use to communicate to their customers, I started to lose myself in my messaging. While research is important, I think that when it comes to writing for your business, be it in a blog or product description it is even more important to let your personality show.

My own tone can be quite silly, but I think that's ok. Once I express myself passionately in my words, it will come across as genuine to the reader. At least that is what I think now. Tomorrow I am going to rewrite all my personal and product descriptions to convey my own crazy, quirky and silly self.

Don't get me wrong, that type of language works well for the likes of Tiffanys etc. but I need to differentiate myself. Anyway, I want to have fun along my journey, and it's simply too much work trying to talk like someone else. 

If you like this post then please leave a comment. I would live to hear your thoughts. 

Just a pic of me showing off my bracelets.

by Shen Wong

Pennys Autumn/Winter 2013

While we may have only had a week or two of Summer here in Ireland, some good has come of it. With the way the weather has been going we are ready to wrap up a little more and what perfect timing it is for Pennys to launch their Autumn/Winter 2013 collection!

I am loving their new season selection of jackets. They are so simple, yet elegant. Can't wait to buy them! Once I have them in my possession, I can work on creating some new accessories to match. I think the Fuscia jacket below could particularly benefit from an arm party of bedazzling Swarovski pearls and crystal bracelets.

Once I have the jacket and jewellery to match, I will be posting up pictures.

Where I first heard it: IrishMirror.ie

Welcome and Thank You

На все мои русские читатели, добро пожаловать и спасибо!

すべての私の日本の読者には、歓迎していただきありがとうございます！

Om al mijn Nederlandse lezers, welkom en bedankt!

An alle meine deutschen Leser, herzlich willkommen und danke!

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I just wanted to thank all my international readers out there. It was so interesting to find out that many of my readers are from Russia, Japan, the Netherlands and Germany.

Please keep reading, and I promise that I will get better! I am attending the Dublin City Network Enterprise for Women where there will be a talk about BLOGGING! I am sure that I will learn loads. Looking forward to it.

If you understood the message above, I would love for you to leave a comment in either English, or your own language. But even if you didn't understand the messages, I would still be delighted if you left a comment, it would let me know that real people are reading this ^_^

Written by Shen Wong