Thursday, May 13, 2010

How to Write The BEST Description for Your Jewelry

You have a passion for creating your jewelry designs. You decide what you are going to design, sketch it out, decide on materials and get those components to put this piece together. You know how long it took you to find just the right stones, with just the right color, clarity and size. You found the most impressive silver or gold beads and want to use them in this new design. You find the most stunning gold nuggets and figure out how to incorporate that into this idea you have. You decide to hand knot, crochet sterling silver, sew leather. And then you have it. The most coolest, MOST off the heezy piece of jewelry EVER!

  • Did you know? The origin of the word "amaze" is in 1590s and it means "sense of overwhelm".

Now don't you want to convey that to your adoring public? Attract some new eyeballs to your website by using the perfect search words that describe your one of a kind piece? You're overwhelmed by how beyond it is, shouldn't we be? I want them to drool over it. I want them to have to have it. To just describe something as:
Gold shark tooth with blue topaz stone
is a little flat, isn't it? But why all the words? Doesn't my awesome picture of my overwhelming piece of jewelry just bowl you over? Well......no one really searches pictures on search engines unless you're in 5th grade and need a picture for a book report. You need words. People use words to search for what their heart desires. They need something special and your jewelry is special, isn't it? Here's what we need to know:
  • How long is it? How long is it without the extension chain, how long is it with the extension chain?
  • What kind of gold is it? 14KT, 18KT, 22KT? Gold -filled? Gold-plated brass? Vermeil? Same with silver. Sterling? Plated? Do tell.
  • Did you hand forge the metal work, make your own earring wires or forms?
  • What kind of chain is being used. Figaro, curb, rolo, rope, diamond cut twisted cable? What size? 1mm, 2mm? Educate us.
  • What is the shape of the stones? Oval, marquis, emerald, cushion, checkerboard, briolette, rondelle, pear or tear shaped? You went through the trouble of picking out just the right stones. Tell us what shape that is and what size they are. Stones are usually measured in millimeters or carats. Carats! Wow! How many carats is that? I'd like to know!
  • Faceted? Cabochons? Are the stones pronged set? Bezel set? Wire wrapped?
  • Tell us the color of the gems: Citrine- gold yellow, lemon yellow, sunny yellow? Peridot-olive green, chartreuse green, grass green? Sapphire-cornflower blue, deep navy blue, ocean blue? I love colored gems, I'd like to know exactly what shade of fuchsia or watermelon pink that tourmaline is. Go into a paint store and take some color sample strips home. Those descriptions evoke an emotion, a feeling, like Summer Afternoon (sky blue), Soft Fern (light green), Pale Moon (soft buttery yellow), Blond Wood (beige yellow). 75% of the reason I pick a color is for the description. I want to be taken away to that time, to that place.
  • Did you know? If you paint the ceiling of your covered porch a shade of sky blue, bees won't build their hives in a corner. They think IT is the sky!
  • Where do the beads or stones originate from? Bali, Africa, South America, American Southwest, a walk on the beach? I'd love to know where those precious bits are from. They have a history, share it.
  • If you use leather, tell us if it's vegetable tanned, pebbled, raw hide, full grain, top grained, nubuck? Doesn't that sound so much more luxurious and just-gotta-have-it?
  • Pearls. The time it takes for an oyster to make a pearl, think about that. Please tell us what kind of pearls they are (freshwater? cultured? Tahitian?). What shade of blush are they?
  • Go to dictionary.com and add that on your tool bar. It's a big help to find similar words for descriptive words if you're having trouble and feel like you're using the same ole, same ole word all the time. Synonyms are listed. Thesaurus, quite handy. Spell your words right, double check them on this site. Rhymer.com has all the words that rhyme with a word you pick. I just thought that was so cool when I entered a twitter poetry contest. Urbandictionary.com is the funnest way to find new meaning to words and phrases. Just don't go too far off piste (off course) with descriptions. You want to grip them, not lose them.
Here's the new description:
50,000 year old Tiger shark tooth cast in solid sterling silver, plated in 24 KT gold vermeil. Nestled at the top of the tooth is a pronged set 5mm faceted sky blue topaz. This is hand wired on to an 18" 1mm gold filled cable chain with a custom made hook and toggle closure. The tooth is about an inch long.
Wow! That sure gives me a lot more information. This person went through the trouble of finding the fossil tooth (it came from divers who treasure hunt in the Gulf of Mexico), was inspired by it enough to have it cast, plated and found just the right stone to add to it. They made their own clasp. Imagine giving that as a gift with a back story to boot. It makes it really special, doesn't it? Each and every one of your jewelry pieces that you hand make, hand craft is special. We love that you have this awesome talent and want to know your inspiration. Please tell us! We want to know!

5 comments:

Courtney - Meylah said...

What an excellent post. . . I'm going to be launching my online jewelry store again soon & I'm going to bookmark this article for inspiration when I start writing my product descriptions. I came across you from your comment on Meylah & saw that you would be adding a tutorial on your blog. I'm so excited to see it & I would absolutely love to know how you create your metal signature tags. I would love to do something along those lines for my designs, but I have no clue how!

Jewelry Assembly Chicks said...

Thank you Courtney! My son shot it and he narrates it. I do the wire wrapping so I'm waiting for him to finish editing it. I'm also adding the step by step on the page too. I hope to post it by early next week. I can give you info on the metal name tags (is that what you're talking about?) e-mail me!

Jill said...

hmmm I always wondered why your porch ceiling was blue. Thanks for the information. It really helped when building my new ecommerce site.

Jewelry Assembly Chicks said...

In case anyone out there has a problem with bee hives under their covered porches :-)

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