Overhaul for Diamond Rocks

Walkthrough

 

Diamond Rocks is a high-quality contemporary jeweller with offices based in London’s historical Hatton Garden. For the past two years, Digital Potion has provided the company with original content and designed pages for its digital magazine.

Packed with expert diamond knowledge and guides about everything from the 4Cs to the latest jewellery trends, the magazine has been an entertaining and insightful source of information for customers, while also driving traffic to the Diamond Rocks shop with the help of Digital Potion’s ongoing SEO content strategy.

At the beginning of this year, Diamond Rocks’ owner and director, Vineet Khandelwal, decided it was time to give the whole website a thorough brand revamp as well as upgrading a number of site features. The core objective was to improve the customer experience, showcase Diamond Rocks’ bespoke design services, and promote total trust in buying diamond jewellery online. He turned to the Digital Potion team, his trusted digital partner, to make it happen.

We initially worked with Digital Potion for more than a year developing our SEO strategy through content marketing.  As part of that work, they provided a wonderful set of articles for our readers, expanding our magazine and knowledge-based content and generating significantly increased organic traffic.  Digital Potion also delivered an inbound marketing campaign with the national and jewellery press. One article was so good, it achieved high profile placement in the Daily Mail, Sun & Express Online Newspapers, providing money-can’t-buy exposure, significant Google authority rankings, and increased brand credibility.  We were very happy with the service as it was. 

More recently, we decided to revamp the company branding, update our digital strategy, and further improve online customer service.  We needed to rebuild our website to make it easier to use and simpler to update but without losing SEO rankings. Previously, using two different systems for the e-shop and online magazine was becoming labour intensive and we wanted a more joined up approach. 

Digital Potion took the reins, leading us through the full rebrand process before building a completely new website, from the ground-up and to our specific requirements. I am very happy with the new website.  It has raised our game and is leading to new and exciting global opportunities.

Vineet Khandelwal, Owner, Diamond Rocks

 

The Brief

As well as overhauling the site’s appearance, Diamond Rocks needed to pro-actively boost Google rankings to promote healthy ecommerce sales. Our brief was to create a modern, user- and mobile-friendly website. It needed to deliver a seamless, inspiring experience for customers. At the heart of this strategy was a comprehensive integration of shop products with the website’s magazine content, improving on what the previous solution - and most other online shops - could offer.

Digital Potion already had a clear understanding of the business and an excellent relationship with Vineet and the Diamond Rocks team. Armed with that knowledge, we began to formulate a new look and enhanced functionality for the website.

The Challenge

To integrate shop and magazine content, we needed to consolidate the two legacy platforms – OsCommerce and Wordpress. We migrate both onto a single, new platform - Umbraco. This equipped us to provide future-proofed features for both the shop and the blog, delivering a more meaningful user journey. The key challenge was to transfer all content from both old platforms. This is traditionally done using error-prone, manual copying which, if not done correctly, can adversely affect SEO rankings when the new site is launched.

Our solution was to programmatically migrate all content onto the new system, resulting in a comprehensive, robust process with no detrimental effect to previous rankings. Indeed, as a result of this work, the new site is not just holding steady, but seeing an increase in rankings since we launched.

 

Custom design and new functions

We began by updating the shop with a lighter, brighter, modern design. Diamond Rocks prides itself on providing superior quality jewellery, so it was crucial that each piece should be showcased to the highest standard. We created a simple but sleek layout, including animated images and a comprehensive filter system that allows the customer to narrow their search to a particular design, stone, shape, and metal.

New magazine features included the ability to link products directly to an article, so readers inspired by an article subject can instantly find an example of the relevant pieces in the online shop.

As part of the migration of content from the old platforms, we replicated existing useful functions, such as the check-out facility from the shop. We also added in some exciting new features.

These include bespoke configurators – a USP of the site – that allow the user to choose from a variety of different categories. In the ‘Design your own engagement ring’ section, for example, customers walk through a click-by-click process, choosing their favourite stone shape, metal and setting before selecting a particular diamond from a database featuring precious stones from a wide selection of international merchants. The site then produces animated images, showcasing the ring design from every angle and giving a comprehensive breakdown of each gem’s characteristics, including carat, clarity, cut and value. This useful function gives customers complete confidence in, and control over, what they are buying and resulting in a truly unique end product.

Another game-changing addition is site integration with the loan provider Klarna, which allows the customer to set up a payment plan tailored to their needs. Klarna automatically calculates a loan agreement based on the user’s deposit amount and APR options. Customers can arrange finance for their special purchase without navigating away from the Diamond Rocks shop, for a better customer experience and higher retention rates.

 

Key benefits

Cross linking between blog content and the shop  ̶  for example, via product carousels  ̶  ensures the customer is only ever one click away from a purchase. This dynamic function ensures that product information is automatically updated from the shop, so that blog readers always have the latest information on any piece. The feature boosts Diamond Rock’s sales potential and sets it apart from other online retailers.

Now that the shop and magazine are no longer two separate entities, site speed is much faster - both for the end-user (on desktop and mobile), and, critically, for our client. It enables Diamond Rocks to consolidate and streamline management of transactions, content, and marketing. It also generates important business data, giving Diamond Rocks better insight into their customers’ behaviour and preferences on the site to continuously improve service and sales.

Are you looking for a bespoke digital marketing solution for your luxury brand? For advanced online strategies, from web development to organic SEO, talk to the Digital Potion team.