From Shows to SEO: Teacher Starts Jewelry Business

Karalee Serra, a graphic designer and former high school art teacher in Massachusetts got the notion about a year ago that she might be able to parlay the jewelry she designed on the side into a business.

“I took a number of jewelry classes while I was a graduate student at the Massachusetts College of Art and I fell in love with the jewelry classes and I have a graphic design background,” she says. “So I kind of ended up combining my love for graphic design and created a jewelry line.”

Her first move was to exhibit at the Bizarre Bazaar show in Boston. “At that point, I kind of wanted to get a look-see to find out if people were really interested or to see if my family and friends were just being nice,” Serra says. “So I did very well at the Bizarre Bazaar and I just realized at the point that I might have something there.”

Serra soon set up her company Karalee Designs (www.karaleedesigns.com) to market belt buckles, necklaces, rings, pet collars and other products she designs herself.

So far, the Plymouth, MA firm has amassed a few hundred customers through a combination of postcard and e-mail newsletter efforts, public relations and through other art shows including Boston Handmade and trunk shows. She defines the latter as events where her company kind of takes over a small local boutique for an evening and invites everybody they can it think of.

“Basically it’s all like guerilla marketing right now--it’s not anything huge,” she notes.

In addition, Karalee is getting online traffic from some very specific keywords such as “octopus necklace” and “polar bear belt buckle.

“When you type in certain words my site will come up in the first couple of pages which is nice and I also have a stat counter so I can see where they come from,” says Serra, noting she doesn’t get words like “belt buckle.”

“I think you have to be really huge for those to come up,” she says.

Looking ahead, Serra plans to explore using Google Adwords to further promote her site and to keep doing what she’s been doing so far.

“I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping I’m going in the right direction,” Serra adds.