A lot of handcrafted jewelry designers are hobbyists or amateur jewelry makers. They love making jewelry for their friends and family and then if someone actually buys their jewelry then it is both personally rewarding, as well as monetarily. However, those serious hobbyist handmade jewelry designers who want to take their craft a step further might want to consider building a website to showcase their jewelry designs. Why do I need a website to sell jewelry? Even as a small start-up entrepreneur, you need to take your jewelry making craft seriously if you want to set yourself up for a full-time endeavor. Having a website online gives your jewelry more chances to be seen by potential customers than just marketing locally. Plus, your handcrafted jewelry website can serve as a portfolio. So when you pass out business cards or when people ask about your different jewelry creations, you can point them to your website as a reference. How do I set up a jewelry website? You're a crafty person, not a 'tekkie' person. So launching a website might sound like a complicated undertaking. But really it is not so difficult. Finding the right person or web design company to help you is an option. Some start-up business owners also try to do it themselves, which is not as scary as it sounds. There are thousands of easy templates out there that basically walk you through the entire process of getting a website started just by prompting you for the next stages. Then you need to plan. What pages do you want? Do you want it set up like a virtual catalog? This is called an ecommerce site. A lot of handmade jewelry designers like the idea of having a catalog so that customers can navigate and search for the items they like. During the planning process, think of all of the pages that will provide fundamental information about the handcrafted jewelry design business you wish to launch. For example, a home page that provides an overview of what to expect on the site, an About Us or Bio that highlights you as the handcrafted jewelry designer, a page about your policies, a few special pages about the metals or gemstones you like to work with, etc. Decide upon designing your own handmade jewelry website or hiring a graphic web designer to do it for you. After you have prepared an outline of ideas, go to the internet and browse some of the sites of other artists. They do not even have to be handmade jewelry designers; they can be any type of artist. Write down links to those that appeal to you. You can give these links to a web designer as ideas about what you like, including your personal preferences (clean site or busy?); your tastes and style (color schemes, fonts, etc.); as well as any other ideas you wish to present. This will help your designer prepare a quote. With these tips, you are on your way to a good start with your new handmade jewelry designs website!