Peruvian Silver Jewelry: Where is it heading?

Peru has been steadily getting important recognition around the world due to many cultural aspects: archeological sites, cuisine, folklore, crafts to name a few. Not going too far in the past; in 2007, Macchu Picchu, Peru's most famous archeological site was considered among the modern 7 World Wonders.

Peruvian jewelry and Peruvian silver jewelry in particular are also following this trend: to be known in the world.

The art of jewelry craftsmanship has been part of Peru's culture for hundreds of years, long before the Incas. Ancient cultures that inhabited what now is Peru not only used precious metals in jewelry but also to practice surgeries. Also, like in most ancient cultures, jewelry denoted status, and The Lord of Sipan, found in Peru, is a sample of it (in its tomb where found around 400 pieces of jewelry)

Today, hundreds of years of history merged with modernity to create modern Peruvian jewelry. Ethnic traditional jewelry is still made, lets not ignore this. In fact, much of this jewelry is bought by tourists that visit Peru to take back home as souvenirs. At Argent Dreams, our focus is on modern Peruvian Silver Jewelry, because it can be used anytime, anywhere. Artisans continue with their ancestor's traditions and make their jewelry by hand. Don't expect to see your neighbor wearing your same piece of jewelry, because this silver jewelry is not mass-produced.

Asian countries dominate the market of "imitation jewelry" or "fake jewelry". Cheap trinkets made by machines in the thousands. Peruvian silver jewelry has its own personality. Lets be sincere here. Not ALL the jewelry will be unique. There will be pieces that resemble a lot to present trends, especially heart-shaped charm bracelets. However, most pieces are different from what is normally seen in the silver jewelry market, which are aimed at niches.

Will Peruvian Silver Jewelry obtain a place in today's markets and gain its well-deserved recognition? Argent Dreams will be working to help achieve this.

Jewelry Directories: How useful they really are?

From time to time, some of us stumble upon a directory during our searches in the web. These directories store a determined number of sites, which in most cases are grouped by industry, genre, topic, etc. However, unlike a phone directory which we DO use sometimes in our lives, how many of us actually uses an internet directory to find a site we are looking for?

Many directories in the web were created for a sole purpose: to make money by cheating the system. Few of us know that links act as votes in the Internet. If a site receives many links from other pages, it becomes popular, and being popular in the Web is good, because you are found easily! Unfortunately, being popular does not necessarily mean quality. A person with skills in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is able to manipulate to some extent the results of his site (cheat the system) and achieve better rankings. This is where directories come into play. People can buy links (buy the right to have a site listed) in these directories to achieve popularity.

How can we distinguish which jewelry directory is actually beneficial to us? I think the answer is pretty simple: using common sense. There are thousands of directories out there that offer no added value to the user, just a huge list of links (also known as link farms). What differences those links from each other? Absolutely nothing. Unless the directory is administrated by a prestigious entity, that uses certain criteria to accept links in its site, there is really nothing that distinguishes a link from the one above or below it.

In Argent Dreams, we decided to create a small directory or resources page, keeping in mind everything said above. For starters, we only have few but relevant categories (silver, gold, diamond, pearl, handmade, gemstone jewelry) and limited the number of links to 20 per category (please note that this is not a "Top 20" ranking as we have no objective way to affirm that the sites listed in our resources page are in fact Top 20 in the Internet). Some of the factors we take into consideration to decide if a site will be listed are:

• Website design
• Product/Service quality
• Store policies (privacy, returns, etc)
  
• Provides valid contact information (address, phone number, e-mail)
  

We have some close competitors listed in our silver jewelry directory; however we understand that some of our visitors may not find what they seek in our store. For this reason, as part of our service, we provide them with other options that may suit them better.

Argent Dreams