The Essendon Gem & Lapidary Club was formed by a group of lapidary enthusiasts in 1969, providing an opportunity for people with a wide variety of interests in precious and semi-precious gemstones and minerals to meet together to share their knowledge, develop their skills and enjoy the fellowship of those who share those interests.

While most hardcore lapidarians tend to be of a mature age, a growing generation of younger lapidarians is emerging in recreational clubs around Australia. To attract a larger share of this younger demographic, the Essendon Gem & Lapidary Club has made use of modern technologies and techniques, such as incorporating new beadwork techniques into lapidary, offering silversmithing facilities and creating an attractive club website.

ABOVE: A sample of photos taken by Suzanne for the website - click to view.

Suzanne Day originally created the Essendon Gem & Lapidary Club website in 2005 and has revamped it twice - from a static Dreamweaver site to a PHP Nuke site to the Joomla CMS site it is today. Along this web journey, we learnt what made the ELC club website so successful - personal and humourous fossicking stories from other lapidarians, information about the club and lots of photos of the members (who are well known in many circles!)

Over 2600 people visit the Essendon Gem & Lapidary Club every month from organic searches in Google. These are targeted hits by people who are already interested or very likely to be interested in lapidary and have found the club by searching for terms like "rock club", "gem club" or "lapidary club". The ELC SEO plan did not involve paying lots of money to attract traffic - we simply created a comprehensive web presence geared towards people interested in learning about lapidary.

2600 people doesn't sound like a lot in regards to traffic generation, but it is translating into the purchase of memberships for the club. Every month, there are approximately 30 emails and 3 memberships generated. Since most members tend to stay with the club for a few years, the club is slowly but surely growing in members.

As photographer, content writer, website designer and fellow lapidarian, Suzanne Day has enjoyed herself creating and maintaining the Essendon Gem & Lapidary Club website - and has met some very interesting people in the process!

Click here to visit the Essendon Gem & Lapidary Club website