livebooks blog

Spring is officially here – the time of year where we can start putting away our winter coats and boots and get excited for warm weather, sunshine, and being outside. Spring is also the time of year that allows us to take inventory of the old, polish it up, sweep it out, and dust it off. This same concept of “spring cleaning”  should apply to your business as well – and most importantly your website. When was the last time you really did an overhaul of your site? If it’s been awhile, now is the perfect time and we’ve compiled a list of things to focus on first to get you started!

Content Clean-Up

Make a conscious effort to do a truly comprehensive content clean up. This can range from something as simple as going through your portfolios and galleries and deleting older photos, adding new work, or moving images around, to actually digging in to your analytics and seeing which pages get the least amount of traffic and editing from there. Website design trends are moving toward cleaner, simplistic, and clutter-free – so really evaluate whether each page of your website is absolutely necessary and providing value to your audience.

Update Your Events Page

One of the things we see all too often is event pages that are far outdated – even by a few years. Take the opportunity to make sure your website is updated with your upcoming workshops, speaking engagements, photo expeditions, or any other important events you’re partaking in. Nothing looks more unprofessional than inaccurate information on your website – plus, this will be a great way to promote the events you care about and hopefully garner more attendees.

Calls to Action

One thing we’ve often noticed that’s missing from photography websites are clear calls to action. While most of the focus should be on your imagery, you also want to make sure you’re telling your audience what you want them to do. Whether that’s booking you for a job, project, ad campaign, or even buying prints, tell them what you’d like them to do and make it easy for them to do it. Having a button on your pages can be an ideal way to lead customers to your end-goal: contacting you!

Update Your Contact Information

If you’ve recently moved your studio or changed your contact phone number, it may be time to look over your contact page. Is your new contact information up-to-date? It can become easy to overlook this simple step, but doing so may cause you to lose a great deal of clients!

Also, try to have your contact information readily available in multiple locations on your website. Customers don’t want to search through countless pages to find your phone number or address. Remember – adding a map to your pages can be an ideal way to attract new customers!

 SEO Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be something you focus on all year ’round, but if it’s not your strong suit definitely take the opportunity now to pay extra attention. If your goal is to increase traffic to your website (which we think it should be!) then make sure your keywords, tags, descriptions, titles, and content on your pages are working for your business. If you’re not ranking as high with search engines as you’d like, it might be time to overhaul your old SEO tactics and start fresh with these tips!

Experiment With New Website Designs

We know that completely changing your website design is a huge undertaking – but small, subtle changes can be made to create a fresh new look without all the stress of a total re-design. Switch up the images on your homepage. Change the names/titles of your portfolios. Add a new page – such as a blog – to your website. All of these changes will keep your website up to date, as well as give returning clients new things to look at and explore.

Want to explore other design templates? Take a look at all of our responsive templates now to begin!

What “spring cleaning” are you conducting on your website? Email us!

If you are currently have a storefront with WeddingWire and have received three (3) or more client reviews, you are eligible to place the WeddingWire Rated logo on your website! Learn how you can begin with our simple tutorial below:

1. Log in to your WeddingWire account
2. Click ‘Showcase Reviews‘ under the ‘Reviews‘ tab
3. If you are eligible, you will see the WeddingWire Rated badge under the ‘WeddingWire Rated‘ heading
4. Click the ‘Get the Code‘ button
5. Copy the HTML code
6. Open your liveBooks dashboard
7. Click Content
8. Click on the page you wish to add your ‘WeddingWire Rated’ logo
9. Click the green ‘+‘ icon to add a content block to the desired page

10. Highlight and click the ‘HTML‘ content block

11. Paste the HTML code you copied from your WeddingWire account into the HTML box.
*For more information on how to use this content block, click here.

12. Save and publish!

Casey Curry is a celebrity, portrait, and fashion/beauty photographer based in Los Angeles, California. Casey has worked with A-list celebrities such as Michael Caine, Kate Winslet, Billy Bob Thornton, and many others. To see more of work, visit his liveBooks8 website: www.caseycurry.com.

I’ve been studying light and taking pictures since I was the was a child although my start in the industry began with an assisting job for David LaChapelle. His creative approach fused with the talented photo crew he surrounds himself with set the bar for the level of production I wanted for my sets. From then, it’s been a slow burn of testing, developing my craft, and shooting commissioned work. As my aesthetic matures, so does my need to push the limits of what I can deliver for my clients – this can only be found through constant testing. I’ll often watch a film or look at a classic painting and think, “Oh that look would be great for this band/upcoming project.” It’s a continual path of discovery. I never stop learning.

Q: How would you describe the aesthetic of your website in three words?

CC: Clean, minimalistic, modern.

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

CC: Since I started constructing the layout and curating work, it’s been a daily effort. From here on out, I plan on updating my site on a bi-monthly basis.

Q: How do you choose the photos you display on your homepage?

CC: The homepage is intended to give viewers a taste of each section of the website. Additionally, each image is meant to showcase the diverse approaches I’m capable of.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

CC: It’s been years since I use the old liveBooks, so I can’t attest to how much it differs. I can, however, say that it is the best self-managed website I’ve user, and I’ve used quite a few of them. The functionality is superior. It is not only user-friendly, but also technically superior with the built-in SEO and design customization capabilities.

Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to someone designing their website?

CC: Although it’s important to stay true to yourself, get feedback from peers in your field – or better yet, from those you draw influence and aspiration from. I always try to surround myself with people who I feel are better than me, and I took the same approach when building my site. Also, you need to strictly limit the content you display (that’s where the help of others can really come in handy). It should only be the best of what you have to showcase and it needs to take your viewers on a cohesive journey. A good portfolio is one that doesn’t feel disjointed and doesn’t ever get boring.

Have a website you’d like us to feature? Email us at social@livebooks.com.

Jillian Faulkner is a portrait photographer based in Calgary, Canada. Her specialty is concentrated in children and family portrait photography. She established Jillian Faulkner Photography in 2010 and has been dedicated to her practice ever since. To see more of her work, visit her liveBooks8 website: www.jillianfaulkner.com.

I am rarely found without my Canon camera in hand and if I really think about it, my first interest in photography started back when I was about 10 years of age and received my first camera as a birthday gift. It began a strong and committed interest in visually capturing all the fascinating and unique moments in life. In my early twenties, I was a high performing sales representative both in the hair care and cosmetics industry applying a keen eye for what is visually appealing with a strong sense of style and fashion. It was not uncommon for me to have my camera out and ready to capture the behind the scenes action at one of our fashion shows or during a global make up artists presentation of a new launch. In 2006, after the birth of my first son, I decided to get more serious about my photography and further developed my skills with lots of practice and more advanced training. My new love was capturing on camera images of sweet little hands and feet and munchkins running about and exploring the world with fresh eyes. With friends and family regularly asking me to take pictures at important celebrations and of their own families, I launched Jillian Faulkner Photography in the fall of 2010. Since then, my passion for the art has grown even stronger with each visit from new and repeat clients. My passion truly lies in taking portraits of infants and children. They are all so full of life with developing personalities, beautiful innocence and tremendous potential. A perfect portrait done just right can show all of that to the world and I feel so blessed that my days are filled doing exactly what I love!

Q: How would you describe the aesthetic of your website in three words?

JF: Classic, authentic, and joyful!

Q: How often do you typically update your website?

JF: Typically every few months, but it’s much more often now with the new liveBooks8 platform. I love that I can change out old photos with new ones easily and customize the looks of my portfolios to have every little detail just right and done to my liking. With a strong background in visual arts and fashion, this is a very big thing!

Q: How do you choose the photos you display on your homepage?

JF: I have a tendency to choose the images which reflect the majority of my work – portraits that “stir the passion” and which generate the strongest emotions as well as remind me of certain moments in the studio, with clients or from my own life.

Q: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

JF: It is hard to pick just one as there are so many new outstanding improvements that I love! I would have to say my favourite update is having the ability to easily customize and fully control all the design elements on my website. From fonts to page layouts to color schemes, it is all very easy to modify to ensure my work looks exactly how I want it to.

Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to someone designing their website?

JF: First, know your brand – your website should showcase your work. How you identify yourself and your work to both the industry and to your clients is crucial to growing your business. Second, make navigation around your website easy. Have samples of your work easy to find and live contact links to make it simple to get in contact with you. You only have a few moments to make a great impression!

Have a website you’d like us to feature? Email us at social@livebooks.com.