livebooks blog

The importance of having a mobile-friendly website for a photographer or creative should not come as a surprise. The percentage of mobile traffic has surpassed 50% on many sites, and Google (as they are known to do) is once again switching up their algorithm to cater to this growing number.

On Tuesday, April 21st, Google will start using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This means that Google will now start marking your site as mobile-friendly (seen in screenshots below) to determine if your site should rank higher in search results. To put it simply, if your website or blog is not mobile-friendly, it will be penalized by Google when a user is doing a search on a mobile device. Google says that it is doing this so that “users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

What does this mean for you and your liveBooks site?

To ensure that your site is not negatively affected by this new change when someone searches using a mobile device, it is important that you make sure Mobile 2.0 is enabled in your editSuite. Mobile 2.0 was built with this new algorithm in mind to optimize your mobile presence. It will transform your liveBooks site into a clean, easy-to-navigate, photo-centric experience for all users on all types of mobile devices.

You will also want to check out Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to confirm the compatibility of your site and blog.

Additional Resources:

editSuite Help – Enabling Mobile Websites

Mobile Websites 2.0 FAQ

Google’s Mobile Guidelines

Google Webmaster Help Forum

5 Benefits of Mobile Websites

Need help enabling Mobile 2.0 in your editSuite? Contact our support team at support@livebooks.com

You know the saying “you never get a second chance to make a first impression?” Well that absolutely applies to your website. Which is why your homepage – the first page people land on – is one of the most important pages on your entire website. We’ve identified five traits that make for a fantastic website homepage. How many of them does your site have?

1. Clearly Answers Who You Are and What You Do

As photographers and creative professionals, visuals are going to play a huge role in your website homepage. Ensuring that you choose a photo or photos that clearly illustrate who you are and what your brand is about is imperative so that the user continues to browse your site. Do you do multiple types of photography? Or specialize in one area? Make sure the visuals you choose reflect exactly what you do and what you can offer to a potential client. You never want someone to land on your site and have to ask “what do they do?”

2. Dynamic and Always Changing

Users are smart. They can tell when a site hasn’t been updated in a while or if the content is old. It’s important that your homepage reflects that you are constantly completing fantastic new work and projects and posting it accordingly. In this day and age, styles, techniques, even gear changes so rapidly that it is extremely important to showcase that you are “with the times” in the types of photos you display.

3. Stellar Visuals

As photographers this is where you have a huge leg-up over pretty much every other industry. You take stunning visuals for a living! But how do you choose just one (or a few) for a homepage? One way is to let your ideal consumer or customer decide. Your idea of your best picture may be totally different from your target audience, so feeling out public opinion can sometimes make the decision a lot easier. Maybe run a poll on Facebook or Instagram between two photos and see which one gets the most likes. Another idea is to ask some close friends/family what three words come to mind when they land on your homepage – if those three words are in-line with your style and what you envision your brand to be, you know you’ve got the right picture. Plus, as mentioned in number two, your photo should always be changing, so you will have plenty of opportunity to show off your different shots.

4. Optimal for All Devices

These days, mobile phones and tablets are quickly becoming the preferred way to browse the web. To make sure that people coming to your site have the best experience possible, it is very important that your website is optimized for mobile devices. Not only should your site display beautifully on mobile, but it should also be easy to navigate so your consumer is able to get all of the important information they need. Make sure to enable Mobile 2.0 in your editSuite!

5. Clear Navigation

When a user lands on your homepage, what is the logical next thing you want them to do? Most likely check out your portfolios, then maybe read your bio or get more info on you, and last but certainly not least, contact you. Make sure that your navigation portrays these steps in a way that a user would look for them. Make it clear what each page of your site displays so that they don’t have to waste any time looking for what they want or need.

What are some other traits that you think are the most important to keep in mind when designing your website? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

1. Add Fresh Content
With the new year on the horizon, our design experts recommend refreshing the images and content on your website to make sure you are displaying recent and relevant work. “So many people like to build their site and forget it.  We’ve found that the most successful websites are those that are updated regularly,” says Ryan Maher, designer at liveBooks.com.  Just like a store changes the display window each season, we recommend refreshing the work displayed on your site two or three times a year.

2. Keep Mobile in Mind
It’s no secret that the world is going mobile. As more and more of your website traffic comes from smart phones and tablets, you need to make sure your website is optimized for those visitors. Whether you use a responsive website platform or enable a mobile-optimized version of your desktop site, you need to be sure your website looks good –and functions well– across all devices.

Expert Tip: Design with mobile in mind.  The mobile visitor behaves differently than the desktop visitor- make sure your site looks good for both!

3. Use Clear Navigation
Website Designer Adam Royer advises, “Function over fashion. User-friendliness is a must!” As you build your website, have an idea in mind of what you want your visitors to do when they land there. Do you want them to view your portfolio? Contact you? Watch a video? Whatever your answer, make sure your navigation and layout makes it easy for people to go to the pages you are hoping to highlight. A clean navigation menu is one of the easiest way to accomplish this!

Expert Tip: Make sure the text is legible! Use fonts that are large enough to be read on all devices.

4. Blog Regularly
Since we don’t all have time to change the photos on our website every week, a blog is a great way to add fresh content to your web presence without altering the look and feel of your website. Make it a goal to generate one blog post per week. You can start short and simple, just try to get something out there. Not only will new blog posts engage your visitors and showcase your recent work, it is also a huge benefit from an SEO perspective, as search engines tend to favor sites producing new content.

5. Let Your Images Do the Talking
Your photos are your calling card, show them off! One of the biggest trends in website design for 2015 is large, full-bleed photos that extend across the entire page. We recommend choosing a few photos that convey your vision, and displaying them (in a rotating slider or stacked) on your homepage.  A great website design that uses this full-bleed feature is the STATURE template within the liveBooks Professional Design Templates.

6. SEO
Search Engine Optimization is considered one of the most important things you can do for your website. No matter how great your site looks, and how user friendly it is, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are not going to display it in their results without the proper keywords, tags, backlinks, etc.  While search algorithms change constantly, (making it nearly impossible to “game the system”) one thing you can do to help your ranking is to name your images. Since most photographers websites are portfolio based, you can counteract the lack of keywords with naming and alt tags in your images.

7. Make it Easy to Contact You
You’ve worked hard to get visitors to your site- make sure you’re making it easy for them to contact you!  Whether you utilize a traditional contact form or simply write out your contact information, our experts recommend having a way to contact you listed from every single page of your website.

Expert Tip: Contact forms with fewer than 5 fields perform best!

8. Showcase Videos
Whether or not you have a videography component to your work, including two or three videos on your site is a great way to engage your visitors and bring your work to life.  Each liveBooks template allows for vimeo integration, providing you with the ability to have a video grid, single video, or full-page video embedded into your site.  Some suggested video types include: behind the scenes footage of a shoot, a welcome video of you talking about your work or a promotional video featuring your work.

Expert Tip: Videos perform better when they are integrated into your site, rather than requiring a pop-up to play.

9. Track Visitor Behavior
In order to ensure that your website is performing the way you want it to, you need to understand what people are doing (or not doing) on your site.  Google analytics is one of the easiest (and cheapest- it’s free!) ways to track the behavior of visitors to your website.  Once you understand how visitors are engaging with your site, you can adjust photos, content, and calls to action to maximize each visit.  Notice that people keep hitting your pricing page after visiting a specific gallery? Highlight that gallery on your homepage to increase conversions!

10. Choose the Right Photos
Some photos resonate better than others when put up on your website.  Designer Ryan Mahar recommends that you have a portfolio editor or even some friends or colleagues go through your images and pick out their favorites. Then choose what to upload accordingly.

The internet is constantly changing and as creative small business owners we need to evolve as it changes. It seems like everyone is touting the importance of the mobile experience these days – and for good reason!

The number of smart phones in use worldwide has exceeded 1 billion, and it’s only continuing to climb. In fact, although only 1% of small businesses have optimized their website for mobile viewing, 50% of all local searches are performed on mobile devices. By the end of 2014 mobile is predicted to overtake desktop Internet usage. With consumers using mobile devices and tablets more often, it has become more important than ever to have a well-designed mobile website for your business. More »