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Your website and social media work hand in hand. The two are both pieces of your brand identity and should communicate the overall message you want your audience to receive.

Before you launch your next social media campaign, make sure your website is looking its best in order to achieve successful results.

Your website is the base of your digital strategy

No matter what kind of campaign you’re running on social media, the call-to-action will likely lead to your website. Your business’s website is the foundation for the rest of your digital strategy.

In other words, everything you produce online will direct users to your website. This means that once potential clients or customers land on your website after seeing your social media campaign, it needs to provide all of the information and content they’re looking for.

You could have created the most well-designed, attention-grabbing campaign, but if your website falls flat once users visit it, then the campaign likely won’t yield the results you’re hoping for.

Good content

If you create social media content that draws people in and builds a loyal following, your website should match that. Your audience may love your content on Facebook or Instagram, and they’ll likely head to your website to see what other content you have.

This is where having a great website will be important. The content you produce through your social media campaigns should be the same or similar to the content that’s on your website.

If your audience enjoys the content they’re seeing on social media, they will visit your website to see more. Make sure that your website is delivering on the content that your audience will want to see.

Builds customer loyalty

If you’re trying to grow your audience through your next social media campaign, having a strong website can help. Your website is another opportunity to show your audience who you are and what your business is all about. After launching your campaign, users will visit your website to learn more about your brand which is your chance to further emphasize the message you communicated through social media.

Having this cohesiveness across both channels will build customer loyalty as it ties the brand together. If potential clients or customers follow you on social media, they will have already formed an impression of your brand (hopefully it’s the message you’re trying to communicate!).

And because social media is an extension of your overall brand, including your website, customers will be happy to see that your website gives them the same impression as your social media. Being able to see a strong brand identity across the board will give customers a better idea of who your business is and they will want to stick around to see what you do next.

Start Designing Your Website Today!

If you already know your website isn’t a strong reflection of your brand and isn’t yet ready for those social media campaigns, consider using liveBooks to get started!

liveBooks offers mobile-responsive, customizable website templates for creative professionals and businesses worldwide.

The best part? Our website designs are ready for search engines and look great on any mobile device!

We’ve also got a top-notch support team who’s here to help you every step of the way. Start for free here.

Alan Karchmer has been a freelance architectural photographer for about forty years. His life in photography began while studying architecture. He got a camera and found that he had a good eye for form and space, and photography came naturally. Karchmer completed his Masters degree and began a career in architectural photography at that point.

He brings to his work an authoritative sense of space, form, texture, light and use. He hones in on defining angles in photographs that capture the spirit, life, and poetry of the architect’s vision. Karchmer’s photographs have been published in the architectural press worldwide, and appeared in major museum exhibitions.

Q&A with Alan Karchmer

Q1: How would you describe the aesthetic of your website in three words?

Image-centric, simple, engaging

Q2: How often do you typically update your website?

Not as often as I should, about twice a year.

Q3: How do you choose the photos that you display on your homepage?

First priority is strength of image. Then I look to represent the range of my portfolio and importance of the projects shown.

Q4: What is your favorite new feature of liveBooks8?

The ability to filter and find images within the Image Library using keywording.

Q5: What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to someone designing their website?

Think about what your prospective clients are looking for.

livBooks is a great platform for showcasing photography. The EditSuite interface is robust, intuitive, and easy to navigate and there is tremendous range to customize to tailor to your needs and aesthetic preferences. During the development stage when transitioning from the old Flash site to liveBooks8 I found support to be prompt, responsive, and thorough.

See more of Alan Karchmer’s work here.

T-2 Tanglewood House 2, West Stockbridge MA, Architect: Schwartz Silver Architects

In 2016, Google announced that it will block all Flash sites within the following two years. The major browsers adopted this change and, although a little saddened by the news, we embraced it because it made perfect sense: as much as we love the Flash websites we’ve designed for our clients for many years, they would soon become obsolete in the dawn of this new update. Such is the advancement of technology.

Another aspect we had to take into consideration was the way browsing has drastically changed since the arrival of mobile devices. When our company began, browsing was done strictly on desktops, thus, functionality and design were created for just one type of screen: your laptop or desktop landscape layout.

The rise of mobile browsing

Let’s go back to 2016 and compare it to the following year. Mobile browsing has increased drastically. This study shows just how much our behavior has changed when it comes to going online. Moreover, Google has taken a clear stand on prioritizing mobile browsing and, furthermore, it will penalize websites that have different content on their two versions – desktop and mobile.

Since Flash isn’t responsive, a new platform was ready to take its place. In our case, we chose HTML5. These are the three main reasons for our decision:

1. Browser cross-compatibility with all major browsers.

You can never tell whether your visitors are avid Google Chrome users, dedicated Safari fans or simply true Internet Explorer believers. With HTML5, your website will work and look the same on them all. Yes, sometimes the colors of your photo content could appear differently on them; we’ve covered this issue in a previous article.

2. It’s optimized for mobile devices.

All your content and SEO will be the same on both versions of your site – desktop and mobile. Some design elements might change to better fit the device used, but your visitors will find all the info they need on your properly structured HTML5 website. In other words, no more horizontal scrolling from your tablet or phone, unless the owner of the website has a reason for it.

3. The code is clean.

Tell this to any developer and watch their eyes sparkle. While this is more of an in-house piece of information, it’s good to know that a clean code runs in the back of your website. This means that any adjustments you would like to see on your website should be done in an easy and error-free manner – this applies for changes made both from the Design Editor as well as any custom code alterations.

What is website migration?

Website migration is the operation of moving all content from one platform to a better one. This includes:

Images
Written content
Links – social and contact links as well as any on or off-site redirects
Image metadata – image info and tags
Website, page, and image SEO – SEO Everything™
Legacy URLs – redirect links from all your old links to your new ones

This is the setting in which we started the migration process of all our sites from Flash to HTML5. In next Tuesday’s article, we will analyze in depth all operations which allow for a smooth transition of content to the HTML5 platform. We will also give a couple of examples of websites we’ve migrated, to observe the improvements in functionality and design.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news about our platform as well as useful tips that will help your website draw more business.

Designing a website is unlike anything else you’ll ever do for your business. It involves the right mix of creativity and strategy, and it may take a few tries to get it just right.

Whether you’ve done this before or this is your first time, make sure you follow these key guidelines when designing a website that informs, entertains and (ultimately) sells to your ideal customers.

Fine-Tune Your Brand

Branding is about more than just your logo. From the fonts and colors you use, to the style and tone of your content, every aspect of how you communicate with your customers and define “who” your company all adds to the foundation of your core brand messaging.

But why is branding important before designing your website? The short answer: to convert your visitors into buyers. These days, shoppers of all kinds (for any service or product) want to purchase from and work with companies who align with their core values and/or lifestyle.

By fine-tuning your brand before designing your website, you’ll have better odds of reaching your target audience, engaging with them on a higher level, and turning them into loyal customers who will tell others they know about your company.

Know the Industry Standards

Have you taken a look at what other companies in your industry or niche are doing with their website and online presence? Although you should never make an exact copy of another website’s content or design, “borrowing” ideas and website structure can be really helpful.

For example, if all other companies in your field have an FAQ page that answers important questions consumers need help with, maybe it might be a good idea to have one of your own (with your own questions and answers, of course).

Or if there is a certain way of organizing content in the menu that seems popular, you may want to imitate that same site map so that users who are shopping around will have an easy time finding the same type of information on your own website.

Find Web Design Inspirations

Next, you’ll want to have an idea of what you like — and not only what you like about websites in your own industry. Start looking around at other website designs to see what appeals to you. Then apply what you’ve compiled about your brand and your field to design elements you want to use.

Write (and Proofread!) Your Web Content

Marketers don’t say “content is king” for no reason. Whether you write the website content yourself, or you hire a stellar web copywriter to help you, on-page text will allow visitors to learn about you, understand your services or products, and have a better sense of whether or not they’d like to purchase from you.

Content is also one of the first steps in getting you to rank highly on search engines. Make sure you have enough content on each page (at least a few paragraphs is a good start!) and that you proofread and edit as necessary before publishing.

Ask for Feedback and Suggestions

When you have a first completed draft of your website, ask your friends, colleagues, other entrepreneurs, etc. for advice and input. See what questions they have or where they may have trouble navigating for more information. You might be surprised to get some constructive criticism, but even if you don’t take all pieces of advice, be open to new ideas so that the website is the best it can be before you launch it across all of your marketing efforts!

Start Designing Your Website Today!

liveBooks offers mobile-responsive, customizable website templates for creative professionals and businesses worldwide.

The best part? Our website designs are ready for search engines and look great on any mobile device!

We’ve also got a top-notch support team who’s here to help you every step of the way. Start for free here.