livebooks blog

If you’re a wedding professional, then you already understand the importance of marketing yourself in a crowded industry. And one of the most effective marketing techniques to use to help you stand out is blogging.

Blogging has many benefits for wedding professionals, whether you’re a photographer, a florist, or a planner. It helps gain leads, boosts your website’s SEO, and positions you as a thought leader in your niche. And the best part is, you don’t need a special bag of tricks to create content. All you need is the wedding experience and knowledge you already have! With a few blogging techniques in the back of your pocket, your wedding blog game will be at the next level in no time.

Blog with your ideal client in mind

As a wedding professional, it’s safe to say that you are an expert when it comes to weddings. No matter which product or service you provide, whether it’s florals, cakes, video, photography, or something else, you may have plenty of experience in the wedding world. And luckily, blogging on your website is the perfect outlet for sharing that knowledge with your audience.

Think about who your ideal client is and what they may be searching for when planning their wedding. It’s most likely related to tips, inspiration, style guides, or current wedding trends. This is your opportunity to use your own knowledge and experience to create resourceful blog posts on topics that potential clients will be searching for.

Once they stumble upon your website, they will likely find your website resourceful, and will see you as a thought leader in your industry. You can write about your specific niche in the wedding industry as well as the industry as a whole, but either way, be sure to think like your client.

Hyperlink to industry resources

Whenever you’re writing helpful blog posts for your audience, like wedding day tips or inspiration, it benefits both the reader and your business to include links to outside sources.

Adding links to major wedding resources like WeddingWire give your posts more credibility as a trusted resource. Another important reason for hyperlinking to industry resources is that it helps search engines understand what your website is and why it should be categorized with other wedding websites. This helps boost your overall SEO in the long run which will ultimately lead to more clients being able to find your business.

Showcase your work

Once you’ve gotten visitors onto your site through inspiring and informative blog posts, now is the time to showcase your own products or services. It is your business, after all!

Your website is, first and foremost, a portfolio of your work and an overview of your business. That means you want to include plenty of samples of the work you have done to give potential clients an idea of your expertise.

Gather the photos from each wedding you’re a part of and choose the highlights (or the entire wedding) to include in a blog post. Post these highlights after each wedding to showcase your style and skills to potential clients who find your website.

Start Blogging on an Easy-to-Use Website Builder

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

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

If you haven’t already, ensuring your website is easy and engaging to use on a wide variety of mobile devices should be one of your top priorities to do before the end of 2018. With over half of all internet searches and surveys showing that nearly 60% of users won’t recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile site, any business that doesn’t have a mobile-friendly website will lose out in profits — big time.

What is mobile responsiveness?

Mobile responsive websites are ones that easily adapt to mobile devices (such as cell phones, tablets, and smaller mobile laptops). This means that they automatically detect which size screen the device has, and adjusts sizing of images, text, buttons, links, and more so that anyone on any device can have a great experience on the website.

How to Know If Your Website is Mobile Responsive

If you aren’t sure how to tell if your website is ready for all those mobile visitors, head on over to our other blog post to find out!

What if my website isn’t mobile responsive?

There are several key issues that would directly affect your business if your website isn’t already mobile-friendly.

1. Depletion of brand. Anyone who visits your website (whether they already know about your business or not) and doesn’t have a good experience while there on a mobile device will be a lot less likely to hire you, purchase from you, or refer you to others they know. This affects how they will see your brand from this point forward, and can have lingering long-term effects.
2. Poor customer retention. Many of the most successful businesses of any kind these days are utilizing their website to retain happy customers. If they can’t use your website to find information, get answers to questions, and more while on-the-go, they may switch to another company whose website is more mobile-friendly.
3. Loss of profits. Your bottom line depends on it! No matter where your website visitors come from (directly typing in the URL, linking to it from social media, or finding you in a Google search), if they are visiting on mobile and don’t purchase from you because of a negative experience, you lose money.

Design a Mobile Friendly 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.

If you’ve ever struggled with the decision of whether or not to publish your prices online for all to see, you’re not alone.

No matter your industry or niche, there are a few important pros and cons to consider before determining if it’s a step in the right direction for your business.

Challenges of Listing Your Prices and Packages Online

1. Those who are just “shopping around” may pass you by, strictly based on price alone without meeting you or talking with you at all. Many business owners out there call this the “sticker shock” factor, and it’s a big valid concern.

2. Competitors may see your prices and undercut you. Although not guaranteed, this is a possibility, and it does scare entrepreneurs into keeping prices hidden behind closed doors.

3. You’ll have to manage your website pricing information on a semi-regular basis. Do you plan to change your prices every year? Although changing content on your website isn’t a terribly difficult task, it can be something you forget to do at the right time.

4. Listing prices or packages can be hard to do if you offer custom work or services. Whether your customers come to you for customizable options or each of your services may vary greatly in size and scope, listing only one or two prices can be a significant challenge.

Benefits of Publishing Prices and Packages on Your Website

1. Fewer emails from price shoppers. If you’re struggling to get inquiries as-is, this may worry you at first, but don’t be alarmed. By publishing your prices online, the inquiries you do receive will likely be more serious about purchasing from or hiring you. And you may even hear from people who would have assumed you to be out of their budget’s price range, but are now excited to speak with you after knowing your prices up-front!

2. You’ll be more transparent. Here’s the truth: customers of all kinds these days want pricing information, and not just those comparing rates left and right. The internet has made everything easier and faster to do electronically. By listing this information publicly, your potential customers will be more likely to appreciate the honesty.

3. You may gain more confidence. It might surprise you, but by putting your pricing out there and hitting the publish button, you might feel a bit more confident in yourself. Many entrepreneurs, especially those within the first few years of doing business, know the “panic” feeling of getting another inquiry in their inbox. Should they send the rate they sent someone else? Are they charging enough? Too much? Many of these doubts and fears may fade if you are more “sure” of your rates and list them online.

4. Others in your industry may not be publishing their prices. And by sharing yours, you may win out against them!

5. Publishing a starting rate can be a great compromise for businesses with customizable package options.

6. Less “sales”. Hate the process of “selling” your business? Cut out the initial portion of those types of conversations by listing prices on your website. By the time they speak with you, you won’t have to talk about pricing as much as you would have otherwise, and likely less time haggling with them.

7. You’ll save time and energy! 

Create an Impressive Website Today!

Whether you end up deciding if publishing your prices online is right for you or you’ve realized it’s not a good fit, be sure your website can help you seal the deal with all of your potential customers.

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.

In our previous article we’ve covered the context in which we began migrating our websites from Flash to HTML5. But the website migration process doesn’t have to start from a Flash website. In fact, website migration is a common practice among businesses and individuals who feel that the current status of their website is drawing close to its inevitable end. There’s only so much “spring cleaning” a website can take before it’s time to switch to a better, improved and easy to manage version of it.

For the past two years liveBooks has migrated thousands of websites to our new HTML5 platform. Our dedicated migration team goes above and beyond when it comes to delivering a migrated website. From transferring your content, to revising the final result and following up on the delivery by the support staff, we’re making sure that every migration request is answered with the best results for you and your business.

Preparing for the big step

Moving to a new website platform is similar to changing your place of business, but with the help of a professional moving team that does all the hard work. What we ask from you is your vision and an update on your content.
Before starting the migration process check out our website templates and choose the one that best suits your business’ needs. We have dozens of layouts available for you to pick from. Each one is developed with distinct characteristics in functionality and design.
Once you find the new home for your content, it’s time to go through all the old one and decide what goes and what stays. Clean it up!
Choose which images are way too old to go on the new platform and make sure that the ones you want transferred are properly set up.
Go through your written content and update any texts that need editing.
Check all the links. Some of them might not be working anymore.
Delete empty pages.
We’ll take it from here.

The migration process

As soon as you give us the OK, the migration process begins:

1. We download your content and move it to the template you’ve chosen.
2. We add all existing SEO from your old website. This is a very important step that will ensure your website to be found on any search engine. (Note! If your old site had no SEO, please take a moment write down descriptions and keywords that will help your business grow. Here are some useful tips for you to consider.)
3. We add self canonical URLs for your pages. This step helps search engines index your pages as individual ones, removing any duplicates that might be otherwise wrongly identified and penalized.
4. We create redirects from all of your old links. This means that your visitors that bookmarked your pages or are accessing them from their browsing history will now get redirected to your new and improved website.
5. We make all the design changes you want, if you want them. This is where we put the finishing touches on your new site. It’s where we change colors, fonts or gallery layouts if that’s your vision. All action taken on this step is to assure the delivery of the online extension of your brand as you’ve established it on the market.
6. We revise your website before delivery. This means checking the website works and looks great on all devices: desktop, tablet and mobile. We check all the links and make sure they all work.
7. We deliver your website. Our support team will deliver your website and give you access to your account. This is the perfect time for you to browse through your new content and design editor. Our knowledge base is full of articles to answer any questions you might have.

The perks of liveBooks migration

• More time for you and your business and fewer headaches with your website maintenance
• Your work will be showcased on our modern and elegant liveBooks platform.
• You will have two dozen templates to choose from and the possibility to upgrade to a custom package which allows the integration of custom code to any of your pages.
• Your liveBooks site will be built based on your existing one, with improvements in design, functionality and SEO.
• The liveBooks Image Gallery will contain all your images, properly tagged and organized. This tool is great for all users with a large number of photographs and galleries.
• Get found with the SEO Everything™ feature that makes our existing clients Google superstars.
• Your new site will be optimized for all mobile devices.
• Our award-winning support specialists are ready to take all your questions and requests.
• All liveBooks websites are easy to update.
• The liveBooks migration process is free of charge.

We’ve seen many websites wither away and drag business along with them. The culprits are always the same: either the clients have a hard time accessing their content or they don’t have access at all to their content and updating the website is a difficult chore, or the platform they’ve used is no longer a reliable online standard. For us here at liveBooks, this is unacceptable.

Our theory is this: your business deserves a great website! You should always be able to access your website and update your content easily. You should have a team of support specialists to help you if things get tangled. You should never have to worry about your website.

If you want to migrate your website with our help, please get in touch with us by phone, email or chat with us from our website! We’re happy to help you build a better website for your business.

We’ll leave you with a quick before & after visual tour of one of our many migrated websites.

Before migration:

After migration: