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Over a year ago, Google announced it was rolling out a new mobile-first index where the algorithms will primarily use the mobile version of a website’s content to rank its pages. Now, according to Search Engine Land, Google plans to move more sites to mobile-first index in the coming months.

What Does This Mean for Your Website?

Google wants its index and results to represent the majority of their users — who are mobile searchers. So, Google will now place value on mobile pages when indexing a site and determining its position on search results.

Once Google sets the change in motion, websites that do not have mobile-friendly designs will likely see significantly reduced search engine traffic.

liveBooks is Ready for Google’s Mobile-Index

Google developers haven’t set a specific date, but they expect to begin rolling out their mobile-first index this year. We are proud to say that all liveBooks websites are fully-responsive. Regardless of screen size, your website will adjust its width and features such as text and images to optimize its mobile visibility.

If you haven’t started using liveBooks yet, start your free trial and begin creating your beautiful, fully-responsive website today!

Additional Resources:

Search Engine Land FAQ: All about the Google mobile-first index

TechCrunch Google’s mobile-first search index has rolled out to a handful of sites

The short answer: yes. According to Forrester Research’s Dr. James McQuivey, “a minute of video is worth 1.8 million words.” Here are 3 reasons why you should add video content to your website.

1. Engages your audience. Video consumption is only growing in 2018, and by sharing videos to your website, you are capturing consumers’ attention and, in turn, driving higher engagement on your site.
2. Improves Google Rankings. You understand how to implement SEO best practices, but did you know that the amount of time consumers spend on your site also plays into Google Rankings? When you are capturing attention through an engaging video, you’re enticing users to stay on your website longer. Therefore, improving your Google Rankings.
3. Gives Your Brand Personality. Of course you can showcase your personality through your copy and images. Add another layer with video. When you feature a video of yourself you are humanizing your brand and creating a deeper connection with your visitors. This gives them a reason to come back to your website.

Wondering where to begin with uploading videos to your website? With liveBooks’ Video Galleries you have the option to add multiple videos on one page, in a pleasing manner. Adding a Video Gallery block to your page is simple, just follow these easy steps.

Organizing portfolios can seem like a daunting task. It may seem difficult to choose the amount of portfolio galleries necessary to showcase all of your work. With some planning and organizing, your images and portfolio galleries will begin to take shape before you know it!

Here are 3 steps to get you started:

Categorize your work before uploading to galleries

This first step is sometimes overlooked when starting off your website. If you’re able to categorize your artwork or images into categories, portfolios will soon develop. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, you may choose to categorize your weddings based on the bride and groom’s last name. You may also choose to sort them by season, location, or year. Whatever means you choose to sort your images, ensure that you have a cohesive system in place on your entire site.

Bulk uploading your images onto portfolios

Once you are able to organize your work on your computer, bulk uploading will become easier. This allows for a multitude of images to be uploaded to your website’s gallery/portfolio at a time.

Adding Image Details

Adding image details to your images can help index your work in a more organized way. Attributing the correct information will also help search engines pick up on what your image is related to and will help explain what you’re trying to show the world. Ultimately, these simple steps will help boost your images’ SEO.

Get more details here on how to implement each step.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become one of the most important things you can invest your time into when maintaining a website. Simply defined, SEO is the ability for online search engines to recognize your site through proper indexing. With a strong SEO strategy, you will be able to organically drive customers to your business, based on keywords and common search terms.

Following SEO best practices is critical to building your online presence and attracting customers to your website. The higher a website appears in search results, the higher the number of visitors the page will receive from the search engine. Here are 5 best practices to follow:

• Use Keywords: What are your customers searching for online? Be specific as possible. If you’re a wedding photographer in Virginia, use “Virginia Wedding Photographer.” Just make sure you aren’t going overboard with keywords, otherwise Google may flag as spam.
• Add Metadata: You wouldn’t buy a book without reading its title, and search algorithms feel the same way. Page titles and meta descriptions help search engines understand how relevant a page is for specific keywords, and also help searchers determine if a page will provide the information they’re looking for. Manage your SEO details here.
• Update Your Site: By refreshing the content on your site, you are showing Google that you are relevant. Make a reminder to refresh your content once a month!
• Optimize for Mobile: Google wants you to provide the best user experience, so the better the user experience on your site, the better you will rank with Google. With liveBooks, your site is already responsive.
• Analyze: By setting up Google Analytics, you can see how your visitors are finding your website and the search terms they are using to find you. Diving into your website’s user data can help you make changes to your website that increase conversions and can provide valuable insight about what content users find useful, and what sections of the site aren’t performing well.

liveBooks is proud to boast that our built-in SEO tool offers our clients the ability to customize their SEO settings on a photo, page, and site-wide level. liveBooks SEO Everything™ tools allow you to quickly add title tags, descriptions, keywords, and image alt text to your website.

All liveBooks sites automatically include micro-data that search engines, web crawlers, and browsers can extract and process to provide a richer browsing experience for users. Learn more about liveBooks SEO Everything™ tools here.