livebooks blog

Whether you have a team of hard-working employees supporting you or you’re just venturing into the business world on your own so far, your website’s About page matters.

Studies show that in nearly every industry, the About page is one of the most visited pages on any company’s website. Why? Because every type of customer almost always wants to connect with a business before purchasing something from them.

And since it’s so important to get it right, it’s also probably why so many of us often struggle to find the right balance of being both informational and engaging!

If you’re in the process of creating content for your website’s About page, here are a few tips to help you figure out what you’d like it to say — and how to do so in a way that will help generate more leads for your business.

Quality Over Quantity

This rule applies to every web page, but is especially important for your About page.

Many websites out there overdo it by providing far too much content in order to describe a company’s history, values, goals, leadership background information, and more.

Although we initially may think that providing the most information is the best step for having the greatest impact, too much content can actually have the opposite effect and turn away people from your business.

Instead of writing out all the details that may relate to the business, focus on the most important information your ideal customer’s would want to know. If this is hard for you to achieve with an unbiased perspective, consider drafting up information as best you can and then asking for a few “outsiders” (such as close friends or family) to give you their advice and opinions for revision.

Get Personal

One mistake companies tend to make in regards to their website content is that they avoid being too personal. In contrast, some of the most successful online businesses out there today are the ones that do a great job of making personal connections with their audiences.

This is especially vital to your website if you are a local business trying to reach members in your own community. Remember: people want to do business with those they know, like and trust. How can they learn to like (or love) your business if they can’t connect with you on at least a small personal level?

Don’t be afraid to talk about why your work matters to you personally, what type of impact your organization is hoping to have on the local community, or the values you want your company to uphold.

Introduce Yourselves

As human beings, we’re all very visual creatures, so it’s a smart idea to utilize photos to connect with your ideal customers on your About page.

Include photographs of the owner, leadership or managers, team members, and even behind-the-scenes photos if appropriate! This allows any potential customers visiting your website on the web to learn a little more about who makes up your organization, and allows them to put a face to a name should they ever call, email or communicate with people within your team.

Focus on Your Audience

A great About page also makes sure to bring attention to the questions and concerns of a company’s audience. Talk about why your customers may be searching for answers or address their current challenges.

When you start an About page with this in mind, you’ll be able to do more than talk about yourself: you’ll connect with your audience right from the start by acknowledging their needs, and not just yours.

Tell Your Story with an Impactful Website

liveBooks offers stunning, customizable website templates for wedding industry professionals and creatives.

Impress your potential clients with a visually stunning website that is ready for search engines and looks 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 today!

Despite how easy it is to add new galleries or new photographs to existing ones, some websites carry old content and updates get postponed. The major culprit is having no spare time to add new work online. While time may not be on your side, the liveBooks platform is – enter the multi user tool.

The multiple user feature is an excellent tool that enables you to give access to admins and contributors who can make changes to your website as per your requests. They will sign in with their own credentials and you choose what role they will have – some can have full access, while some can only make changes to your website without the ability to publish. This way you can have the last word and choose whether or not to publish those changes.

You can find this feature in your site settings, under Users & Roles. To add a new user, simply click Add User, fill in their email address and set a role for them. Here’s the break-down of the 5 types of users that can be linked to your website.

1. Owner: This is you – the one who pays for the site subscription and the first user who can establish other user roles. It has full access to the dashboard and has the ability to publish.
2. Admin: User has full access to the dashboard and the ability to publish.
3. Content Only: User can access and make changes to the content, but they cannot publish.
4. Design Only: User can access and make changes to the design, but they cannot publish.
5. Contributor – Content and Design: User can access and make changes both in content and design, but they cannot publish.

As you can see, there’s a wide array of roles you can entrust people with to ensure that while your business is prolific, it also shows on your website. Whether you need to keep your portfolios organized, or just need a little spring cleaning now and then, this tool allows you to delegate an assistant while you are out creating new stunning work.

These days, nearly every business has a website. While this is by and large a good thing, it does mean the competition to win the hearts of online audiences is more steep than ever before.

But how do you go about that? What will make your website stand out, generate leads and satisfy customers?

No need to fret. Here are a handful of factors you can focus on that will help you go from being just another one, to being the one your ideal customers will gravitate to time and time again.

Quality Imagery

Have you been using photographs from 5 or 10 years ago? Or are you relying on traditional clip-art as your graphics?

If you’re going to get serious about your website, the visuals need to show it. One way to ensure you have a set of quality images to use for your website is to hire a branding or commercial photographer, alongside a graphic designer.

And if you already have high quality images, take it up a notch by making videos! All of the biggest names in marketing are talking about how fast video content is trending on every digital platform, which means that adding videos to your website can be a way to stand out from those stuck in the past.

Top-Notch Content

The phrase “content is king” has become a popular phrase to describe just how important text is for your website. And in more ways than one!

Every word you include on your website has the ability to either have an impact on your ideal audience . . . or lose them altogether. Make them count by being informative, engaging and valuable.

You’ll also find that the more high-quality content you have on your website, the better your chances of ranking well on search engines.

Blogs

Having a website these days simply isn’t enough to be found on Google.

Utilize a company blog to increase your ranking while also providing useful information to your audience. Although many business owners don’t think their industry or company could reap benefits from having a blog, it’s often more doubt than fact.

Company blogs today don’t have to fit the traditional idea of a personal blog. Think of any hot topic or debate in your industry. Think of your previous clients and the specific ways you’ve made a difference.

A blog can easily be used as a portfolio, compilation of case studies, a journal of industry insight and experience, and a whole lot more. Go outside of the box!

Social Media Links

Your website can be the “hub” that all of your other marketing efforts are connected to. While some clients or customers may find you on social media first, others may find your website and be interested to see your social media content afterwards.

Be sure to include links to your social media accounts on your website, either on your website’s footer, contact page, or about page.

Mobile Optimization

Within the last year, search engines have started to adjust their algorithms to place more weight on websites that are optimized for mobile devices.

What does this mean for you? If your website is responsive for a wide range of devices, you will win out against those that aren’t.

Create a Beautiful Website Today

liveBooks offers stunning, customizable website templates for wedding industry professionals and creatives.

Impress your potential clients with a visually stunning website that is ready for search engines and looks 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 today!

If online visibility for your website is what you want, proper SEO is what you need

Your website is relevant, your portfolios are updated, your photography is flawless; so how come so few come to visit? It all comes down to that super popular fellow who only listens to bits of your story, but is excited to share all info it has on you to whomever will ask – the search engine.

Yes, it’s definitely your friend, as long as it gets to know you. Introducing SEO, the one thing every photography website owner knows they need, but not too many actually accommodate it. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the information laid out for the algorithms that skim through each published page, indexing them. They go from link to link and figure out what each website is about, how reliable it is and thus, how relevant it is for the online seeker.

According to what keywords you’ve used in the SEO fields, it will determine a ranking for your website. You already have a great photography website, but does the SEO formula agree? There are a few things you can do to put your foot in google search’s door and say “Alright, I’m here!”

It’s SEO Everything™ time!

The liveBooks websites are all about ease of access to your content, and SEO fits right in the whole scenario. It’s a platform used mainly by photography professionals, a career that stresses on the visual advantage over linguistics, which usually makes indexing a little harder, but we have many ways to go around that. It’s called SEO Everything and it truly is everything you need to get your photography website running at the speed of SEO. (There’s no such measurement unit, but we figure it’s fast. Superfast.)

First things first: check that your website will be indexed by search engines. This feature is automatically turned on, but we’ll go ahead and double-check just in case.

1. Go to settings, then click on the SEO tab.
2. While we’re here, let’s make sure that your website title and description are filled in. We’re determined to make the title visible for search engines, so our advice is to make it easy to read: business name + the keyword that describes your field of work (“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” is a great example, even though we’re positive it wasn’t intentional). What you write in the description is up to you. This is the place where keywords are not important and it’s the only place where you don’t need to worry about google’s piercing scanners. The description appears under your website name in search results. (http://goo.gl/3HBg5R)
3. We can now proceed to the reason why we’re here: the first field in the search settings field. You want your website to be found, so the first option should be turned on. (http://goo.gl/cENHbu)
4. Finally, scroll down to the last field, Schema.org, and choose the appropriate organization type to be featured by this tool in indexing your website. (http://goo.gl/HkQJAU)

SEO for your pages

Now we’re ready to take on the great adventure of page and image SEO. This is an important journey to make, since we’re dealing with a photography website where written content is usually scarce. To give an overall perspective, the SEO algorithms behave best in a page containing around 600 words, so we’ll have to make up for it if you choose to let your photography do the talking without inserting text blocks to your galleries. Still, a few words are in order here, a few well written and descriptive words which will serve as your copy-paste material for the keywords field and will never again be seen on your website.

Before you move any further, get writing! Remember, capitalization is unimportant here, but spacing and spelling is. The recipe for a proper keyword sequence is keyword comma space keyword comma space and so on. (ex. wedding photography, engagement photography, ceremony photography in AZ, etc.)

In your content area click on a page and you’ll see a SEO & Settings dropdown field on the right side. This is where you stunning copy-paste skills will come in handy. Fill in these blocks with the keywords and description you’ve set. Do this for all pages. It’s tedious, we know, but you only do it once. Okay, you do it every time you create a new page or item, but trust us, it matters.

SEO for your photos

Now, we’ve said SEO Everything and we mean it! Don’t think we forgot the most important actors in your show: the photographs. In your image library click on the eye icon that appears when you hover over with your mouse and you’ll see a pop-up with the image info. We’ll focus on the first two fields: the title and the description. liveBooks allows google to index this info even if you choose not to show it on your website with the image info on hover option. This is a great feature that not all photography platforms can take pride in having, so we’re boosting over here.

1. Fill in the title first; it should be descriptive (sunset wedding on Cape cod, floral arrangement at reception, newly weds take wows, etc.).
   Notice how the examples we’ve given contain more words connected to your business, not just photography. That’s because as much as you want people to find you for their specific need, you also wouldn’t mind to have a prospective client bump into your work while googling for a flower arrangement and finding a great photographer to capture the spirit of their big event. and coming back to our buddy google and its power to validate your website, this is a great way to convince it that you are a proper professional who understands the entire ensemble of your work field.
2. The description, on the other hand, can differ from image to image and it is up to you to make it as detailed as you want to give an even bigger picture.

Extra tips

• You should have one website for your business so that google doesn’t get mislead
• If you’re doing a blog, use your website as the platform for it instead of an external page. Feel free to use outside links to projects.
• Keeping track of your ranking and optimal keywords is a must when reaching for a greater audience. The liveBooks professional plan includes real-time analytics, so you won’t have to bother with 3rd party tools.
• Changes won’t happen straight away, it takes time for the algorithms to find your updates and index them.