Livebooks Ramps Up Search Engine Optimization with New Web Suite

04/03/08

LiveBooks, Inc. (www.livebooks.com), a leading provider of customized portfolio websites and marketing software for professional photographers, today announced the Spring 2008 release of liveBooks Professional. Research has shown that more than 80 percent of Internet users first find websites through organic search. To address this need, this latest release adds new features to enhance the search marketing functionality integrated into every visually rich, custom Flash website built by liveBooks.

"Building a photography business is a lot of work -- work that often detracts from what most photographers really want to do, which is spend time shooting," said Tricia Gellman Holmes, Vice President of Marketing at liveBooks. "We are continually enhancing our product to not only showcase photographers' images on the web, but to also act as a virtually effortless, yet sophisticated and powerful marketing tool to help them get recognized and book more work."

According to Jupiter Research, 62 percent of search engine users click on results on the first page of search listings and 90 percent of users never go beyond the first three pages. By providing effective tools to streamline search marketing, the liveBooks website solution addresses the search engine behavior patterns of the vast majority of photo buyers and makes it easier for new clients to find a photographer's site.

Spring 2008 Release of liveBooks Professional - Key Enhancements
The Spring 2008 release of liveBooks Professional helps emerging and professional photographers increase their website traffic, streamline their workflow for search marketing and effectively measure the increase in the number of site visitors with the following new enhancements.

Enhanced Auto-Generated HTML - automatically creates HTML pages from content in the photographer's Flash website and generates real-time updates whenever the photographer modifies image or portfolio content in the easy-to-use liveBooks online site management tool, the editSuite. This ensures both the Flash site and HTML are current at any given moment. Auto-generated HTML enables a wealth of information for search engines to index including keywords, image name, portfolio names and image metadata.

HTML Search Landing Page - this optional new HTML page creates an overall snapshot of a photographer's website. This page links back to the photographer's Flash website and has been created to help further enhance search ranking opportunities. It can be used as a part of an overall search keyword marketing strategy to increase the visibility of a photographer related to selected keywords.

Embedded Metadata Upload - automatically uploads the image metadata that has been entered in Adobe PhotoShop, Apple Aperture, Microsoft iView, or Adobe Lightroom into a photographer's liveBooks portfolio. This feature streamlines the workflow and enhances the richness of data within the site, further bolstering the content that is cataloged by search engines.

Enhanced Google Analytics support - takes measurability down to the page level enabling clients to track the effectiveness of marketing efforts and see page-by-page traffic reporting.

A recent study by InfoTrends revealed that photographers who use a customized website for their business ranked search-oriented activities as their second most time-consuming task. The Spring 2008 Release of liveBooks Professional is designed to directly address this serious workflow challenge. "Helping photographers create websites that are searchable will support their business, enabling them to focus on their core activity of taking photos," stated Mette Eriksen, analyst at InfoTrends.

Availability
The Spring 2008 Release of liveBooks Professional is available immediately. The enhanced features of this release add to the already robust features of liveBooks Professional, which is sold in three different packages: Unlimited, Select and Basic. These packages provide flexible solutions for photographers and are tailored to meet the needs of their businesses.

For more information, including pricing, go to: http://www.livebooks.com/packages/professional

The new features and enhancements within the Spring 2008 Release will be delivered to all liveBooks clients for no additional fee via a site upgrade that is scheduled to take place within the month of March. There is no additional action to be taken by clients to receive this upgrade.

To learn more about the Spring 2008 Release of liveBooks Professional go to: http://www.livebooks.com/support/latestfeatures/spring2008

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