Livebooks

Hi everyone, I am considering having Livebooks build a site for me. Everything I have ever read says that if you want people to find your site, flash is not the way to go. They claim that even though they build flash sites they have no problem being found by search engines. I am looking for any 3rd party independent reviews that say that Livebooks can do what they claim or they cannot. Does anyone know of any?
Thanks, George

There are some reviews, but how about first-hand knowledge?

Livebooks builds a mirror html site into your flash site so the search engines have no trouble finding it. If you don't choose to download Flash Player, you can still view the basic html version. My stats and rankings are pretty good I've noticed.

Sure, there are things I'm not real pleased about with ivebooks, but this isn't one of them.
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Geoff
http://www.geoffreyschmidphotography.com

also consider http://www.clickbooq.com

Check my website it also ganerate HTML supporting metadata with fantastic support and ease of use
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http://www.ali-photo.com
ali

My sister just got her work posted with Livebooks and is quite happy with the result.

http://www.vstevensphoto.com/

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The one with the most SB900's wins.

I think McNally is winning so far.

Hi, I thank everybody for their input and your photos are all wonderful, but I want to know if the site is doing what they claim? Is it as easy for potential clients to find you with a Livebooks flash site as it would be with a html site?

To directly answer your question: yes Livebooks delivers on what they are promising

clickbooq too
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http://www.ali-photo.com
ali

From their website.. they talk about these two features

Search Landing Page

"This optional new HTML page can be used as a quick snapshot to capture search engine viewers and entice them to view the full website. The page enables you to customize content to target search engine traffic with specific keywords and almost all links on the page will drive visitor traffic to the Flash site. "

Enhanced Automatic HTML Creation

"The liveBooks admin tool – the editSuite – automatically creates a searchable HTML site to ensure that the content on your site including your keywords, image names, image descriptions, etc are catalogued by search engines further enhancing your ability to rank high in search results."

Not sure if that answers your question or not..

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Bryan

George,
did you ever set up an account with livebooks? If so let's see the new site.

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The one with the most SB900's wins.

I think McNally is winning so far.

Livebooks creates what they call a ghost html site which enables it to easily be found by search engines. Livebooks EDU version is an affordable option for students and educators. Use this code (11478) to get a trial to the EDU or predesigned versions for free.

On the Sports Shooter forum, a lot of photographers are pretty aggravated with Livebooks and the way they are handling their blog integration. The limitations are actually hurting their SEO. Here's the thread:
http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=34996

Hey,

I just switched over to Livebooks. It's an amazing product. It's really really easy to "edit" and upload pictures. When you say that you want them to build a site for you, do you mean get a custom made site, or a pre-designed site?

My site is http://www.fatherlyfilms.com if you'd like to check it out. To answer your question, does it deliver on what it promises; yes it does.

They make a "second" page that allows search engines to easily find you. So a client that searches "Montreal sports and fashion photographer" or "New York photo journalist" or what ever..."Tokyo food photographer", as long as you have the right keywords (or meta-data) it is very easy to find.

Also, although many people say that flash doesn't allow search engines to pick up on keywords, that's not true. Google and Bing (not sure about yahoo) pick up keywords in flash. You can ask them to convert the HTML page (it's called a search-landing page with them) to a iPhone or Blackberry friendly page.

Also just if you want, you can get a 10-day trial (the trial is a "full" site, just it hasn't gone live yet, so it's on a http://www.livebooks.com/user/domain site. just remember to cancel if you don't like it after the 10 day trial or you pay!)

Also, your photos meta-data's keywords are also supposedly picked up on search engines thanks to Livebooks, although I have no proof of that.

What people are saying about the EDU and the blog isn't exactly right (not saying you guys aren't right or anything though!). The EDU is a significantly cheaper product, but also significantly stripped down. Before I went with Livebooks, I spoke with a few of their designers or support staff (not sure what to call them), because I qualify for the EDU, and they all recomended against it.

As for the blog, for 100$ you can get a wordpress blog integrated into your site, like http://www.chasejarvis.com . Go to his blog page and you'll see what I mean. It doesn't necessarily hurt the SEO (search engine optimization). The reason people are complaining is because they feel ripped off because older clients that bought a while-back cannot integrate their blog (yet). But the wordpress that's in Livebooks doesn't have much, if any plug ins (not sure). Also theirs ways around it while still getting your blog as another page. I just bought the wordpress blog add-on but it's not up yet, but their service is amazing.

Hope that helped!
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http://www.fatherlyfilms.com