Tag Archive for design

Make Sure Your Website Looks Professional With These Tips

August 9, 2011 No comments

When you are designing a website for your business, you definitely want to ensure that your website looks professional. You want visitors to get a sense of professionalism when they visit your site. After all, if your site looks like it was simply thrown together, visitors probably won’t feel comfortable purchasing from you. It’s important that your site makes people trust you if you want to turn them into customers. To help you ensure that your website looks professional, here are a few tips that you need to follow.

Tip #1 – Offer Helpful and Interesting Content

One tip that you need to use to make sure your website looks professional is to offer helpful and interesting content to your visitors. When they come to your site, they are probably looking for information in the niche you are working in, which means you need to offer them the information that they are looking for. If you don’t offer content that is helpful, visitors will quickly leave your site and go somewhere else. You also need to ensure that the content you have on your site is interesting. Make sure you hook your reader and keep them interested in what you have to say. With good content, you can keep visitors coming back and you will be better able to convert them into customers as well.

Tip #2 – Ensure Your Site Loads Quickly

Another important tip to remember for a professional looking website is to ensure that your site loads quickly. No one wants to sit there and wait a long time for a site to load. If the site takes too long to load, most people will simply leave the site instead of waiting. Check out your website to ensure that it loads quickly. Avoid using too many graphics, which can slow things down. When you do use graphics, make sure that they are optimized so you still get good load times.

Tip #3 – Avoid Popups, Music, and Playing Videos

Make sure you avoid popups, music, and automatically playing videos on your website if you want it to look professional. Popups are frustrating to most visitors, and if they get frustrated with too many popups, they will leave the site. It’s not even a good idea to use popups to collect information. Music that plays in the background, especially if it doesn’t have a stop button, can really be annoying to visitors as well. Skip the music for a more professional website. Last, don’t put up videos that automatically play on your website. Allow visitors to choose to watch any videos that you have up. Most people will leave if a video starts playing automatically when they arrive at the site.

Tip #4 – Keep Content Changing

Last, make sure you keep content changing on your website to make sure it looks professional. Make sure you are adding new content on a regular basis. This is especially important for getting return visitors. Visitors won’t want to return if they always see the same old content. Offering more helpful content that changes will keep them coming back.

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The Impact of Social Networking on Compliance

July 19, 2011 No comments

Popular social networking sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all have their place in our lives. For the most part, that place is in our private lives, but some businesses have caught up with the potential of social networking to advance their own goals.

Social media compliance is proving its worth for lead generation, marketing, and self-promotion. Those businesses who are taking advantage of this new technology have been quick to benefit. Equally quick have been the warnings about compliance.

A company may be exposed to compliance risk if employees are editing their information on one of the sites, such as“favoriting” or “liking” posts. There are also risks in allowing recommendations to be displayed on a profile, communicating via status updates, tweets, or social media compliance without tagging, or using social networks without a stringent governance policy in place.

One of the other major concerns about social networking is the risk of data breach. Social networks are mediums where personally identifiable information and protected health information can be leaked either intentionally or by accident. Examples of this include an IM chat where a discussion takes place containing sensitive information. Another example is a non-real-time breach in which a file is transferred as part of a Facebookchat.

As a result of this emerging risk, FINRA issued guidance on blogs and social networking sites in Regulatory Notice 10-06. This was released in January 2010. It says that firms must adopt and define reasonably designed policies and procedures to protect themselves, and any clients or investors.

Such is the prevalence of social media use in the workplace that companies are now required to archive and preserve social networking communications. This is mandated under SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 and FINRA rule 3110.

Business is in a difficult situation here. Social networking is too good a resource to ignore, but it also has inherent risks when it comes to compliance. The easiest way for an organization to protect itself is by having a robust policy on using social networking sites during work time. Having a single, clear, robust social network compliance policy is the very first thing a business needs to stay on the right side of the law.

The main problem with social networking compliance is the tracking of breaches and use of these sites. A data breach is regarded as the disclosure of information, not the use of it, so businesses can easily find themselves non-compliant if they aren’t careful.

At the moment, companies have three options. The first is that they can ban access to social networking altogether. That cures the compliance problem, but they risk missing out on opportunities. The second is to have someone or something monitor social network activity in the workplace. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially with the advent of web-enabled phones.

The third option is to outsource compliance to a third party. This not only puts the responsibility on someone else’s shoulders, but it lets the experts take care of it. Paying someone with the right expertise and the right equipment is the ideal solution in most cases.

Social networking is a valuable business tool. The ability to collaborate and discuss ideas from anywhere in the world is too good to miss. That means these networks are here to stay. Businesses who can exploit them while remaining compliant will have a significant advantage over those who don’t.

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Web design and web development portfolio / case studies

June 30, 2011 No comments

Lone Star Media is the perfect choice to help your company achieve any online goal! We specialize in creating your site from the ground up, but also work with companies on specific projects.

We helped NAI/Stoneleigh Huff Brous McDowell develop an application to monitor commissions each month. Creating an intranet interface utilizing ColdFusion and Microsoft SQL Server 7.0, managers are better equipped to generate accurate estimates of the gross commission revenue each month.

Cormark Real Estate on the other hand, needed their site built from the ground up. This provided Lone Star Media with an idea of how they wanted to portray their real estate company on the web. Lone Star Media created a very unique design which enabled their clients to gain valuable information about their business and their agents. It gave their clients one place to not only view the entire list of property listings from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), but to also gain valuable information necessary to buy or sell a home.

These are just a couple of the success stories resulting from working with Lone Star Media. If you are seeking personalized design services for any part of your business, please contact us directly so that we may show you a portfolio relative to your specific business goals and objectives. You’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg thus far!

Cormark Real Estate

Integrity Mortgage Group and Real Estate Services, formerly Cormark Real Estate Group, contracted with Lone Star Media to build a dynamic website for realtors to update their profiles in real time. Lone Star Media worked with North Texas Real Estate Information Services (NTREIS) to provide the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) listings to all of the realtors’ clients online.

Family Event Website

Maciel-Salazar Reunion is a website designed for personal use. Lone Star Media helps any client, small or large; achieve a web presence that is best suited for their needs. We have developed and designed several custom website for individuals. We do not use templates, allowing our clients to select any color scheme or design appropriate for their special occasion.

Look Into My House.com, Inc.

At Look Into My House.com, Inc., mortgage brokers and lenders throughout the United States provide virtual home tours to realtors, creating steady streams of lending services and lasting relationships among real estate agents, homebuyers, builders and developers. Lone Star Media designed the entire web-site, enabling a database search application, plus real-time client uploads of new and updated home profiles.

NAI Stoneleigh Huff Brous McDowell

NAI Stoneleigh Huff Brous McDowell, a global commercial real estate company, contracted with Lone Star Media to develop a back-end broker revenue application. This secure site allows them to log and evaluate monthly revenue performance for each broker.

Railhead Industrial Park

Railhead Industrial Park Investors, Inc. needed a clean professional site to assist them in marketing Railhead Industrial Park to potential and existing tenants. Lone Star Media built an application which also allows interested parties to contact the broker of record directly from the website, enabling Railhead Industrial Park to capture and process leads more effectively.

Sassy Cowgirls

Diamond M Ranch Designs and Susan Edison needed a website so that her artwork could be displayed to a national audience. Lone Star Media built a website to her specific needs including multiple portfolio sections and a contact page to capture sales leads.

Skin Transformation

Skin Transformation is an e-commerce site designed, developed and hosted by Lone Star Media. This site was developed using MySQL and Cold Fusion to sell Dermatology and Skin Care products. This site uses our newest shopping cart technology and is a fast growing, successful e-commerce site. We used our search engine optimization and e-commerce marketing skills to develop this company from ground zero into a profitable venture in only 4 months.

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