Website Design

Downsides of using locked-in proprietary hosted platforms for web development

November 6, 2018

When developing web applications, organizations are often presented with a challenge of selecting between custom development or development based on proprietary hosted platform. While development based on proprietary hosted platform may seem like a viable option with potential advantages (like comparatively stable platform, availability of pre-built modules or plugins), it also has very serious long-term downsides that need to be carefully considered. Long-term downsides and considerations 1. Web system will not be portable, client will be locked into a proprietary solution 2. Possibly higher cost and longer development timeline (or functionality trade-offs) as certain desired functionality may be beyond existing capabilities…

Maximize effectiveness of lead generation campaigns

September 18, 2017

How to maximize effectiveness of lead generation campaigns. We are often asked what would you recommend us to do with our website to improve its conversion. Not all sites are the same, but the process for creating well-performing page that delivers leads can be similar no matter your industry. When your organization relies extensively on PPC advertising, it is critical to have your website, landing pages optimized for best performance following best practices and basic logical and design rules. Website vs Landing Page Many times we see websites used as destination for PPC traffic. This is by far the easiest…

Conference Branding

February 5, 2015

LightMix developed conference branding and series of marketing and promotional products for NICE Actimize. Following parent company event branding guidelines we developed consistent branding theme and desgined electronic and print products. Marketing materials included website, emails, signs, PowerPoint presentations, badges, maps, books, postcards, infographics and other specialty products. If your organization is interested in developing conference branding materials, please contact us for proposal.

LightMix client, eBeauty.com, lights up Times Square Pink

October 28, 2014

LightMix client, EBeauty.com, a non-profit organization which supports women undergoing cancer treatment, lights up Times Square pink for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We are proud to be part of this effort and grateful for the opportunity to provide EBeauty with creative support for the Times Square signs and displays and EBeauty website and identity. #LightTimesSquarePink

Celebrating 15 Years of Business Excellence

January 15, 2014

15 Years of Success This winter LightMix celebrates 15 years in business. In what seems like a century in web terms, we thrived and perfected our approach, developed many long term relationships with great organizations and have excellent staff to handle any type of project. Over 15 years LightMix evolved into one of the leading Washington DC multi-disciplinary design firm now working with leading corporate, non-profit, federal government customers as well as small start-up businesses. View LightMix home page design through the years below.

Problems outsourcing SEO offshore

January 5, 2014

Is relying on SEO offshore consultant a good idea? Think again. We all see lucrative pricing and constant bombardment of spammy offshore SEO offers. No decent SEO company will resort to spamming customers. Despite the obvious too-good-to-be-true proposals, many still consider them part of their SEO strategy. In reality, outsourcing SEO offshore is a dangerous endeavor poised with a lot of risk and at best delivering marginal, not long-lasting result. In recent months, after Penguin updates in Google, SEO requires more and more content marketing and social media as well as building overall value of the website. Most offshore SEO companies…

Not provided Google Analytics – how to extract the data

September 21, 2013

Extracting and interpreting the data from “not provided” keywords New rise of “not provided” is causing a lot of headaches for many marketers and website owners. This article describes a simple and effective method of how to dissect Analytics data and get to the bottom of the “not provided”information. Initial data for those not familiar with the “not provided” in Google Analytics issue. Google stopped allowing website owners to view all data on keywords used to reach the website due to privacy issues. Ironically, this is not the case with paid advertising data… Website owners seeing more and more of…

Marketing eBook design, developing effective eBooks improves lead generation

September 6, 2013

Developing effective marketing eBooks boosts lead generation and conversion. (Recent examples of our eBook design) Many organizations fail to recognize effectiveness of well-designed marketing eBooks. Over past 10 years concept of eBooks evolved from something people read on their kindle to important asset targeting lead generation with fast bits of critical data and call to action. It is important to realize value of a short well-organized promo material which allows to grab the users’ attention when they are conducting research. More and more visitors of websites target narrow subjects looking for specific data, value added content rather then general information….

Content Management System Comparison

August 31, 2013

Content Management Systems Comparison Tips Content management system comparison is a very important task, often misguided by not fully understanding production cycle, hidden long term costs and other factors. Usual choice before development team and a client is selecting open source and customizing it vs custom CMS application. Custom CMS applications are proprietary and tie hands for the client. Open source systems are bulkier, and do not work well for very specific tasks. Typically smaller to medium size websites are opting for open source with more complex systems being built on proprietary platforms. Comparison between the content management systems can’t…

Importance of color and shape, from designers point of view

May 24, 2013

One of the most difficult and easiest at times decisions that designer has to resolve is usage of color and selection of shape of an object when doing website design and graphic design. Different colors and shapes mean different things, help or distract user from understanding subject of an article, promotion, brand or whole website. In eyes of a client, selection of colors or shapes usually is a subjective choice based on some science, but mostly intuition. Designers, especially experienced ones, do this selection automatically, based on expertise and experience. Often, this needs to be revisited and can be one…

Email newsletter templates and email newsletter design

May 15, 2013

Email newsletter design tips One of primary methods of outbound marketing is email campaign. When designed, written and structured correctly, email promotion will produce very good return on investment. It is important to understand what key factors should be considered when planning and implementing effective email campaign. Develop email marketing plan This means you need to develop a workflow of email communication, determine where emails are obtained, contact possible email rental services and decide which email newsletter distribution service you will use. Design a conversion system In email communication, similar rules apply as in many other media. Users will not…

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