LoneStar Mattress Outlet located in the Dallas/Fort Worth area is a mattress outlet superstore. This family owned business contacted us to help them drive traffic to their website and with help to convert more visitors.

LoneStar Mattress Outlet is on a customized maintenance plan which includes:

• Custom Website Design
• Graphic Design
• Search Engine Optimization
• Google AdWords Management
• Pay per Click Management
• Local Search Management
• Social Media Management
• Google Analytics
• Website Maintenance
• Domain Name and Hosting

Visit LoneStar Mattress Outlet

Southern Seed and Feed is a manufacturing company with customers based in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. The company’s primary online goals were to attract new customers as well as increase existing sales. To achieve these results we built a custom website which features the following tools:

• Secure admin area allowing the Client to maintain the website’s inventory
• Search Engine Optimization
• JQuery slideshows (Eye Candy)
• Visitor Tracking & Reporting
• Graphic Design
• Web Hosting & Email

A Cooks Place is a kitchen retail store that wanted to use their website to push their in-store classes and events as well as generate traffic to its affiliate links and advertisers. To achieve this we built the site on WordPress allowing them to keep their site up to date and expand it as their needs developed. We included:

• Class & Event Calendar as well as ecommerce allowing customers to sign up and pay for classes
• Recipe Section
• Search Engine Optimization
• Online Analytics
• Lead Capture with Manager
• JQuery (Eye Candy)
• Web Hosting and Domain Managment

To achieve these results we built Calvary Baptist Church’s web site on the WordPress platform which allows the staff at the church to maintain their website.

The Calvary Baptist Church’s website includes:

• Homepage Slideshow
• Photo Gallery
• Video Gallery
• Audio Gallery
• Google Maps
• Analytics
• Church Calendar
• Search Engine Optimization
• Graphic Design
• I-tunes Integration

To achieve their goals we developed a custom website using an easy to follow navigation, colors that were cohesive with their existing marketing materials as well as graphics to help push the caring feel that the client need to portray. The website features:

• Content Management System allowing the client to update and maintain their website.
• Referral System – Lead Generation
• Search Engine Optimized
• JQuery Slideshow

View Community Hospice Online

So how can you benefit?

Allow your employees to set up a Google+ profile and tackle it from the personal side. They can share links from your site, talk about company news and more. Just keep in mind that you never want to “spam” these network sites. Your followers will cut you out quickly.

Keep in mind how you feel when you are looking a pictures from your niece’s birthday party only to get a spammy “Come see us so you can buy___________” type message. We have all seen them. A better way to present it is to take a pic of a customer (with their permission of course) buying the item and post that. “Sally Mae came to see us today and saved 10% off her purchase of ___________.” Fill it in with what she bought and tag her on Facebook… I am sure you can come up with better ways to present your status messages in a way that works for you.

Quick posting tips

Some of your followers are your tried and true devoted customers while some are checking you out.

Other than LinkedIn most of the social networks are laid back and relaxed. Keep it light and fun.

Pictures and Video are viewed more often than other mediums.

Tag, tag and tag some more. You can tag a group, a page and or an individual.

At the end of the day have fun with it.

Some of the questions were if they will optimize the site for the search engines, who owns the site, maintenance fees and contracts, social media, and more. The topic stemmed some additional questions as the attendees developed an understanding that they don’t have to be so dependent on their website designer.

One question that was of interest was who owns your site. Many website designers help by setting up a client’s domain name and hosting account. This is great as long as the relationship with your web designer stays on good terms. We suggest that the account be in the client’s name so the client has access. Of course the website designer can have access but if the client ever decides that they want to hire someone in-house or work with another firm they can remove that person as an admin without a huge ordeal and without needing to move all your files and risk potential down time. We have helped clients many times get access to their accounts. It is almost like hostage negotiations at times.

Another topic that was of interest was content management systems also known as CMS. This allows the client to edit parts of the website without having to mess with code. This allows the website owner to have more control and they don’t have to wait for updates to be made to the site.

Some of the topics covered allowed them to leave equipped with steps they could apply to get more control over their website, as well as make better decisions when they need a little help. This opportunity allowed us to achieve one of our main goals as a company; allowing small businesses to get the most out of their website without breaking their budget.

To achieve these goals we developed a custom web site design with their trucking and freight services listed as well as an additional page featuring a few of additional services they provide. One strength that the company has is their history, we helped create an about us page that focuses on the 50 year story the company possesses.

This week Derick King from DK Technology makes a guest post for us. Derick has helped many of our clients with many of their computer issues involving computer security, file management, back-up solutions and more.

Many home computer users are familiar with the marketing campaigns of the anti-virus companies, telling them that their product will protect the user’s computer from many threats. Along with the   software vendors, many department store sales people blindly leads the user to believe that anti-virus software is all that is needed for complete computer/data protection. Therefore, home computers users  purchase new anti-virus software to be their security blanket.

Why is anti-virus software is not enough? Most anti-virus software is developed to identify malicious software by it’s signature. However, anti-virus companies are beginning to develop software that is behavior based which will be more dependable. The problem with signature based anti-virus software is that it can only identify malicious software that’s in it’s database. Which means if there is a new virus or malicious software that’s being sent to users with anti-virus software with all updates, the user is not protected because the new virus is not in the database.

The following are other things that anti-virus software are not capable:

Anti-virus software does not offer a firewall feature which means that it  doesn’t prevent unwanted intruders from accessing your system nor does it have port blocking capabilities.

Anti-virus software does not monitor ports which means that it doesn’t look for people trying to hack your system, or offending software trying to phone home.

Anti-virus software does not offer content filtering which means that it does not protect your children or other users from accessing unwanted material on the internet.

So how do you protect your computer? Protecting your computer/data takes awareness, the users must be sure to keep the operating system patched with updates, users must install anti-virus/anti-spyware software and keep it updated, and a firewall application or hardware should be used. Additionally, users must be careful of the applications they download from the internet and be mindful of email attachments.

Derrick King is owner of DK Technology located in Tupelo, MS. His form specializes in providing a more secure environment at your business or at home.