We continue our collection of free resources for website owners in the financial service industry and today focus on various resources that offer free forex markets data and tools. We noticed that all or most top FX clearing firms are starting to provide free content as a way to attract IBs to clear through them. Content that used to cost a fortune via providers such as QuoteMedia and others now is free with link to clearing firms website. Any FX IB brokerage firm that is designing a website can take advantage of these places to enrich their users experience.

Following free FX content providers are popular and available to be used on your forex trading website:

CMS Forex
http://www.forexwebtools.com
Great collection of all kinds of tools at no cost
Charts, quotes, PIP, Currency, Notional Value Calculators, Calendar

Forex4You
http://www.forexpros.com/webmaster-tools/
Economic calendar, Rates, News, Live Quotes, Exchange Rates, Charts, Indexes, Commodities, Converter

AC-Markets
http://www.ac-markets.com/webmaster-resources/free-forex-tools.aspx
Live exchange rates, converter, news

FXDD
http://www.fxdd.com/en/webmaster-tools.html
Calculator generator, ticker, vertical currency ticker, news and commentary widget

Forex Factory
http://www.forexfactory.com/excal.php
Calendar

Finotec
http://www.finotec.com/trading-tools.php
Converter, Quotes, Calendar, Support/resistance, signals, news

Are you interested in forex website design? Contact LightMix to receive a proposal. LightMix provided design for FX and trading companies for over 10 years, we’ll be glad to work with your organization.

Website design checklist, logo design checklist, marketing checklist, search engine optimization checklist, application design checklist, usability checklist.. they are many of them out there. Visit this article you can get a load of checklists for whatever you want. Will they necessarily help you to have a better product in the end? Not always, not likely if your overall approach to a project is wrong. What we try to establish from the start of the design is to make sure that customer doesn’t lead the design process too much so that designers participation is limited to just technically following advice and direction of a customer without regard for professional opinion. It is often problematic to convince a client that spent considerable amount of time on self education that in fact this may not be best way to go about presenting marketing content, one way or another.

 All of the checklists that you find, and we often use some, should always be used for one purpose only -  planning and initial information. They should never be used as a guide, tool, reference. If they do and if a customer tries to stick to the irrelevant opinion of others the rest will be just that -  irrelevant design that will fail to address main requirements of the project.

Click here to talk to us and to receive a checklist that will make sense and to start a project that will deliver the result.

What can work in the market while buying tomatoes doesn’t work in the professional services fields. By bringing the cost down, clients eventually devalue services and bring quality of work and workmanship down. Even during the recession, the emphasis should be on doing less and doing better with it, rather then wanting more and paying less for it. Website design services, graphic design, accounting, legal services and many other fields are all fields where investment done in the professional expertise turns out in the product quality. You want a discount on website design project?

Watch this video to reconsider next time you try to bring the cost down too much.

Firms that work for Federal government and their contractors
These companies have ongoing accounts sustaining their operations and expand adding additional resources depending on the contracts. Firms in this category generally are not interested in working with smaller clients and they are all on GSA schedule. Many work with military and its contractors and all appropriate clearance levels.

Firms that have narrow specialization such as companies working with associations, trade shows etc

Companies that service large corporate clients
Washington DC web design companies often work with high level corporate clients as well as government due to proximity of all major forms headquarters in the Dulles corridor. Large consulting firms such as Accenture engage smaller and medium size organizations to participate on large scale projects.

Companies that service medium to small size businesses
There are web design firms here in DC area that focus mostly on medium size commercial projects and do not participate in bidding for Government or top level corporate accounts

Design firms that serve small business and start ups
There is a last category of firms that service small organizations and start-up businesses. Due to the number of small businesses this category also breaks down into firms that have specific marketing budgets or companies that do design on the shoe string budget.

No matter what type of organization you have or level of your engagement, selecting a right web design company in Washington DC area is difficult due to different skill sets present in each firm. In reality even company that focuses on one of the markets can provide an effective design solution to small or large firm depending on the specific task and type of work.

Contact LightMix to receive a proposal for your web design project as well as branding, identity, interface, web development and other visual communication services.

There are many choices in this area and many companies offer different sets of skills. Non-profit organizations tend to go with firms that have experience designing associations websites while technology companies look for hands-on design and development expertise. There are many hidden values though in providers such as LightMix which offers full range of design capabilities to customers in Metro Washington DC (Virginia Maryland DC area) yet due to boutique size can keep prices low while still providing quality of top design agencies.

One important note is to know the difference between design services offered by marketing firms and services provided by companies who do exclusively design and development. True, many firms in Northern Virginia and Washington DC may be looking for full package solution and are not interested in solutions that are more narrow as this requires more understanding of the process. On the other hand, marketing forms provide lower quality, generic and too sales oriented design services sacrificing design, usability and leading to diminished branding.

We strongly recommend while searching for web design and creative services provider in Washington DC area consider following aspects for your organization

• How much experience actual designers on the team of design company have and what other projects outside of the region have they completed
• Demonstrate not only marketing and sales expertise, but also purely creative services expertise, make sure that portfolio is memorable and covers many disciplines
• Examine client list to find companies which business is doing projects that you are considering
• Check for companies with hands-on approach, not too much sales oriented strategy to pitch every service you may or may not need. Best values are were small size firms treat your organization as their top client no matter what size you are.
• Check off-business hours availability. There are many firms that provide creative or design services, but most will not really care about your business and will not answer your call after 5pm or respond to email before next business day. Today’s business requires 24/7 support and responsiveness, make sure your creative services company in DC and Virginia area is able to accommodate your schedule.
• Check to make sure that creative and web design services provider you choose has expertise and experience in fields not only related to design and development. Best results and most creative solutions are designed by those that have multi-disciplinary background. Sales people aside, creative director and art director of a company must have extensive education and professional experience with top level clients an start-ups alike.

Are you interested in the proposal for your creative services project? Contact LightMix for more information

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Does your organization struggle in determining where to go to get pricing and an estimate for website design project? The information below will help to understand types of providers.

There are 5 levels of pricing for website design services. Typically services offered by 5 tiers of providers which include:

Tier 1

Top advertising and design agencies
Typical cost for such services ranges from several hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars. Clients have a great deal of money, have well established marketing plans, large teams and can afford going through many steps to come up with only the best the industry can offer. Examples – top auto sites, sports brands like Nike, Adidas and so on

Tier 2

Highly acclaimed design and marketing agencies
This category includes firms that have top client portfolio, but do not exclusively serve only most wealthy brand names. Budgets for projects are still likely to be in the $50-$300k range. Creative firms offer wide range of design and marketing capabilities and have unique skill set capable of managing complex brand relationships that top clients require.

Tier 3

Medium size marketing and design firms

Marketing, PR and highly specialized design firms that do top quality work for small, medium business and government clients will be in this category. Companies that hire firms in this category can expect budgets $25k-100k for creative assignments

Tier 4

Small size creative design companies and boutique-size marketing firms

Small creative companies (staffed under 30 people) will have many winning propositions to those trying to consider them versus Tier 3 providers. Yet they may not have such extensive network of providers or highly specific expertise, small creative firms will in fact offer better value due to significantly lower fees for creative and marketing services compared to larer organizations. Pricing the same scope of work as larger organizations, small size creative firms will offer still comparable range of experience, good portfolio and solid client list leaving final decision be based on preference of small to large company approach. Smaller design firms also have much more hands-on approach to all tasks and can accommodate changing business requirements much faster then larger size companies. Website design pricing or typical engagements will vary from $5k to $50k

Tier 5

Freelancers and off-shore providers

Last category is an industry by itself. The past 10 years were critical in establishing network of providers across the world offering lowest cost creative services with real price wars at sites like elance bringing the costs down to ridiculous figures. Unfortunately, same is a primary problem of these companies as they are unable to compete for higher quality clientele and are stuck with low cost projects and most frequently provide low to very mediocre quality services. To some extent, latest trends in blogs and social media help end clients minimize some of the deployment costs and even low cost providers can offer fully functional products. Despite this, credibility and established client list play critical role in development of such firms and their abilities to survive for more then 2-3 years. Pricing for website design services will vary from $50 to $2000 for typical projects.

Are you interested in obtaining an estimate from a small size design firm with very extensive expertise? Click here to learn more..

1. Hire only professional company to execute creative design services for your organization.
2. �Find industry-specific marketing firm for marketing only, do not go with design services from marketing firms.
3. Avoid low cost service providers. Creative design means iterative design approach. Low cost providers are not designed to offer such flexibility.
4. Creative portfolio is a must and it should show wealth of relevant design work.
5. Testimonials list is a must. Any creative design company will provide list of recommendations.
6. Proposal completeness is important. Consider how well company organizes their formal proposal when deciding on creative design services provider.
7. Speak with actual creative director. Accessibility of creative talent is a key.
8. Prepare enough material to be able to work form. Often, organizations do not have adequate resources prepared before beginning of the project.
9. Trust yourself, but don’t try to micro-manage creative design if you are not qualified�.

Marketing company and design team may push your project different directions. You must maintain an independent perspective from your client standpoint at all times. Creative design services is a subjective matter. Many times aesthetics can confuse clients. The reason why you may or may not like some design aspects are not as important as the fact whether or not it works.

The reason is simple, templates are too generic and have less value then custom made design specific to your company goals and subject matter. Template web sites are designed to be sold to you and not to your customers, and many business owners get into the trap thinking that if the template looks good to you it will look good to your clients. This is not true. Designer of a temaplate had very little to do with your company. They never talked to you, never asked you a single question. The only creteria by which you select good or bad template is based only on your assessment of what is good or bad. If you have great expertise in the design field, you may be qualified to make such assumption, most do not. The time needed to customize a template of your choice to your liking and entering appropriate changes will be also close to what it will take to create custom design. The benefits could not be more obvious. Template site with bells and whistles in wrong places and no emphasis on things that you really ned to offer or custom designed site with consistent branding and clear message supported by relevant design.

Other then obvious problem above the following main problems are frequent in template websites.

Over designed templates
Template websites are over designed with al possible features, whistles, sounds, icons, gadgets etc to make them ook finished polished and sellable to you. A god web site doesn’t have to rely on this, rather is based on good design that supports the content and branding.

Usage of images
Many template buyers don’t realize that the images used in the templates may not in fact be all legal and technically it will be a responsibility of the new owner. A potential copyright issue may cost business a lot of money. Incorrectly used image can bring law suite or cost later a lot of money.

Inconsistent Branding
Many templates have placeholder for your logo. A design that can be used with any logo is too generic to support and work together with your logo to create positive result that’s good for your branding. Design process starts with logo design and to web site design, not other way around as it is the case with all templates.

Excessive use of flash
One of the main selling points and totally useless elements is overuse of flash technology in many templates. Many times customers will be wowed by all the sound effects, visual effects a regular navigational bar makes! Your website should not looklike Vegas slot machines. Subtlety is your friend, not 25 effects used to sell YOU the template and how helping your customer make decision to buy or ot to buy your services. Stay as far as possible from templates that are using flash for navigation, body or other functional elements. The designers that make them think of selling to you more then anything

Click here to receive a free quote for custom design

Visit our site to view portfolio of our work

What is important to understand is that email marketing is like architecture. Without a plumber and electrician, event a great designed house won’t work. Same with email marketing, without key marketing message and right offer even great design won’t convert users.
It is critically important to have a winning proposition that clearly differentiates your business from your competition. Strengthen your key marketing points, stress what makes it different and finish the offer with strong call to action content and why your business has all expertise your customers want.

Make no false claims.
This will be difficult to maintain, yet long term you r customers will thank you. Only propose what you really are offering and what you can deliver.

Find good mail list providers.
Locate what lists your competitors are using. Many list providers will rent lists despite conflict of interest with other customers. Use this opportunity to gain intel on what methods other companies are using in your field. If your field isn’t relying on email marketing yet, use trade shows, common events to solicit for list rental. Most organizations will happily rent out mailing lists for a fee.

Have a good plan of action after initial marketing.
It’s critical to think what will happen after first round of marketing. Have a sequence of customer conversion defined before you start. Create appropriate landing pages and conversion offers that will move customers from one offer to another.

Find a design company that has understanding of multi-step conversion process.
Find a design company that understands all intricacies of the marketing business, done this for other clients and can advise you during the process on how to efficiently create and launch your email marketing campaign.

Click here to contact us for estiamte on your email marketing blast.

It is becoming more and more popular to have your own trading advisory site. Traders start side business and some start derive additional income from advisory operations. Yet due to the fact that in many cases traders lack knowledge of the marketing, design and technical aspects, mediocrity in the online presence in fact stagnates growth of the business and often kills any potential even before business idea could be effectively tested.

In our 10+ year experience working with financial companies in different fields we witnessed various degrees of success. Some start-ups went up so quickly, it was hard to keep up. Some companies with great ideas never made it pass testing stage. In all cases we noticed that deficiency on any of the steps from start to sale can be turning point that results in wasted hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars and frustration that turns people away from what can be very effective way to run business. Success stories taught us that real results from web presence are based equally on how good the product is and how well thought out process of how to sell it.

Sell it. Sell it Sell it.

What helps traders and investment advisory businesses succeed? Testing, constant testing and improvement of presence and product message. Web presence can be burden to some and saviour to others. By nature, web sites are virtual brochures and catalogs, reception areas and trading desks. Every dollar put into web site comes back times over primarily because for online businesses such as start ups, trading advisory services can look big or small, can help establish level o comfort or turn people away.  Not only it is critical to have a professional design, professional branding and professionally laid out content on the web site, it is very important to think through effective marketing mesasge that helps sales.