The initial impression your blog post makes is crucial, and that’s where your introduction comes into play. Hook your readers with a captivating opening that sparks curiosity or emotion. Address their pain points or questions to establish a connection. Outline the purpose of your post and give a sneak peek into what they can expect. A well-crafted introduction sets the tone for an immersive reading experience.

Crafting Informative and Cohesive Body Content

Within the body of your blog post lies the heart of your message. Break down your content into coherent sections, each with a clear heading that guides readers through the narrative. Dive deep into each subtopic, providing valuable insights, data, and relatable examples. Maintain a logical flow between paragraphs using transitions, ensuring that each point naturally progresses to the next. By structuring your body content effectively, you keep readers engaged and eager to learn more.

Powerful Closures: Leaving a Lasting Impression

Concluding your blog post isn’t just about wrapping things up – it’s your final opportunity to leave a strong impact. Summarize the key takeaways from your post, reinforcing your main points. If relevant, provide actionable solutions or thought-provoking questions to keep readers thinking beyond the post. Encourage engagement by inviting comments, questions, or sharing. A well-crafted conclusion should linger in your readers’ minds, inspiring them to explore further or apply what they’ve learned.

Read more at Live Connexus

The initial impression your blog post makes is crucial, and that’s where your introduction comes into play. Hook your readers with a captivating opening that sparks curiosity or emotion. Address their pain points or questions to establish a connection. Outline the purpose of your post and give a sneak peek into what they can expect. A well-crafted introduction sets the tone for an immersive reading experience.

Crafting Informative and Cohesive Body Content

Within the body of your blog post lies the heart of your message. Break down your content into coherent sections, each with a clear heading that guides readers through the narrative. Dive deep into each subtopic, providing valuable insights, data, and relatable examples. Maintain a logical flow between paragraphs using transitions, ensuring that each point naturally progresses to the next. By structuring your body content effectively, you keep readers engaged and eager to learn more.

Powerful Closures: Leaving a Lasting Impression

Concluding your blog post isn’t just about wrapping things up – it’s your final opportunity to leave a strong impact. Summarize the key takeaways from your post, reinforcing your main points. If relevant, provide actionable solutions or thought-provoking questions to keep readers thinking beyond the post. Encourage engagement by inviting comments, questions, or sharing. A well-crafted conclusion should linger in your readers’ minds, inspiring them to explore further or apply what they’ve learned.

Read more at Live Connexus

The initial impression your blog post makes is crucial, and that’s where your introduction comes into play. Hook your readers with a captivating opening that sparks curiosity or emotion. Address their pain points or questions to establish a connection. Outline the purpose of your post and give a sneak peek into what they can expect. A well-crafted introduction sets the tone for an immersive reading experience.

Crafting Informative and Cohesive Body Content

Within the body of your blog post lies the heart of your message. Break down your content into coherent sections, each with a clear heading that guides readers through the narrative. Dive deep into each subtopic, providing valuable insights, data, and relatable examples. Maintain a logical flow between paragraphs using transitions, ensuring that each point naturally progresses to the next. By structuring your body content effectively, you keep readers engaged and eager to learn more.

Powerful Closures: Leaving a Lasting Impression

Concluding your blog post isn’t just about wrapping things up – it’s your final opportunity to leave a strong impact. Summarize the key takeaways from your post, reinforcing your main points. If relevant, provide actionable solutions or thought-provoking questions to keep readers thinking beyond the post. Encourage engagement by inviting comments, questions, or sharing. A well-crafted conclusion should linger in your readers’ minds, inspiring them to explore further or apply what they’ve learned.

Read more at Live Connexus

Facebook is no longer what you need to worry about. Trust me when I say that Facebook is only used by adults; if you see teenager profiles they are not either being used or is just a disguise. Kids are now communicating through a large volume of apps. You may have all heard about Snapchat, where they share private chats that disappear after a few days. Trouble is that there are many more, so I decided to put a list together that you can review and check your kids’ phone. Oh, and if you are one of those that believes that kids should have privacy, wait until you read what these apps do and I’m sure it will convince you to look into it.

Snapchat – app that allows you to send a photo or video from your phone and determine how long the person on the other end can see the image until it self
-destructs. But what you may not know is that many images from Snapchat are posted to revenge porn sites, called “snap porn.” People think their photos will disappear and that is not true. It’s easy to recover a Snap, take a screenshot of it and send it to  others — and by others, we mean porn sites. No parent wants to find a photo of their teen daughter or son on an adult website.

SeekingArrangement.com –  identifies itself as a “sugar daddy dating app”.  The idea behind the it is still evident… bribes for dates. Of course, “dates” is much more than going out to dinner and a movie.

After School – Students can join by scanning their school I.D. or Facebook profile. Once in the app, the user is anonymous. However, this app is used for drama and conflict among users because they all attend the same school. Kids are able to post about anything. This year, a single school had problems with posts that included nude photos, vulgar posts from males talking about fellow female students, and bullying. I talked to a friend of mine that is a teacher and this app is becoming a big problem.

Yik Yak – This is one of the most dangerous. It allows kids to post text-only “Yaks,” or messages of up to 200 letters. The messages have no filter and can be viewed by Yakkers who are closest to the person who wrote it, as determined by GPS in the phone. Users are exposed to sexually explicit content, abusive language, and personal attacks so severe that schools are starting to prevent the App on their Wi-Fi. Although the posts have no names, kids start revealing their information as they get more comfortable with other people logged in. This app is a rumor forum and a perfect way for the kinds of bullies who hide behind a screen, hurting others behind anonymity.

Ask.fm – This app allows users to ask a specific person anonymous questions. Users can answer questions and posts them to their page, leaving nothing to the imagination. This is dangerous because it allows anyone to target someone else anonymously. Bullies, predators, and others can send anonymous messages, asking inappropriate things or even simply making hurtful statements

Whisper – This is a meeting App for posting secrets anonymously, just reveling the area you are posting from. You can search for users posting near you within a mile. You are also able to communicate with users who post secrets. One man in Washington was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl he met on this App just last year.

Audio Manager – an app that has nothing to do with managing your teen’s music files or controlling the volume on his smartphone and everything to do with him hiding things like nude photos from you. It’s one of the top apps for hiding other apps. When you press and hold the Audio Manager app, a lock screen is revealed — behind which users can hide messages, photos, videos, and other apps.

Calculator% – Same as Audio Manager, but this time with a calculator icon posing as something it isn’t.

Vaulty – Vaulty will not only store photos and videos away from parental spying eyes, but it also will snap a photo of anyone who tries to access the “vault” with the wrong password. Parents who find it on their teens’ phones can conclude just one thing: Your kid is hiding things from you.

Burn Note – Like Snapchat, Burn Note is a messaging app that erases messages after a set period of time. Unlike Snapchat, this one is for text messages only, not photos or videos. Burn Note’s display system shows just one word at a time, adding a sense of secrecy to the messages. Again, by promising a complete delete, kids could feel more comfortable revealing more than what they would do otherwise. And again, capturing a screenshot so that the message can be shared and lives forever, may be the app’s Achilles’ heel.

Omegle – Omegle provides users with a chance to converse online with random strangers. Parents need to know that Omegle is an anonymous chat client with which users discuss anything they’d like. This can easily result in conversations that are filled with explicit sexual content, lewd language, and references to drugs, alcohol, and violence. Many users ask for personal data upfront, including location, age, and gender [ASL], something kids might supply (not realizing they don’t have to). Adults wishing to chat anonymously may find use in this app, but kids should be kept far away.”

Tinder – Tinder is a popular app used for finding people and dating that allows users to “rate” profiles and locate hookups via GPS. It is easy for adults and minors to find each other. And the rating system can be used for cyber-bullying; a group of kids can seek another kid and intentionally make his/her rating go down.

Blendr – 300 million users meet new people through GPS location services. You can message, exchange pictures and videos, and rate the “hotness” of other people). Because there are no authentication, sexual predators can contact minors and minors can hook up with adults.

KiK Messenger – KiK is a messaging app that lets people exchange videos, pictures and sketches. Users can also create animated videos. The danger is that the term “sext buddy” has been replaced with “KiK buddy.” Sex researcher Megan Maas, wrote on ForEveryMom.com that kids are using Reddit and other forums to place classified ads for sex by giving out their KiK usernames. KiK does not have parental controls and there is no way of validating users, thus making it easy for sexual predators to use the app to interact with kids.

I hope this list helps you get started. There are many others, but per my research, these are the most popular.

Read more at Live Connexus

First, ask yourself what kind of website you want to have. Designing a website should not be treated like a digital brochure. A company that decides to create or redesign their website needs a formal approach for the development and the promotional aspects. It is no different than any other business plan; it needs a clear understanding of the business’ objectives, a budget and project management skills.

Many people start their website idea by how they want it to look like. You must first think of what part of your overall marketing strategy is it going to fulfill. For example, how are you going to attract customers using the web? What kind of feedback mechanism are you going to allow (forms, e-mail link, blog posts)? Are you going to change the information frequently, will you place ads from other sites or external products, etc.? It is also good idea to establish a short-term and long-term development plan.

Effective Project Management

The first task the project manager is to complete is the identification of the key team members. Team members must identify the strategies they plan on implementing within their areas of expertise, communicate their plans and outline their future requirements. The Project Manager should also identify the elements that will support promotional efforts, visibility over search engines, and fulfill the business’ and website visitors’ needs. This may appear to be common sense, but it is not the common route. Skipping these steps often create the need to change the content and layout of the website after it is completed — a waste of time and resources.

Budget

Time is money and it couldn’t be more obvious than when you are paying a developer to design or create software code. So once you have established the objective of the website, the key players, and plans to get there, you must determine the amount of resources and cash available. You don’t have to create a website with all the “bells and whistles” from the very beginning. Focus on creating a functional website with the correct navigation first, and then dedicate resources for fancy details. This may turn into a Phase A (simple, functional) and Phase B (Plan A plus the “bells and whistles”).

We hope this all makes sense. It is not good when a company realizes that their website is not supporting their business after money and resources have been spent. This usually creates the situation where managers become resistant to spending additional resources on the web, and the company never takes advantage of this awesome tool.

The Internet is your Global Image. Don’t let a bad looking website ruin it…

Live Connexus has many years of experience developing websites, web hosting and web content; we will meet with you to understand your market strategy, what you need to communicate and your specific business situation. We will provide you with a solid estimate on the project completion, and give you access to the content as it is being develop to ensure it meets your needs.

We won’t just build you a great website; we can integrate it to your marketing strategy with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media, CMS, a shopping cart and many other tools.

Start your website now with Live Connexus! 

Read more at Live Connexus

Here is the check list:

Web Design / Development

• Graphic Designers to build a visually engaging website.
• Code Programmers to link the design with the site features.
• Editors that review the site to guarantee site visitors are able to complete tasks intuitively.

Content Developers

• Writers and copywriters to develop content.
• Photographers and graphic designers to create appealing visual content.
• Audio and video content developers due to the increasing popularity of podcasts and online videos.

Website Marketing

• Search Engine Optimization professionals to improve the website’s visibility in search results.
• Search Engine Marketers to implement / manage online advertising.
• Social Media Professionals to leverage the power of social networks and community sites.

Graphic designers, programmers, writers and marketers are creative people, make sure you make good use of these brilliant minds. Team up with them and include them in the website development since the very beginning of the project. Don’t hesitate to ask for feedback, listen to the team’s ideas and try to implement the best ones. An effective team can help you achieve incredible results.

Follow these guidelines and soon you’ll be on your way to creating professional and sophisticated websites.

We would love to hear from you! Please don’t forget to leave us your comment and let us know what you think of these articles. We are here to help you!

Live Connexus has many years of experience developing websites, web hosting and web content; we will meet with you to understand your market strategy, what you need to communicate and your specific business situation. We will provide you with a solid estimate on the project completion, and give you access to the content as it is being develop to ensure it meets your needs.

We won’t just build you a great website; we can integrate it to your marketing strategy with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media, CMS, a shopping cart and many other tools.

Start your website now with Live Connexus! 

Read more at Live Connexus

Search Engine Optimization or SEO

in other words, ensure search engines like Google can find your Website. The SEO must have a strategy and focus on ranking your Website high when certain keywords are queried. By including the right combination of keywords and phrases on your site, potential customers will quickly find your products and services when researching their options. It is critical to spend time on this, because people don’t use standard vocabulary for the same product or service. Research which terms are most commonly used by your audience and your competitors, then, include a broad range of those terms and phrases in the content you produce for your site.

Social networking

Leveraging on sites like Twitter or Facebook to expand your marketing reach and easily refresh your communication strategy. Create a Facebook group dedicated to your business and invite your current “Friends” to join. This is a great to get the word out about what you do and what value add your business provides. Describe your services, add pictures, videos and tips. If you keep your content fresh and relevant to your business, you’ll attract potential clients.

Online advertising

Tools such as Google AdWords enable you to design advertisements and campaigns, while targeting specific locations. It also allows you to define your budget and how much to pay for displaying each add (the more you pay, the higher the chance it will be displayed on the first page of the search engine results). Combined with Google Analytics, it gives you great visibility of how are your campaigns working, what pages are being visited more often, and how many new clients are visiting your site (as opposed to previous viewers or bouncers).

All of these efforts will help you boost site traffic and sales leads. The greatest advantage is the low cost in comparison to other marketing solutions, and the ability to track the results real-time.

Live Connexus has many years of experience developing websites, web hosting and web content; we will meet with you to understand your market strategy, what you need to communicate and your specific business situation. We will provide you with a solid estimate on the project completion, and give you access to the content as it is being develop to ensure it meets your needs.

We won’t just build you a great website; we can integrate it to your marketing strategy with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media, CMS, a shopping cart and many other tools.

Start your website now with Live Connexus! 

Read more at Live Connexus

Expense Reduction

Let’s run an example that focuses on the reduction in IT expenditures. Forester, a global research and advisory firm published an article called “Should Your Email Live in the Cloud”. In this study and after reviewing financial data with several companies in the U.S., the average e-mail cost per year per employee was determined to be $302.16 when you include the following components:

How does this compare to the Cloud? It wouldn’t be fair to just compare it against Google Apps Business + Google Vault ($100 / user / year total), since you still need to factor in Staffing in the cloud yearly price. However the cost in the graph at the top is only for e-mail, while Google Apps Business gives you other tools like chat, sites (a MS SharePoint equivalent), docs (unlimited storage for Google-type docs and 5GB of space for others) and mobile access.

An Example based on an 800 Employee Company:

A different analysis was conducted by the Radicati Group called “Google Apps & Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 – Total Cost of Ownership Analysis”. This study was developed by Sarah Radicati, Ph.D., and utilized an example of a company of 800 users and an average salary of $69 / hour for Messaging Administrators to calculate the figures below.
Again each business is different and these figures represent an average based on the companies utilized for the sample. Your CIO and Finance group should have access to this information, but this model suggests you can reduce your Message Administrator workload by 2/3, which presents a situation where you can require a less skilled Administrator, outsource it to a Cloud Computing Reseller, or focus the Administrator on other activities that are more strategic for the company.

Down-time Impact

Now, let’s talk about stability or system down-time. The latest research from the Radicati Group found that on-premises email averaged 3.8 hours of downtime per month (2.5 are non-planned). Google Apps on the other hand has experienced an average of 7 minutes per user per month. These numbers estimate that Gmail is 32 times more reliable than the average email system, and 46 times more available than Microsoft Exchange®.

The Radicati Group, 2010. “Corporate IT Survey – Messaging & Collaboration, 2010-2011”
As a business manager, this data not only helps you compare which infrastructure gives your employees more headaches, but also put productivity and sales loss in terms of $$s. If we continue on the same example of a company with 800 employees, we can build a scenario to compare them.
This analysis will take a more strict approach and assume that Planned down-time does not affect regular users. From the graph above, we can compare 7 minutes of unplanned down-time for Gmail vs. 150 minutes for Exchange. The following assumptions are based on information collected from US statistics, but again, please consult with your IT, CPA and/or Financial group to plug your company numbers.

• Average Employee Salary: $25,560 / year
• Average Annual Hours / Employee: 2,080
• Total Employees: 800
• Users unproductive when e-mail is down: 50% estimated (400 employees)
• Company Annual Revenue: $2,000,000.00
• Revenue per Employee: $2,000,000 / 800 employees = $2,500
• Unplanned Monthly Email Downtime: 2.5 hours

With this information, you can estimate a productivity & revenue loss as a result of e-mail systems being down at $161,884 / year:

• Annual Productivity Downtime (hours): 400 employees x 2.5 hours x 12 months = 12,000 hours
• Annual Productivity Impact of Downtime: 12,000 hours x $25,560 / 2,080 hours = $147,461
• Annual Revenue Impact of Downtime: 12,000 hours x $2,500 / 2,080 hours = $14,423
• Compared to Google Apps Gmail with a 7 minute / month unplanned down-time, the results are $7,770 / year:
• Annual Productivity Downtime (hours): 400 employees x 0.12 hours x 12 months = 576 hours
• Annual Productivity Impact of Downtime: 576 hours x $25,560 / 2,080 hours = $7,078
• Annual Revenue Impact of Downtime: 576 hours x $2,500 / 2,080 hours = $692
• Net Savings: $154,114

Mobility

It is difficult to place a $$ figure when employees have better mobility tools, but it is clear that without a mobile workforce, companies run the risk of having higher costs. Empowering employees to access their e-mail, data and projects on the go can increase productivity by allowing information to flow faster, decisions made on the spot and quotes sent on-time. Also, when people get sick or need to stay home for urgent reasons, telecommuting becomes indispensable. With traditional infrastructures, there is a need to have a server on-site, install and maintain Virtual Private Networks, monitor firewalls and implement mobile redundancy systems. Most cloud applications and services eliminate the need of such systems and are included in the monthly or yearly fee.

Security

Now, with technology comes the risk of losing information. Nowadays losing information has a higher impact on revenue that losing equipment, and that loss can come from laptops being stolen, hard drives crashing, viruses or hackers. Consider the following statistics from Gartner (http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1862714) to give you a perspective of how real these are:

• 2 million + NBs are stolen every year; only 2% are recovered – FBI, 2008.
• 68% of Security Professionals say laptops pose the biggest security risk.
• 144 laptops were lost by the US FBI in the past 44 months
• Up to 13% of hard drives fail every year – Carnegie Mellon University, 2007
• 50% of computer users have lost or accidentally deleted files from their primary computer. – Chadwick Martin Bailey, 2010
• Companies take 25-56 days on average to apply O/S patches – during this time hackers work on reverse engineering and gaining access

How do these statistics help you compare costs between traditional tools and cloud computing? For one, Cloud Computing solutions eliminates the need to store data on the devices or use it as redundancy, enable mobile device remote wiping in the case of a stolen device, patches are released immediately, and viruses are not spread. For instance, Google keeps the data in a customized operating system to stop viruses on their tracks, and has data redundancy at multiple physical locations… when a system goes down, another one with the same data kicks in. Can your IT Manager say the same thing for your infrastructure? Consult your CIO and CFO and ask them how many computers have been reported lost, how many systems have crashed with unrecoverable data (and the recovered data… how many hours were spent), how much Staff you have on-site to control viruses, run backups and monitor your firewall. When you know the answer, you can plug the numbers to the conclusion below.

Putting It All Together

From the analysis above and excluding productivity gains from mobility or cost avoidance due to data loss, a company with 800 employees and revenue of $2,000,000.00 per year can find savings of $200K per year by transitioning to a cloud solution. Now, this analysis is for illustration purposes as each business is different and utilizes technology in a unique way; therefore a customized calculation would need to be created. Also, please know that this study excluded areas related to software (i.e. Microsoft Office which has a price of $300) and other hidden costs and productivity loss caused by traditional tools. Consider those when estimating your ROI.

We hope this information helps you get a more comprehensive view of Information Technology from a cost perspective.

Read more at Live Connexus