Too much spam in your inbox? We have a new solution to beef up your spam protection within the server. Advanced spam protection is now available for $120/year per domain name. This fee will cover every email address on your domain, adding a new layer of protection to keep annoying spam out of your inbox. 

We’ve implemented this feature for our Wright Strategies email addresses, and the difference is night and day. Contact us at 512.480.8566 or info@wrightstrategies.com if you have questions or want to set up advanced spam protection today.

As web developers, we spend a lot of time helping our clients figure out what’s most important so we can put it above the fold (meaning viewable on an “average” configuration without scrolling). This is incredibly important, since people spend about 80% of their time looking at information above the fold.

But horizontal placement is also important. According to user interface expert Jakob Nielson’s research, Web users spend 69% of their time viewing the left half of the page and 30% viewing the right half. This is good to know when designing a website, since it makes a more conventional layout more profitable.

Here are some things to consider:

• Keep navigation all the way to the left. This is where people look to find a list of current options.
• Keep the main content a bit further in from the left.
• The most important stuff should be showcased between one-third and halfway across the page. This is where users focus their attention the most.
• Keep secondary content to the right. It won't be seen as much here, but that's okay — not everything can get top billing, and you need a place to put less-important material. 

Of course, rules are made to be broken, but if you know the rules, you will have a better shot at a profitable website.

We’re proud to announce the launch of a new suite of software called Saffire, developed by Wright Strategies. Saffire is the first proven, flexible alternative to restrictive off-the-shelf website products.

We’ve been on both sides of a website: we’ve developed them and we’ve managed them. So, we know how important it is to have a beautiful website that also functions properly and efficiently. Saffire combines the best of both worlds: it gives clients a custom website design, paired with a standard set of proven, successful functionality.

Saffire has options for promoting events, selling online and creating mobile sites. Each of our offerings, Saffire Event, Saffire Product and Saffire Mobile, comes equipped with the standard functionality a site needs to be successful, along with the option to add customized modules. Behind the scenes, Saffire provides easy content management, friendly reporting and guaranteed 24/7 technical support.

You can see Saffire in action on one of our latest launches: Rodeo Austin, www.rodeoaustin.com. Implementing the Saffire Event software has cemented Rodeo Austin’s status as the technological leader in the fair and rodeo industry. Not only does the site have a fully-integrated shopping process for streamlined purchasing, it also boasts a new event interface that has generated new buzz excitement among visitors. Now, customers can slice and dice events, build their own event schedules and share events via Facebook, Twitter and rodeo e-cards.

Want to learn more? You can get all of the details about Saffire for events, ecommerce and mobile sites on our website: www.wrightstrategies.com/saffire.aspx.

And if you want to take our demo for a spin, click here. We’ll even give you a tour of the behind-the-scenes features!

A few months ago, I wrote about Twitter and how surprised I was at how much I use it. Now the craziest thing has happened. Not only do I Twitter more, but I find myself using Facebook less. Why? I had to do some soul searching. After all, just about everyone I know is on Facebook, and most of the people I follow on Twitter are strangers. I realized when it comes right down to it, the people I follow on Twitter try harder.

It came to me when I was talking to someone on the Wright Strategies team. He mentioned not logging into Twitter lately, so he didn’t know what good parking spaces anyone had gotten lately. I responded that it’s actually Facebook where people report their proverbial parking space dilemmas.

On Twitter, there is no reciprocal “friendship” relationship, so you can follow or be followed by people other than your friends. This makes people try harder to be entertaining and informative. People I don’t know write about things I am interested in – travel, cooking, Austin, etc. Some people on Facebook I haven’t talked to in 20 years write about getting the sniffles.

This brings me to another point about why I don’t use Facebook more. I use both Twitter and Facebook almost exclusively on my iPhone. While Facebook has an iPhone application, it doesn’t carry over my “hide” settings from the browser version. In my opinion, Facebook is missing out on one of the key best practices on the Internet – relevance.

Maybe I do care if someone I am in frequent contact with has the sniffles or is tired, but for someone from high school that I barely remember, this is Too Much Information! Shame on you, Facebook, for not respecting my desktop “hide” settings. I’ll be interested to see if I use Facebook more once this is fixed.

For now, I’ll continue my dates via iPhone with Twitter. Maybe I’ll even add to the conversation more often. But either way, I’ll enjoy the relevant and entertaining information I find there.

The year was 2008 (ages ago in Web years), and at SXSW Interactive conference, everyone was atwitter over Twitter. We really didn’t get it yet, but we somehow knew it would be big. (After all, SXSW was also the first time we ever heard of a blog, saw a Flip video camera, etc.) We just didn’t know how big it would be.

Our team implemented a three-day mandatory Twitter obsession. In those days, we didn’t know anyone else on Twitter, so we pretty much only followed each other. I remember there was a memorable exchange between two team members in the same hotel room tweeting back and forth about passing the remote control and other equally interesting topics for public consumption. Fast forward to 2009.

Even though I knew it was coming, I can’t believe how widespread it is. And I’ve found it has completely changed my iPhone usage over the last few months. I used to spend much of my time reading news on iGoogle (or playing Solitaire - curses to that time waster!), now I Twitter. I admit I don’t add often to the conversation, but I certainly enjoy reading it, usually when I’m up at 3 am.

Who do I follow?

• I get my news on Twitter. Every day, I see what’s in the Statesman (@statesman) before even removing the wrapper. I also follow CNN (@cnnbrk) and NPR for news (@nprnews).
• I follow several technical resources – my favorites are @mashable and @smashingmag.
• I follow funny people – the funniest is a CNN producer named Jack Gray (@jackgraycnn), but also @hotdogsladies, @dooce and others.
• I follow Ryan Seacrest (@ryanseacrest) and several American Idol participants(@mradamlambert, @redallisonblack, @krisallenmusic). Guilty pleasure defined. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I found out about several recent news stories from Seacrest.
• I follow people that have info about Austin - @austinchronicle, @lifeinaustin and @austin360.
• I follow several recipe bloggers, including @amateurgourmet and @smittenkitten.
• I even followed an astronaut who was recently sharing updates from space - fascinating (@astro_mike).

How do I follow them?

I almost exclusively participate on my iPhone, using either Twitterfon or Twitterific.

Why do I love Twitter?

Because it’s customized info exactly for me. Who else is interested in geek stuff, recipes, Idol and Austin? Twitter is akin to iGoogle, except in more digestible chunks. And for me, it’s done for my web surfing what Tivo did for my TV watching. I do much less channel surfing, but only record the exact things I want to watch. And I spend much less time web surfing, because enough of what I’m interested in comes to me via Twitter.

Why don’t I Twitter more?

It’s a question of target audience. My personal followers (@teambuilder99 – an obscure reference to a show on HBO – funny when I knew only 5 people on Twitter) wouldn’t be interested in all the geek stuff I watch. But my clients and other industry friends might not want to know every detail about my adorable son Hudson. You get the idea.

So today, I’m starting a new Twitter account, only for news related to the Internet. If you’re interested, please follow @clickbits.

I look forward to seeing you on Twitter!

We’re often asked by potential clients about recommendations for off-the-shelf ecommerce solutions. Our answer is always the same: we don’t recommend any of them.

When we started building websites, we did implement some of these solutions, but they never worked out. This is the plight faced by many web developers who would love to implement less expensive solutions for their customers if they could. Recently, we talked with another developer who described some of the issues he’s experienced when using a packaged shopping cart: they are difficult to maintain, customers experience inventory problems and Google integration isn’t possible.

While off-the-shelf solutions may be quicker to get up and running and seem cheaper in the short term, the costs add up quickly. Not only are there financial costs, like hidden fees and other ongoing expenses, but most carts do not integrate 100% with the look and feel of your website. This results in confusion for the customer and increased risk of loss of sales. Encountering these unforeseen issues and realizing additional needs, most users outgrow their packaged carts and eventually move on to custom solutions, meaning completely throwing away the money they have spent.

When we build a custom ecommerce website, we start by helping you spec out exactly what is needed. We’ve done it so many times, and have even been on the customer side of running an ecommerce site, so we know what features will make your endeavor successful. Building a custom ecommerce solution means that there are no limits on what can be done. We love having the chance to implement the latest ecommerce trends on our sites, which you can read more about here. We provide support for any problems you may have, and build our sites using ASP.net, a ubiquitous programming language so that you can work with a wide choice of developers in the future.   

Please feel free to contact us with any questions regarding custom ecommerce solutions.

A client asked me about recommendations for email marketing yesterday, and I could have talked for days. Those who have worked with Wright Strategies know that I feel email marketing has been the #1 success factor for our clients, sometimes even above the website itself.

If you haven’t been emailing your customers, especially in this economy, I encourage you to do so. And if you have, consider upping the ante on your email efforts. Here are some ideas to consider:

• Create an email calendar, and track your results diligently. Learn from what works, and do more of it!
  
• Don’t just track opened and clicked emails; watch your Google Analytics (or whatever tracking software you use) to track conversions, revenue and more.
• Resend email to recipients to those who haven’t opened your email after 3 days.
• Send a special message to people who clicked within your email.
• Try A/B testing – try out a couple subject lines (or other elements) on a small percentage of your audience, and send the one with the best results.
• Don’t forget your landing page! The webpage that emails link to can make a huge difference to your results. Wright Strategies can help you with multivariate testing, to find the landing page that will yield the best results.

Have you noticed? The advent of Facebook and other social networking sites has created a whole new brand of etiquette dilemmas. I was out with the WS team the other night, and it turned out we’d all experienced these new social situations (most of them a bit junior high in nature).

• Someone I know befriended a good girlfriend of mine. I’m on her profile picture, so he knows I’m on Facebook, but he didn’t “friend” me. Do I assume he doesn’t want to be friends? Do I “friend” him?
• Tagging photos is a popular Facebook feature. What if someone tags everyone in the photo except you? Being tagged in photos “boosts” your profile, so could someone be sabotaging you by leaving you out?
• More seriously, someone I know was inadvertently “outted” on his Facebook wall. With family not in on his secret, this was extremely traumatic!
• What about someone you met once at a party (whom you never expect to see again) “friending” you? Shouldn’t there be a statute of limitation on Facebook Friendship? Even creepier is someone you’ve never met who “friends” you.
• Some applications have a mind of their own. After simply opening an application, a WS team member realized that notifications had been sent to many of her contacts saying she had selected them as her most attractive friends. Friends that received this included a co-worker, former boss and a priest, but not her husband!
• My favorite kind of faux pas has to do with a Facebook application called Pokey, in which you have to feed your virtual dog to keep it healthy. A team member was asked to feed someone’s virtual dog while they were out of town. Isn’t that crossing some kind of line?

Have you witnessed a Facebook faux pas that we haven’t mentioned? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

The idea of developing a website is often overwhelming for our clients. The good news is that we’ve ironed out a process that works really well for both us and for our clients.

It all comes down to completing one part of the project before starting the next. It sounds simple, but here’s what it looks like in action.

1. The first step to making it a pain-free process is in the proposal. We do our homework on competitors to gauge how high the bar is and to confirm we’re on the right track with our recommendations. Being specific with examples and ideas in the proposal helps us avoid any he said/she said later.
2. Once the proposal is approved, we build a timeline. I hear so many horror stories from clients about their web development firms overpromising and under-delivering. I think it all stems from not doing a correct specification and from not having a proper timeline.
3. Next, we have a kickoff meeting, usually by phone since we work with clients all over the world. The whole Wright Strategies gang attends to hear your hopes and dreams for your website “straight from the horse’s mouth.”
4. Then we get down to business. We write a content document that will include every word on your website and design and finalize a homepage.
5. Once we have content and a basic design, the rest is generally smooth sailing. We design another key page (or pages) from your website so you can get a feel for how your website will look.
6. Finally, we have a little break while the programming team gets busy making it all tick. We do internal testing, release it to you for testing and then launch!

It is a lot of steps, but they are almost the same for every project. And after doing this for 13 years, we’ve found that this is the most efficient way to build you a fabulous website.

Today we're finishing our series on keys to a higher Google ranking with the following three tips: 

Send Press Releases
If you think about it, releasing a press release online is genius. It is exactly what you want to say, on someone else’s site, linking back to you! The secret to press releases working for you is to do them frequently and make sure they include your target keywords. Send them out over Internet PR wires, which are cheaper than PR newswire for less important releases. If your management sees PR as primarily offline (print), retrain them! People under thirty aren’t reading your print article.

Share with Blogs
The popularity of blogging has given rise to a whole new form of PR. Go find people who are blogging about relevant topics, and include them on your releases. Because bloggers tend to be informal, sometimes just giving them a “sneak peek” a day or two ahead of your consumer email is spot on. Again, frequency, relevancy and relationship building are key.

Make a Video
There is a new-ish video camera called The Flip (www.theflip.com) that some are calling the iPod for video. It’s simple to use, and I think it will help continue the revolution of video on the web. More and more, Google will integrate video into its results. So you’ll want to rank high on videos too. Just make sure they are properly tagged with keywords, for optimal ranking. Consider putting up a tagged “trailer” on YouTube, which links to the video on your site.