When we build a website and help promote that site online, some of our goals include increasing traffic, generating leads, and bolstering business. A website that doesn’t help grow a client’s online presence (and ultimately their business) is a website that isn’t living up to its full potential. We like websites that live up to their full potential.

With the emergence of social networking websites over the past few years, we have new (and more) tools in our hands to help our clients succeed. One of our favorite set of resources has been developed by a Nashville-based Internet marketing company, called Raven. The suite of tools offered in Raven range from analytics to SERP tracking to social media management (and measurement), among others. One of the most current tools, the social media management, offers several helpful features for an array of social media outlets, including a “personal manager,” Twitter, Facebook, SocialMention, and KnowEm.

Raven’s social media management does a great job of sync’ing all of these features under one roof and then providing an insightful amount of statistical measurement within each. For example, with their Twitter management tool, we can analyze information, such as post tracking, mentions, friend-to-follower ratio, replies reach and retweet reach. All of these help to measure the overall impact of a business or organization’s Twitter account to determine how successful the account is being handled.

Additionally, Raven offers the ability to run each social media website through its software, thereby giving us what amounts to one-stop shopping. In other words, there’s no need to log into Twitter, then Facebook… we can just log into Raven, make posts or status updates, check the metrics on the previous week and keep moving forward. It’s all pretty nifty.

Keeping a finger on the pulse of the Web is critical to a design, development and online marketing firm, like JLB, as we strategize (in meaningful and practical ways) how to help our clients succeed everywhere they can on the Web.

At the end of July, The New York Times Magazine published a detailed and meaningful look into an array of professional, cultural, ethical and legal consequences of self-publishing on the Web. The article, “The Web Means the End of Forgetting,” written by Jeffrey Rosen, provides a few examples of “real-live people” and the unfortunate consequences in their professional and personal lives, resulting from their Facebook status updates and/or Twitter posts. To sum it up, the article posits the question, will the content we generate online follow us the rest of our lives?

It’s a fascinating question, and one with which no previous generations have had to reckon. In the workaday world, “societal forgetting” has its place… over time we tend to get a little fuzzy on the “in person” social missteps of our neighbors. But in the digital world, social missteps, like ill-conceived photo posts, are chronicled and archived, ready to be remembered and rediscovered. What if you and your 250 closest friends could see all of your 60-year-old Mom’s less-than-flattering high school party pics with the tap of a few keystrokes?

Enter companies like ReputationDefender, who, according to the Times “will monitor your online reputation, contacting Web sites individually and asking them to take down offending items. In addition, with the help of the kind of search-optimization technology that businesses use to raise their Google profiles, ReputationDefender can bombard the Web with positive or neutral information about its customers, either creating new Web pages or by multiplying links to existing ones to ensure they show up at the top of any Google search.”

We all know (or we should) that prospective schools and employers will use the Web to learn as much about their candidates as possible. Facebook has been the downfall of many an aspiring college grad in the past few years. But are companies like ReputationDefender the right solution, or do they just fight fire with fire?

It remains to be seen where this goes. According to the Times, “Google not long ago decided to render all search queries anonymous after nine months (by deleting part of each Internet protocol address), and the upstart search engine Cuil has announced that it won’t keep any personally identifiable information at all, a privacy feature that distinguishes it from Google.”

Stay tuned. This issue is likely to grow more meaningful (and divisive?) the older we get. Sound advice? Think before you tweet.

Many web hosts will allow customers to use a shared SSL certificate for free. This sounds like a great idea, and for some it really is all that is needed. However, for a small fee, you can purchase your own dedicated or private certificate. So, what’s the difference?

1. The URL changes when using a shared certificate, but stays the same with a private certificate
   • Dedicated SSL will use your own URL in the address bar: https://www.yoursite.com
   • Shared SSL will use some version of the host machine information: https://darthvader.snhdns.com/~yoursite.
2. A shared certificate can cause a warning to pop up to users on some browsers since the certificate is owned by the host and not the web site owner. This doesn’t mean the certificate isn’t working, but it may cause concern with some customers. You are the owner of a dedicated SSL.
3. With a dedicated SSL, you can choose the level of security for your web site. With a shared SSL you inherit the security settings set by the host.
4. Some out of the box shopping carts require a dedicated SSL. For some reason, some carts just don’t know how to deal with the URL differences in a shared certificate, forcing the issue of purchasing a dedicated certificate.

Shared and dedicated SSL certificates both provide security for your web site. They both use the same encryption methods to transfer data over the web. They both make that little lock show up on the browser letting you and your customers know the information is safe. The decision is yours.  Take a look at your needs, the size of your store, your typical user and your budget for the site.  It all comes down to user experience and dollars and cents.

Whiteboard by Brian Purkiss is a light framework with a very minimal CSS reset.  It includes all the necessary page templates (index, page, single, sidebar, search, 404, etc) and has no styling whatsoever, which makes it my go-to framework when designing a new theme.

Starkers by Elliot Jay Stocks is another great option.  It uses a YUI-based CSS reset and like Whiteboard, contains no out-of-the-box styling.  Starkers includes a few more page templates, which is great for very meticulous themes, but can be a bit bloated for very simple themes.

Both Whiteboard and Starkers are both great places to start a Wordpress theme, although I typically use Whiteboard for it’s extremely basic structure.  Either way, you can’t go wrong and creating a theme will only be made that much easier.

Events & Weddings Costa Rica, is a company focused on creating unique, customized wedding and honeymoon experiences in one of the most beautiful countries in the Western Hemisphere. Recently, Samantha Kohn, owner of ECR, approached JLB and asked us to create a clean, professional graphic design in an easy-to-manage content management system. (We’ve known Samantha for a few years now, having helped optimize a previous iteration of her website with very successful results.)

The result of our endeavors? A pretty little website with a tad more than 60 pages of content (yes — we even helped Samantha import all of the existing content from her previous website), engineered on a very robust CMS (thank you, WordPress) with a slideshow tool and an easy-to-update News section, where Samantha can feature various weddings that she’s planned. The best part? All of her content is even better situated for Search Engine Spiders (read: even stronger SEO than before).

Wanna get away? Check out the new site…

The FHA assists low-income families by providing safe and affordable housing, operating 297 public housing units and serving nearly 700 residents. It has played a vital role in the community since 1953. Now the organization is poised to renovate and update its facilities, having received initial support from aldermen and the city planning commission for a 10,000-square-foot maintenance/office facility (valued at $1.2 million), along with a separate, three-story senior living center (valued at $4 million).

Hired to work on the project in conjunction with Alday Communications, Team JLB set about the tasks of designing an updated logo for the 56-year-old organization. Along with logo development, we created new identity materials including letterhead and business cards. Upon approval by the board, we created a new website design and accompanying website development. Now the FHA has a robust Content Management System (CMS) with which it can update its site regularly and keep its current (and prospective) residents informed on timely issues.

FHA has launched its new identity and website this month. Construction of the maintenance/office facility is expected to be completed this fall. JLB is proud to support and promote one of this area’s most valued and needed public assets.

Jokes aside, email marketing templates can be a downright pain. Unless you’re unlucky enough to have all 72 email clients, you never know exactly what the recipients will see and it really is a guessing game as to which clients support which CSS properties.

Fortunately, the team over at Campaign Monitor (sorry, Emma!) has comprised a wonderful chart that outlines supported CSS properties by email client. While it doesn’t make the job any more fun or glamorous, this chart definitely makes the guess-work of coding email marketing templates a little bit easier.

Check it.

Last Monday we ventured out of the Franklin city limits and celebrated yours truly at Country Boy Restaurant in Leiper’s Fork. This quaint little place on the side of Old Hillsboro did not disappoint. Everything from the sweet tea to the fried pie (with ice cream) was mighty tasty! I enjoyed my first hot brown and it was delicious, right down to the tomato.

If you’re ever in the area and want some good country cookin’, be sure to check it out!

One look at Phillip L. Walker’s portfolio reveals quality, depth and paramount professionalism. Walker is a planning expert with more than 20 years of experience in the public and private sectors and has worked on a wide range of planning projects, including downtown and neighborhood revitalization, historic preservation, comprehensive planning, zoning, development design standards, and community visioning.

Walker, who has three degrees (including a Master’s from Harvard), has helped towns like Manassas, Va., Pinehurst, N.C., Lookout Mountain, Ga., and Forest Hills, Tn., to name a few. He has an acuity for detail matched with the ability to visualize, clearly, the big picture. When he approached Team JLB seeking a new website, we knew we were in for a challenge. Not only would the site have to be clean and professional, but it would have to adhere to a high-level of design and content consistency throughout.

Nearly 55 pages and more than 300 portfolio images later, Team JLB has designed and engineered a site (guided closely by Mr. Walker, of course) in a manner that is accessible, visually appealing and easy-to-navigate. While it’s a nearly impossible task to portray online the depth of Mr. Walker’s expertise, we hope that this new site approximates at least a certain level of the top-notch work that is The Walker Collaborative.

So what’s the big deal about a throwback venue an hour away from Nashville in small-town Mt. Pleasant? The food is on par with the finest restaurants in a 100-mile radius. To say it’s worth the drive is an understatement. Coupled with excellent service, a top-level marketing team (hello! The Andrews Agency), a smart and tireless leader (Tim Porter), and a strong desire to put its mark on the map, Mt. Pleasant Grille is a happenin’ place.

For all of the above, JLB is proud to have been added to the Mt. Pleasant Grille promotions team (thank you, Mr. Jim Barrier). So far, we’ve re-designed the restaurant’s website (complete with audio, image slideshow, and a flexible content management system), helped guide a full-force graphic design campaign (business cards, letterhead, envelopes, mailers, menus, coupons, and print ads), and we’ve even begun the identity development (read “initial branding” steps) for two ancillary businesses in Mt. Pleasant.

If you haven’t ever been to Mt. Pleasant, it’s a fun jaunt. And the Grille makes it more than worth your time. Take a friend, or two… they’ll thank you (and so will your tummy!).