Email Testing tools

A week or so ago I was looking for an email testing service that would take an email campaign and send me back screenshots of the email in different email clients (Outlook, Mail, Lotus Notes, etc). I found several and thought I would share.

Here’s my list so far, ranked best to worst:

1. Litmus (http://litmusapp.com/email-testing) Cost: Free to $199/mo.
2. Campaign Monitor (http://www.campaignmonitor.com/testing) Cost: $5 a test
3. MailChimp (http://www.mailchimp.com/add-ons/inboxinspector) Cost: $29 for 3 tests
4. LyrisHQ (http://www.lyris.com/solutions/lyris-hq/email-delivery/inbox-snapshot) Cost: $299/mo.

If I missed any or my information is no longer correct, please leave a comment.

Designing for SEO

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you are considering a new website or redesign of your current site? Most likely, an image of the site’s design is etched into your brain. You have ideas of what it will look like, how visitors will interact with your brand, and how you will be able to increase your sales or leads through the site. That’s great, and designers will be grateful that you know what you want, but be prepared to give a little if you want to achieve the highest level of traffic and results.

Any designer worth his salt will consider how effectively the design will be able to be Search Engine Optimized. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the likelihood that search engines, like Google, and those using search engines will be able to find your website when searching for targeted keywords. Let’s call it marketing for your website. After all, your website IS meant to be part of your marketing strategy. It’s no good to have the most glorious website in the industry if no one is able to find it through search engines. And unless you are an industry leader or you do not care about organic results, you NEED people to find your website through search engines.

As an example, Flash animation is a great way to add some “pizzazz” to your site, but at what expense? Yes, Flash can still be used in a SEO friendly manner and Google will index it if programmed correctly. But a site programmed completely in Flash is going to be more difficult to increase the rank of than a site that has HTML content for search engines to find. Your site will look great and you will receive compliments from the 3 people a month that are able to find it. Is that really what you want? Again, if everyone knows you, feel free to Flash it up, they’re coming anyway. But, if you are begging to be found, use Flash in moderation.

So before you start your next web project, make sure you ask the developer how they intend to take your message to the masses. The internet has enabled marketers to advertise their goods and services in more targeted ways than ever before. You do not really need to search for new customers. Build it right and they will come. Build it wrong, and you’ll be awfully lonely playing with all those neat Flash features.

Oh and by the way, the photo really has no relevance to this post, I just thought it looked cool.

“The client is always right” said the client.

Imagine a man goes to the hospital with a stomach ache, and informs the doctors, “I have appendicitis, skip the CT scan, and prep for Laparoscopic Surgery.”

Silly right? In the same respect (although not as life-threatening), when a client (let’s say an electric company owner) demands certain aspects of his website be built his way based on personal opinion or emotion, he is telling the developer that his own knowledge, training, and experience as an electrician is more extensive in the web industry and supersedes that of the web developer.

The patient needs the doctor in order to live, and the doctors need to understand the patient and his problems in order to know what techniques to apply.

So the next time you find yourself thinking “the client is always right”, consider the patient and where he would be if he had said something like that.

Let’s be clear, I am not saying your opinion doesn’t matter, it does. Without your insight into your own business your developer has nothing to go off of. But you did hire that experienced web firm to help you mix your vision with some industry experience and ingenuity, and create you the best website for your users. You did want a website that was best for your users, not you, right?