Monday will bring a whole range of new features to our Email Sauce editor.

The first thing is a change to a vertical split window and it’s a huge improvement on the old horizontal split. Now you can see most or all of your email as you add content to it.

Other changes include being able to have flexibile repeating sections which mean that making custom designs has become much more interesting as we can now update virtually any design into an HTML newsletter.

The text editor has been streamlined and you can now add alt text to any images.

Watch this video for an overview of the major changes:

Google Plus is the new social media tool released late last week by Google. It’s seen to be a major rival to Facebook and possibly Twitter.

For the moment it’s in ‘beta’ testing stage and it’s hard to get in, even with an invite. I was lucky enough to get in last Friday, just before they shut the door. At first I was slightly skeptical. I mean who really needs yet another site to update, right? But I’ve been slowly seduced by the ‘circles’ concept of being able to easily drag and drop my ‘friends’ into groups. You can censor each post you make quite easily by being able to choose which circles can see or not see your post. I see this as infinitely useful at being able to separate out your business clients and your true friends and even family (sometimes Mum just doesn’t need to hear about your antics!).

But perhaps the most useful feature I’ve found so far is the fact that you can choose to ‘follow’ someone (like on Twitter) without the need for them to give you permission. While this may sound a tad creepy (and I guess it would be if your ex chose to follow you) for high profile people it must be a godsend and for us mere mortals, well we can follow them and not feel like a groupie or stalker.

If you’re wondering how it will help businesses – see this great article by Jay Baer:

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/google-plus/why-google-has-the-hammer-to-make-businesses-use-google-plus/

View the June edition of the From the Sauce newsletter

http://createsend.com/t/r-A1A78B287B3A1CBF

http://mashable.com/2011/06/30/why-people-follow-brands/

This article and accompanying infographic from Mashable talks about why people follow brands on Facebook and Twitter. The stats are from a survey done by a company called Get Satisfaction and one of the the main findings is that many consumers only follow brands online for the perks such as getting access to discounts and special deals.

They also say that current customers will follow a brand that they like.

For those using or planning on using social media for your business it’s food for thought.

http://www.startupsmart.com.au/technology/2011-06-22/distribute.it-cyber-attack-prompts-backup-warning.html

A great website needs your support.

It’s not good enough to build it and expect it to fend for itself. Like a plant your website needs some care and attention for it to grow and flourish. Your initial investment will be wasted if you don’t keep an eye on it.

Read and answer email at least once a day

A good website will have some way of allowing people to contact you with questions. To keep customers happy, plan to answer all email within 24 hours or less. If you don’t answer your email in a timely fashion, your customers are likely to have little difficulty finding one of your competitors on the web.

Keep your site current

Come up with a reason for people to visit and revisit your pages and recommend them to their friends. This could be a series of articles giving tips, a blog about your subject, handy forms and DIY info or anything that will make people bookmark your site to come back later.

Make sure your site is up to date

If you’ve got an ad on your front page for a sale that ended three months ago then chances are that people are going to think that you don’t care about your site and are less likely to trust you. Make sure you take down out-of-date information as well as adding new stuff.

Check your stats – there’s more to it than just how many hits you get

So you’ve got yourself a website. But how do you know how well it is doing? Your web stats will give you information about how many people visit your site. This is a useful starting point but visitor numbers are only the tip of the iceberg. Details of the search keywords and phrases that people are using to find you and information on how long they stay on your site and how they navigate around your site are pure gold and will help you adjust your site to get better results.

1. Make it look professional

People do judge a book by its cover. If your site looks unprofessional then it will make your business look small and unreliable.

2. Make your site easy to navigate

Businesses and consumers today have little time to waste. If they can’t find what they want quickly on your site they’ll move on.

3. Stick to your subject

Don’t try to be all things to all people. It’s tempting to add heaps of extra information or features, just because you can. But that doesn’t make a great website and it can deter people from staying around. Keep your goal in mind and stick to a streamlined, tight website that is clearly focussed on your target subject and market.

4. Tell people how to reach you

Customers want to know who you are and how they can contact after they’ve made a purchase. And they want that information to be easy to find. If it isn’t they may question your honesty or credibility and move on to a competitor’s web site to make their purchase.

5. Don’t be too clever with your design and layout

Jakob’s Law of the Web User Experience states that “users spend most of their time on other websites.”

This means that they form their expectations for your site based on what’s commonly done on most other sites. If you deviate, your site will be harder to use and users will leave.

6. Every graphic on a web page should be necessary

Each graphic or image should relate to the text on that page, to the message being communicated, and to the audience. Don’t fill up a page with unnecessary images, just because you can – less is more!

7. Keep images small and optimised.

Large images annoy people. If it takes too long to download people will click away before they even read what you have to say.

8. Keep your pages short.

If you minimize the scrolling, chances are, your readers will get your message. Keep the important information ‘above the fold” (ie on the top half of the screen). If you do need to convey a lot of information then it’s better to break it up into smaller ‘chunks’ with links to these chunks from a top level page.

9. Use tables of contents (section pages)

According to Jakob Nielsen only 10% of users will scroll beyond the first screen of text. If that first screen has a table of contents viewers will click on the links to the explanatory text. Check out the Sauced Out site www.saucedout.com.au to see how this works in practice. Every top level section is a table of contents.

10. Keep your site current

Come up with a reason for people to visit and revisit your pages and recommend them to their friends. This could be a series of articles giving tips, a blog about your subject, handy forms and DIY info or anything that will make people bookmark your site to come back later.