RPX is a social integration plugin for WordPress that allows your readers to sign into your site with their network of choice. If they have a Facebook, Twitter, Google, AOL, etc. account... they can sign into your site and comment. Not only does this plugin help us with the coveted Facebook integration; it adds potentially limitless sign in opportunities for your readers. By default, you can choose 6 different providers to integrate. If you want to upgrade to a paid account you can use 12 or more providers. For us, 6 was plenty.

If you take a look at the sidebar to the right, you'll notice that we've included a nice graphic of the sign in screen that shows you the different accounts you can use to comment. Click it. It will take you to our sign in page and from there you can securely sign into our site with your network of choice. Once signed in, you have full access to everything a "normal" user would including comments and our rating systems. The administrator can even grant your "Facebook account" writing privileges for the blog. It's rather seemless.

If you'd like to go one step further, with the creation of a Facebook page, you can actually import your blog into the page so your readers can view your content on Facebook or your actual website. You'll notice we've done that if you click the "Follow us on Facebook" button in the sidebar.

Social integration improves every day in the world of web technology. As we find new and improved ways to connect your audience, we'll bring them to you, right here, on the blog. Check back regularly for plugin reviews and portfolio updates!

Four Corners Clinic and Contest is an event that takes place each year where Farriers come together, compete, learn and enjoy conversation. The contest has always had applications but this is the first year they've been able to take them digital. We set them up with a great application form and web-based invoicing. Jackie can see exactly what each entrant needs for the contest and then bill them accordingly. The entrant can then view their invoice directly from the website and securely pay it with PayPal or Credit Card through Authorize.net. We also gave them a donations portal via PayPal: it will allow visitors to donate directly to the Farrier Relief Fund without signing up for or participating in the contest.

After hours of site design work and a quick refresh of their logo, the site was ready to go and will continue to serve them for years to come. Jackie is dedicated to getting helpful content on the blog... so if you're a horseshoer, check out FourCornersClinicandContest.com.

Just for this coming month, we'll build or re-build your website so that you can get the recognition you deserve. We'll integrate you with all the social networks and optimize your site for search engines. Don't pay someone $299 for a static site that will cost you more money than it will make. Let us build a website for you so that you can start keeping your content up to date... today!

Well, in those instances, it's pretty likely that the blogs are using Gravatars. Gravatars are "Globally Recognized Avatars" that will work on any website that accepts them. These days, you'll find that most legit sites do. If they don't, you should ask them to... it's great software that takes very little to implement.

How do you set up a Gravatar account? Browse your way over to Gravatar's Website and set up an account. Just give them your email address, upload a picture, and then make sure you're using that email address on your blog of choice when you comment. If you have multiple email addresses you'd like to use, great! They allow for primary and secondary email addresses -- you can even assign a different picture to each. We have all of our email addresses set up so no matter what account we log in with, we're animated.

This is just another way to bring your customers/readers into your community. At wp.website.design, we create communities... not just websites.

It doesn't stop there, our website also allows you to log in and comment using your Facebook account information. You don't have to sign up for "yet another" website in order to participate. Any good designer wants to make the end-user experience easier... they're much more likely to retain traffic if their site is extremely well socially integrated.

The little icons you see in every post allow you to share or bookmark each article depending on the service you'd like to do. You can email it, follow the comments RSS feed, put the article synopsis on your facebook profile, re-tweet it with Twitter, and share it on countless social networks that will connect you to the world. The bookmarks listed on our posts are just the ones we're familiar with... if you don't see something list, we can assuredly integrate with it.

Why wouldn't I want my users to just sign up for my account system so i can keep track of them better? There's really no point. With proper Search Engine Optimization and Analytics, you can keep track of your demographic without making them sign up for your account system. It's really quite annoying to find a site that has no social integration and one who relies strictly on internal accounts. Users are less likely to return if they have to go through additional steps to user your website.

Retain those users, get integrated.

We set them up with P2, a piece of software that allows the administrators to publish directly from the homepage. We also set them up with our Facebook account integration so their commenters don't necessarily need to login via the website, but instead can just use Facebook to get in on the action. It works like this:

Every cool thing that happens during the Apple keynote will be written by the administrators and then automatically pushed to the readers on the homepage without the need to refresh. The commenters will see it immediately and have the ability to add their own thoughts to the update with the comment system. As soon as a commenter is finished with their update, it's automatically pushed to that post's comment section so everyone reading can see it -- without refreshing the page!

This is a relatively new technology that's a great option for families to communicate with each other, offices to hold meetings, and -- in this case -- websites to give their readers up-to-the-minute news and communication. We can't wait to see it in action this coming Wednesday. If you'd like to join in the Apple revelry, the CTA Live party starts at 10am Pacific. We'll see you there!

With the help of Google and other plugins, we can accurately measure who's visiting what page when, repeat visitors, what website they used to get to your site, what terms they searched, and even where they live. Not specific addresses, it's not that big brother-esque. If you're a company in Denver that's not getting any traffic from Denver locations, then we need to look at how we're managing your keywords or your advertising. If you realize that you're getting a lot of traffic from a specific location, then we could pursue advertising in those areas. Maybe we notice that a lot of traffic is coming from a particular site, it may be advantageous to pursue advertising on that site.

The advantages to knowing your reader demographic are remarkable. We make it easy to realize this potential. Just ask.

Everyone and their mother has a Facebook account. I realized the truth to that statement when my mother, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles all added me as a friend on Facebook. I long for the days when it was reserved for college students, when my parents couldn't follow my every move, when high school students couldn't have accounts -- but for web developers, it's actually a good thing.

Since so many people already have a Facebook account, why shouldn't we integrate Facebook logins to our websites so people can quickly and easily have access to our features like commenting? Well, that's what we've been working on. Facebook development is difficult but very rewarding. The ease of use your readers have with that integration alone will make them more willing to come back. We've been working with other developers to improve upon the Facebook integration technologies available. We've tried every plugin out there and realized that there's no easy solution, but we've put in the groundwork and the research to make it the best experience possible for your customers. We've come up with a great combination of plugins and Facebook application development to make the integration as easy as possible.

If you're looking for a great website that gives your customers easy access to your blog, let us know. We'd be happy to develop a solution that will work for you.