There’s a split-second buffer before the alarm goes off separating sleep from a warbling mob that stands ready to attack my eardrums with clubs and parade cymbals. In this brief moment, a subtle noise emits like clock radio speakers inhaling. But before the alarm can ever finish filling its lungs to capacity, and quite possibly before I’m ever awake, an arm (connected to my body) penetrates the darkness and depresses the snooze bar with the precision of a laser guided boney missile. After that daily phenomena, my mind wakes up to thoughts of websites dancing with search engine spiders as I roll out and get ready for another day. (more…)

Email SPAM drives me crazy. How about you? How many times have you missed an important message because it was hidden among all kinds of SPAM messages? How many minutes do you spend each morning sifting through the good, the bad and the ugly? The answer: too many!

Well, I wish I could offer a way to completely block out all SPAM and only SPAM from your inbox forever… but nothing is ever that easy, is it? What I CAN offer, though, are a few great tips for helping to reduce the amount of SPAM you do receive.

First and foremost, never put your email on your site for all to see without encoding it! Many people mistakingly think that if they put something like “Email us here” and simply link mailto:address@domain.com, then they are safe. But not so, my friends! This is actually begging for SPAM! It takes a couple of seconds to wrap your email address in some javascript to prevent unwanted SPAM spiders from snatching it up for their own evil devices. It just makes sense. Best of all, it will still show up perfectly normal for all your site viewers – no one would know the difference! (more…)

With the beginning of a new year, we all tend to feel a sense of renewal. There’s something about being given a chance to do better, to accomplish something more, or to just put a rough period of time behind us. New Year’s Resolutions are the perfect example of how Americans view a new year as a new opportunity.

I think this is a great time to take inventory of your website and what you would like to accomplish in the coming year. (more…)

Okay, so you’ve probably read dozens of articles and countless tips to improve your email newsletter campaigns… but I wanted to highlight 5 slightly unconventional best practices that can help improve the success of your email campaigns. Assuming you are already aware of the basics, here are some ideas for fine tuning.

Change The Subject

Nobody biting? It could be time for a change. If you can’t get them to click, it might not be a problem with your subject line, but the content subject itself!

So you look at the tracking stats for your newsletters after every issue, and the clicks and open rates are consistently low. Take some time to reevaluate your message to better appeal to your target audience.

I just glanced down my inbox for an example of a subject line I would never click on. Found a bunch, but here is one: “You’ll be saying WOW every time with ShamWow” I don’t even have to open it. I know what’s in it. I’m not interested in reading an ad. (more…)