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Is Your Email Signature Annoying?

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Let’s take a moment and discuss your email signature. According to Radicati.com, a Technology Market Research Firm, over 205 billion emails are sent and received each day. That’s a lotta email! An often over looked part of your email is your signature.

How long should it be? How short should it be? What should it include? How should it look? For the most part, it’s a personal decision. But, it is something you need to think about.

Here are a few tips to consider when creating your email signature:

  1. Don’t include every social link you have!
    Sure you have a profile on Facebook, and Twitter, and G+ and LinkedIn and every other social platform out there. But do you need to link to all of them? No! Choose one or two and leave it at that. If you aren’t actively posting on G+, don’t link it.
  2. Don’t include a ton of images!
    Did you know some email systems don’t show images by default? All text signatures are great and will always display, but I agree that they get boring. Don’t be afraid to spice it up a little, but don’t over do it. And, definitely don’t make your entire signature an image. Make sure your signature looks nice without images first, then use them to accent.
  3. Don’t include every form of contact ever!
    There is no need to include your email address! Yes, I have seen it. Maybe it’s just me, but the email is coming from your email address, why do you feel the need to include it in your signature? If you’re up for a phone call, include your number. If you like Skype, put it in there. But please, oh please, don’t list your email, home address, work address, every website you own, home phone, cell phone, work phone, Skype, AOL, MSN, Fac, and everything else under the sun.
  4. Don’t use a ton of different colors!
    Stick to one, two, maybe three colors, but your signature shouldn’t look like a package of skittles spilled in my inbox. The main point of the email is the message, not the signature. Too many colors means distraction.
  5. Shorter is better!
    Yep, keep it short and sweet. Your signature shouldn’t be four times the size of your email message. A shorter signature will also display nicely on a mobile platform and won’t take up so much data to download.

Take a few minutes and configure your phone’s email signature as well. Keep in mind that many emails are read on phones and on the go. For this reason alone, a shorter email signature overall is a great idea.

What do you think? What do YOU include in your email sig?

 

Add Your Domain Email to Gmail

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For the most part, I love my Google Products. Gmail is one of my favorite email providers. Did you know you can use Gmail to handle your domain email? You can have it land right in your Gmail inbox and reply using your domain email as well. All of instanticity.com email goes through my gmail box. Gmail allows you to have up to 5 POP email accounts. Setting up your domain email as a POP box is easy, just follow the steps below:

Go to your Settings and click on Accounts and Import and then look for Add a POP3 mail account you own.

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The pop up window will take you through a series of steps. The default settings will usually be just fine. First you’ll type in the email address you want to add you@yourdomain.com. In the next window, the user name will probably be just the you part, add the @yourdomain.com to that, most servers will require the full email address. You’ll also need to add your password. The rest of the settings here should work just fine. You can opt to label the incoming mail if you want so it stands out in your inbox.

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Now, your account has been added so that your emails will go to your Gmail inbox. The next few steps will allow you to send mail from your Gmail so it appears to come from your domain email. You won’t need to do anything except hit Next Step here and on the next screen. I do keep mine checked for Treat as Alias, you can read up on that and choose the setting that best suits you.

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For SMTP server, listen to Google and just use Gmail. Click Next Step and then tell Google to send you the Verification. At this point, you’ll need to log in to your domain email account and get the code.

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Pop the code in, click Verify and you are almost done.

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One last step, back on the Settings -> Accounts and Imports page, look in the third section that says Send mail as: and click the radio option to “Reply from the same address the message was sent to”

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Remember, you can add up to 5 email addresses here. I have a live.com and a few domain emails going into my Gmail box. If you ever want to remove them, just go back to the settings page and click on delete.

You can still get Google Apps for free

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In case you missed it, Google has removed the free version of Google Apps for small businesses. I am a big lover of Google Apps so I’m a bit sad about this, but I’m glad I got it implemented for a few of my sites when I did.

Without this little tip I found, you are left with Google Apps for Business at $50/user per year. While that includes 24/7 phone support, 25GB inbox and a 99.9% uptime guarantee, that’s a little high for my kind of small business.

Hongkiat.com has discovered a way to enable Google Apps for one user. Not ideal, but a nice compromise over $50/year! I’ve not tested this process, but it might be a nice workaround for a very small business.

Follow the steps here and let me know if it works for you!

Email sig tagged as Spam?!

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Thanks Michelle! I never would have thought of this little issue.
The links and/or words used in your sig line might be sending your emails straight to the recipient’s spam box or not received at all. Link shortners, like bit.ly for instance, could be seen as bad and away your email goes. Even using certain wording like “make money” or “work from home” could trip the trigger.

Take some time to read Michelle’s post, When Good Siggys Go Bad & Get You Tagged as Spam, and then check, not only your sig, but also your domain to be sure you haven’t been blacklisted as a spammer.