According to Google’s official blog, the new search indexing system was built because of the way the web is growing. With the advent of videos, images, news and real-time updates as well as higher user expectations, it has to keep up with such evolution of the web.

While the old index had several layers, of which the main layer or web Google needs to analyze every couple of weeks, Caffeine analyzes the web in smaller portions, updates its search index on a continuous basis, globally and also index web pages on an enormous scale. Hence, fresher information will be available to the public, and much faster too.

Mashable did a test on the new Google Caffeine, taking the developer version and comparing it to not only the current version of Google, but also to Bing as well. While the test was not scientifically correct, it found that the new Google was indeed faster, relies more on keyword strings to produce better results, and it is on par with Bing to get real-time information on breaking events.

Having said these, how is Google Caffeine going to affect your website rankings? Mainly, the speed at which Google will be able to update rankings due to website changes will be much faster. You or your SEO consultant will need to make sure that your website’s design is clean-cut, has no broken links, no spam elements or invisible text in the background, and the navigation from one page to another is well organized. You must also review the social bookmarks in your website. The more bookmark links you have to and from trusted websites, the better it is for your website. Lastly, sites with fresher content or updated news every day will be ranked much higher. This still holds true for Caffeine, as it does with the old Google index.

Overall, Google Caffeine is not going to have a huge effect on how you conduct your SEO, although it varies from site to site. Definitely, Caffeine will only get better as more updated features are developed, and while we wait to see that happen, just continue to do what you have always been doing for your website, and more aggressively – link building and content organizing – and the result will be a better experience for your users.

Meanwhile, if you want to know in detail how the old Google index works, here is a graphical representation, thanks to ppcblog.

1. The first Glance
Visitors to your website usually look at the top left hand corner of any website. Therefore, it is important to put your essential information there, such as your offers and promotions, and how your customers can benefit. Some visitors are at your website only for a little while, and it is vital to engage them as long as possible, or better still, engage them until they are ready to make a purchase. You should be able to let your visitors know what you are selling or offering for services right away, instead of having them search for it. Be mindful of how long your site takes to load too. It might just annoy some visitors who are inpatient.

2. Navigation
If your customers are looking for more information, they will loiter longer on your website to search for it. In this case, make sure that your information are easy to find. Place your information in the usual places, and make it very obvious what your visitors need to click on in order to find what they need. Never have more than 5 choices in your main navigation. Although creativity is a plus, follow the rules strictly when it comes to navigation and usability.

3. Contact Information
Will your customers, or rather, the search engines such as Yahoo or Google be able to find you when they need you? You must put your contact information very clearly and accurately so that they can be easily found. Usually, visitors will visit your website a few times before they decide to purchase, and when they do, make sure it is easy for them to contact you. It should be easy for them to complete an order through your website or get more information. Include a clear call to action.

4. Above the Fold Focus
Most of the time, your visitors will not bother to scroll down your page, unless you have already convinced them, in your first few lines, that it’s worth their while to do so. Hence, make sure your most vital information and propositions are above the fold. Visitors who have reached your FAQs page or your blog will be interested enough to continue to read what they have found.

5. Inviting Content
Give your visitors something they can look forward to every time they visit your website, and this means updating your website frequently. You need to give them something of value so that they will return, and this can be a blog, your latest events, or your new products or services.

6. Well-Organized Pages
Make sure that your page layout is clear, concise, and is able to give your visitors exactly what they want without them having to search for it. Visualise yourself as the customer, and try navigating your own website. Decide what you want the customer to know, and plan before you write, so that you can be sure  of coherent paragraphs.

7. Visual Appeal
While content is very important, so is an attractive website. Research on the colours that will work well for your target audience, and remember to leave some open space so that your site does not look too cluttered. Engage a professional website designer if you can afford because it is worth it.

8. Portraying Sincerity and Trustworthiness
People usually buy when they trust the supplier, and if you can ensure that your website is trustworthy, people will be more likely to buy from you. The search engines also base your web rankings on how trustworthy they think your pages are, so it is important to take this into consideration when you build your website.

9. Social Media Functions
Social media such as Facebook, DIGG and de.li.cious are getting more and more popular, and you may want to be sure each page on your website has a button that enables your visitors to share it with their friends easily. This will help you promote your products and services.

10. A Polished Finish
Finally, before you promote your website, make sure all your information are correct, and all your links are working. Check your spelling, layout, and grammar, in different browsers like Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, the three most popular browsers nowadays. Visitors will have more faith in you if you have an error-free and up-to-date website.

We have reviewed Facebook in detail, and the following are some ways that it could make your business experience better sales and profits.

1. Facebook Pages
Facebook Pages give businesses their own profiles on the social networking site, giving your business or brand an identity on Facebook. With such a Page, interested fans or customers can become “fans” of your business or brand Page, and when they do, all their friends will see this and perhaps become interested too. You are able to store photos, videos, company information, and also custom applications on your Page. All the activities which you post on your Page will be posted to your mini feed for all your friends to see.

2. Groups
Groups on Facebook are similar to Pages, but these are meant to be built around a group of people rather than an individual business or brand. There are no “Become a Fan” feature here, and groups do not share as much information with the users’ friends as users interact.

Many groups on Facebook can provide useful information and professional connections for your business. Each group features a Wall (like a guestbook with messages) and threaded discussion lists. Rather than trying to search for groups, watch the groups that your friends are joining, and if you find them interesting for your business, join them!

3. Advertising
Facebook has an advertising platform that enables businesses to specify a particular demographic group to target for their products and services, and then broadcast their advertisements to this particular group. You can also choose to narrow your target audience by age, sex, gender, the groups or fan Pages they join, or even specific keywords.

4. Applications
You can ask your developers to write software for the Applications in Facebook. This can help promote your business on Facebook. Applications give you full power to say or promote anything you want about your business, and use the social tie-ins provided by Facebook to do this. For example, Visa created the “Visa Business Network” application which extracts information about users and allows them to better network with other small business owners. They even integrated with Facebook advertising by offering those that install the application a credit towards advertising on Facebook.

On a personal level, if you blog, twitter, or read feeds, there are Facebook apps available for all these services. If you have already used these tools professionally, you can integrate them into your Facebook page.

After you add the respective app, you simply do what you were already doing and let the app do the work. You can see the Twitter updates from your Facebook contacts without necessarily following their updates in Twitter itself. If your business’ blog is on WordPress, you can add the WordPress app and your posts will automatically be pushed to your Facebook profile, along with recent comments. If you don’t host your blog with WordPress.com, you can easily use the built-in Notes application to post your blog feed as you publish. It will let your contacts know through your mini-feed when you have posted a new entry.

5. Polls
Facebook Polls are excellent for marketers looking to get a quick answer about a particular feature they would like to implement, or just to find out information and opinions from a specific demographic group. 

6. Facebook Connect
This feature enables a business website to easily integrate with Facebook. Businesses can integrate Facebook into users’ login process, retrieve users’ friend information, and even post data back to users’ mini feed so all their friends can see their activities. Learn more about this feature here.

7. Others
Here are several other ways to reinforce your Facebook business experience:

1. Post professional or business photos to reinforce your brand.
2. Post your newsletter subscription information and archives somewhere in your profile.
3. Add your Facebok URL to your email signature and any marketing collateral (business cards, leaflets, etc.) so prospects can learn more about you.
4. Post business updates on your wall. Focus on business activities, such as “Working with ABC Company on project K.”
5. Share useful articles and links to presentation and valuable resources that interest customers and prospects on your wall, to establish credibility.
6. Before traveling, check contacts locations so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
7. Research prospects before meeting or contacting them.
8. Upload your contacts from your email client to find more connections.
9. Use “Find Friends” for suggestions of other people you may know to expand your network even further.
10. Look for mutual contacts on your contacts’ friend lists.
11. Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
12. Market your products by posting discounts and package deals.
13. Share survey or research data to gain credibility.
14. “Suggest Friends” to clients and colleagues — by helping them, you establish trust.

15. Post upcoming events including webinars, conferences and other programs where you or someone from your company will be present.
16. Update your group or fan page on a regular basis with helpful information and answers to questions.
17. Join network, industry and alumni groups related to your business.
18. Use search to find groups and fan pages related to your business by industry, location and career.

With so many possibilities, if you haven’t already use Facebook for your business, consider giving it a try using some of the tools mentioned above. Although this networking tool still has a long way to go, they will continue to grow too alongside your business. Have fun!

People may have different reasons for using image search engines. There are teenagers looking for pictures of their teen idols, iTunes users looking for an obscure cover of a 1960’s album, and bloggers looking for an image to use for their blog (in violation of all copyright regulations, of course!).

There will also be shoppers looking for pictures of cars, furniture, holiday destinations or clothing. If you are selling products or services it is the shoppers you are looking for. However, all of these persons may be potential future customers or subscribers. And they may become regular readers. You want that!

Note also that all the major search engines now include image search listings in regular web search results. If you have optimized your images correctly, you can get yourself a very attractive top 10 position by tagging your images correctly.

Help the search engine understand what the image is about. If you want your images to rank higher than others for a particular keyword phrase, you need to help the search engine understand what the picture is depicting.

You can do this by the following means:

1. Use descriptive file names

Make sure that the file name describes the image with keyword phrases searchers are likely to use.

Bad: www.yoursite.com/images/photo-356789.jpg
Good: www.yoursite.com/images/row-boat-by-lake.jpg
Good: www. yoursite/images/red-volkswagen-beetle-car.jpg

2. Use the HTML ALT tags actively

(If you do not know what that is, make sure you use the description field in your blog or content publishing software when adding an image).

Bad: <img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/6789stp.jpg” alt=”Image”>.

Good: <img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/young-woman-pc-reading-news.jpg” alt=”Young woman reading news on PC”>.

If you have a series of images, use variation:

“Blond woman reading news on PC”
“Black woman twittering on a Mac”
“Asian man with laptop on table”

Both photographers and webmasters are notoriously bad at using words for feelings, abstracts and the like — even if people do search for images that may be used to illustrate non-concrete topics. This is where you can gain a competitive advantage.

“Happy woman using PC to search the Web”
“Moody and cranky girl”
“Green background texture”

3. Add descriptive text close to the picture

In order to determine what the picture is depicting, the search engines will also look at the text close to the image.

Good: An increasing number of women are found to be searching the web on their PC when looking for news.

<img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/young-woman-pc-reading-news.jpg” alt=”Young woman reading news on PC”>.

This text may also be used by the search engine as a snippet that describes the image.

4. Keep the most important images close to the top headline or title

Embedding the image close to the top headline (which should be very similar to the TITLE-field) will increase your chances of having your picture in Google News, as it helps Google match the content of the article with the image.

It is a fair guess that the same principle applies to Image Search.

5. Put the photos within articles and blog posts

The search engines have a tendency of ignoring images in sidebars and other places where they can be interpreted as ads or navigational elements.

Images in articles and blog posts have the greatest chance of success.

There are also other technical issues to keep in mind:

6. Do not add code to break out of frames

The Bing Blog recommends you to watch out for frame breaking:

“Sites that attempt to break frames make it more difficult for the image to display correctly within search. Make sure you’re testing your site against the search engines.”

If you don’t know what we are talking about, you are probably in the clear.

7. Use images that read well when thumbnailed

Use high quality pictures with high contrasts and clear, bright, colors. The search engines will generate small thumbnails to include in search engine results, and you want images that survive that reduction in file size.

If you are not a photographer yourself, you can buy royalt free high quality images from stock photo suppliers like Photos.com and Shutterstock for a reasonable price.

Google are looking for large size photos with good aspect ratios.

8. Make the photos accessible

Make sure that the directory that contains your images can be accessed by the search engine crawlers.

Check your robots.txt file or ask your IT people to do it for you.

9. Use the social photo sites

Upload some of your images to photo hosting sites like Flickr.com. Add links back to the relevant page on your site.

Flickr may generatate traffic on its own, and the search engines may also include Flickr images in their image search results.

Check how many pictures Google has indexed. To check what images Google has indexed from your site, use the following URL, replacing “yoursite.com” with your domain name: http://images.google.com/images?q=site:yoursite.com

Note that it normally takes longer for the search engines to index pictures than ordinary text content.

Source: Pandia Search Engine News

People search online for information and will look to you, as a subject matter expert, to provide it to them. Every week (or whatever schedule works) provides an opportunity to build on this, while reinforcing your brand.

2. Build a relationship with the people on your list

It’s common knowledge that people like to buy from people they like. By using ezines to connect with readers in their homes, you can develop a relationship of familiarity and trust. Be sure to share a little about yourself or your company in every issue, whether it is an anecdote, event, or employee spotlight.

3. Keep in touch with prospects and clients

Consideration should be given to eventually developing two ezines: one for prospects and one for clients, as each require different information. This is a great way to notify your readers of weekly specials or upcoming product launches, offer new articles or customer stories, and provide links (or urls) to updated FAQs, blogs and splash pages.

4. Drive traffic to your website or blog

As noted in #3, remember to call attention to new blog posts or other changes to your website with links directly to those pages. Remind readers of your online newsletter archives. Promote special sales (maybe with discount coupon codes only for subscribers) with a link to the sales page. Use links to turn your ezines and newsletters into “silent salespersons”– driving traffic to your website and building your lists around the clock.

5. Build content on your website

Make a habit to adding your ezines and newsletters to your website in an archive area. This serves a several important purposes: o Visitors can read an issue or two to determine if your ezine will be of interest to them, which could help to increase sign-ups and potential sales. If you optimize your article placements, you will not only make your website “meatier”, but you’ll also bring new traffic from the search engines.

6. Get feedback from your readers

Make it easy for you to stay in touch with prospects and customers and vice versa. Ask them to take action and comment on your articles and offers. Conduct polls and surveys. Start a “Letters to the Editor” column in your ezine. Feedback allows you to fine tune your messages, target your marketing, and expand your product line. It’s also great for relationship building!

7. Develop an information product

If you deliver your newsletter once a week and include two articles, at the end of a year you’ll have 104 well-researched articles in your portfolio! Pick the best-of-the-best and turn them into a bonus ebook for opting-in to your list, submit to download sites to build your list, or sell in PDF-format!

8. Grow your mailing list

Let your ezine subscribers work for you. Be sure to remind your readers that it’s okay to forward your newsletter to anyone they’d like. In addition, it’s important to include sign-up instructions for those who received your ezine from viral marketing methods. A simple line titled, “Get Your Own Copy of XXXXXX”, with a link to your squeeze or opt-in page is all it takes!

9. Gather demographic data

By offering surveys, feedback forms, and niche reports, you’ll be able to get valuable information about your prospects and customers. Learn what makes your readers tick, how to better serve them, and how to give them what they want. Make sure they become repeat customers!

10. Save money!

All of the above benefits of publishing an ezine are free or almost free. The small cost of a top-rated ezine publishing system is nothing compared to the cost of brochures, business cards, advertising, direct mail, pay-per-click or other means of promotion. Not only that, but someone has to manage that production! Because your newsletter is delivered online, you can grow your list to be as large as you want without worrying about the expense. Bottom line − it’s proven that email marketing is the most cost-effective marketing solution for companies just like yours!

Great Autoresponders

Some great autoresponders I have used and would recommend are AWeber, GetResponse, AutoResponder Plus and SiteBuild It! Use their trial copies to have a feel of the software, and choose it based on your own experience.

Short of going door to door in a Santa suit, how can businesses increase profits and prevent a blue Christmas? Despite economic gloom, industry leaders have found that an e-mail follow up strategy can increase sales by a cheery 35%. To weather the ailing economy, use a follow up autoresponder during your holiday campaigns.

What Does It Do?

Follow up autoresponders follow up with your leads for you. You create a series of messages, and decide when they should be sent, (daily, weekly, etc.). Your autoresponder will send the messages to each new lead automatically. With no further intervention from you, your leads will remember you throughout the winter chill. And this regular reminding will mean more sales during the all-important holiday shopping season.

Give yourself the gift of a higher conversion rate. Follow up automatically using these simple steps:

- Offer Useful Information
- Personalize Your Messages
- Track Your Leads
- Broadcast Tailor-Made Offers

Offer Useful Information

Write your follow up messages for your leads – not for yourself. You want to talk about your great service, but your leads just want to know what they’ll get out of it.

At some point, you must have purchased something like your product. What were you looking for then? Was it information about pricing, styles, or holiday gift wrapping? Maybe just a clearer explanation of the product? Figure that out, and put the answer in your follow up messages. That’s what your leads want to know.

Personalize Your Messages

You don’t open postal mail addressed to “Current Resident”, and your leads aren’t going to read e-mail addressed to “Dear Internet Friend.” People are simply more likely to read messages that address them by name.

Autoresponders let you use variables to personalize your messages. This way, you write just one message, but Lenny Lead reads “Happy Holidays, Lenny!” while Kate Customer reads “Happy Holidays, Kate!”

Names are only the beginning of the personalization features available, though. In addition to full, first, and last names, some autoresponders let you add e-mail addresses, dates, or an ad category. The best even correct the capitalization in your leads’ names, giving your messages a much more professional look.

Track Your Leads

Get even better results from your snowballing list of leads by experimenting with follow up content and timing. Your experimentation will be much more successful if you have access to proper statistics.

Only use a follow up autoresponder that offers detailed lead statistics. Look for live, graphical stats that
show your incoming leads broken down by day / week / month, all of your active leads, and leads who have requested removal from your list.

Broadcast Tailor-Made Offers

To get more bang for your holiday buck, look for an autoresponder that also lets you broadcast extra e-mails to all of your leads. Some even allow you to send tailor-made offers only to leads who meet certain criteria.

For instance, send everyone who’s been on your list for a month a special discount. Or, notify all leads interested in a certain product when a new shipment comes in.

Follow up messages keep leads warm. Use periodic broadcasts to convert them to sales.

Prevent a Crummy Christmas

Businesses of all sizes have seen their sales grow by leaps and bounds because of automated follow up. Implement your follow up strategy now to make the best use of holiday leads. Then, enjoy the season – your autoresponder is following up for you.

Great Autoresponders

Some great autoresponders I have used and would recommend are AWeber, GetResponse, AutoResponder Plus and SiteBuild It! Use their trial copies to have a feel of the software, and choose it based on your own experience.

Have a great holiday in the meantime!

Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)

The modern meaning of the word “spam” has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit” follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of Hormel’s canned ham.

Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors crammed the word “SPAM” into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.”  The name stuck.

Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam” is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail”, or “UCE.”

Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?

Chances are, you’ve been spammed before. Somehow, your e-mail address has found its way into the hands of a spammer, and your inbox is suffering the consequences. How does this happen? There are several possibilities.

Backstabbing Businesses

Businesses often keep lists of their customers’ e-mail addresses. This is a completely legitimate practice and, usually, nothing bad comes of it. Sometimes though, the temptation to make a quick buck is too great, and these lists are sold or rented to outside advertisers. The result? A lot of unsolicited e-mail, and a serious breach of trust.

Random Address Generation

Computer programs called random address generators simply “guess” e-mail addresses. Over 100 million hotmail addresses exist – how hard could it be to guess some of them? Unfortunately, for many unsuspecting netizens – not too hard. Many spammers also guess at “standard” addresses, like “support@yourdomain.com”, info@yourdomain.com”, and “billing@yourdomain.com.”

Web Spiders

Today’s most insidious list-gathering tools are web spiders. All of the major search engines spider the web, saving information about each page. Spammers use tools that also spider the web, but save any e-mail address they come across. Your personal web page lists your e-mail address? Prepare for an onslaught!

Chat Room Harvesting

ISPs offer vastly popular chat rooms where users are known only by their screen names. Of course, spammers know that your screen name is the first part of your e-mail address. Why waste time guessing e-mail addresses when a few hours of lurking in a chat room can net a list of actively-used addresses?

The Poor Man’s Bad Marketing Idea

It didn’t work for the phone companies, and it won’t work for e-mail marketers. But, some spammers still keep their own friends-and-family-style e-mail lists. Compiled from the addresses of other known spammers, and people or businesses that the owner has come across in the past, these lists are still illegitimate. Why? Only you can give someone permission to send you e-mail. A friend-of-a-friend’s permission won’t cut it.

Stop The Flood to Your Inbox

Already drowning in spam? Try using your e-mail client’s filters – many provide a way to block specific e-mail addresses. Each time you’re spammed, block the sender’s address. Spammers skip from address to address, and you may be on many lists, but this method will at least slow the flow.

Also, use more than one e-mail address, and keep one “clean.” Many netizens find that this technique turns the spam flood into a trickle. Use one address for only spam-safe activities like e-mailing your friends, or signing on with trustworthy businesses. Never use your clean address on the web! Get a free address to use on the web and in chat rooms.

If nothing else helps, consider changing screen names, or opening an entirely new e-mail account. When you do, you’ll start with a clean, spam-free slate. This time, protect your e-mail address!

Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future

Want to surf the web without getting sucked into the spam-flood? Prevention is your best policy. Don’t use an easy-to-guess e-mail address. Keep your address clean by not using it for spam-centric activities. Don’t post it on any web pages, and don’t use it in chat rooms or newsgroups.

Before giving your clean e-mail address to a business, check the company out. Are sections of its user agreement dedicated to anti-spam rules? Does a privacy policy explain exactly what will be done with your address? The most considerate companies also post an anti-spam policy written in plain English, so you can be absolutely sure of what you’re getting into.

Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure.

Many a first-time marketer has inadvertently spammed his audience. The first several hundred complaints and some nasty phone messages usually stop him in his tracks. But by then, the spammer may be faced with cleanup bills from his ISP, and a bad reputation that it’s not easy to overcome.

The best way to avoid this situation is to have a clear understanding of what spam is: If anyone who receives your mass e-mails did not specifically ask to hear from you, then you are spamming them.

Stick with your gut. Don’t buy a million addresses for $10, no matter how much the seller swears by them! If something sounds fishy, just say no. You’ll save yourself a lot in the end.

The Final Blow

The online world is turning the tide on spam. In the end, people will stop sending spam because it stops working. Do your part: never buy from a spammer. When your business seeks out technology companies with which to work, only choose those with a staunch anti-spam stance.

Spam has a long history in both the food and e-mail sectors. This year, Hormel Foods opened a real-world museum dedicated to SPAM. While the museum does feature the Monty Python SPAM Skit, there’s no word yet on an unsolicited commercial e-mail exhibit. But, if all upstanding netizens work together, Hormel’s ham in a can will far outlive the Internet plague that is UCE.

If you have an e-commerce site or a site that is advertising your business, when was the last time you updated it? If you’re like many companies, then it’s around once or twice per year, according to market statistics. That’s simply not enough when it comes to ranking in the search engines, and giving people a reason to come back to your site.

When you have a blog, you’re definitely giving people a reason to stick around. They like knowing what’s on the horizon for companies. They like knowing that there are people behind the corporate door. An added perk to blogging is that you’ll tend to rank more highly in the search engines. Since your content is always updating, the spiders will come by more often. The faster you are able to get indexed, the faster people find the new, relevant posts you are making.

A large part of getting sales is ensuring that you gained confidence of the customer. Blogs are a great way to increase confidence, because it shows the more human side of the company. Customers also like it when they have a chance to interact and leave comments. It gives them the feeling that their voice will really be heard if they purchase from your company.

You can start to think of your blog like a magnet. While there are many different sites out there that are competing with yours, none of them will have the personality and feel of your blog. It attracts the engines and it attracts people. These people will turn into customers if they like what they see!

Hopefully you’re convinced that starting a blog is definitely a good thing. The next step for you is deciding on how to get started! Many companies make their blog an extension of the website. For example, you might have companyname.com/blog. This works well because people can associate it with your main site, but it is able to stand on its own as well.

After you have your blog set up, you need to decide what kind of content you’re going to offer. It is a great thing if you plan content that will really get people excited. For instance, run contests where you give your product or service away, or at least a percentage off, if people leave a comment on your post. Other posts can be informative of what is happening now or what’s going to happen in the future in your industry.

The important thing is, give your blog a voice. It should represent your company and everything your company stands for. When you pay attention to details like this, you’ll have a successful company blog that attracts new customers immediately.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in, ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISPs track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver

messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber.com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL:

Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

Words/phrases:

Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images:

Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments:

With viruses running rampant and spreading through the usage of malicious email attachments, many users are wary of attached documents. It is often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It is important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services include isipp, bondedsender and habeas.

Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

The foundation for successful email marketing is a targeted, responsive and permission-based email list. If you have a list of subscribers that trust you and consider you an expert, you’ve completed the first step and are on your way!

Below you will several list-building ideas that will help you make the most of your email marketing efforts:

1. Provide useful, relevant and unique content. Your visitors will not give you their email addresses just because they can subscribe to your newsletter free of charge. You have to provide unique and valuable information that will be useful to your subscribers.

2. Add a subscription form to every page of your website. Make sure it stands out so it is easy to find. If appropriate, you can also include it in more than one place. For instance, your opt-in form might always appear in the top-left corner of your site, while you also include an opt-in at the bottom of some of your popular articles.

3. Make it easy for your reader to sign up. The more information you request, the fewer people will opt-in. In most cases, a name and an email address should suffice. If it’s not necessary, don’t include it here. (Note: If you don’t have a Privacy Policy, put the words “privacy policy generator” into a search engine and you should be able to find a suitable form for your readers to review.

4. Publish a Privacy Policy. Let your readers know that they can be confident you will not share their information with others. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Privacy Policy web page and provide the link to it below your opt-in form.

5. Show your first issue or other sample to your visitors. This lets potential subscribers review your newsletter before they sign up to determine if it is something they’d be interested in.

6. Archive past newsletter issues. A “library” of past newsletters is both appealing and useful to visitors and builds your credibility as an authority. In addition, if your articles are written with good SEO techniques in mind, they can send additional traffic to your web site through good search engine positioning.

Learn how to create your own e-newsletter in the video above.

7. Contact other newsletter publishers. Introduce yourself and explore ways you may be able to help each other. Perhaps you can introduce other publisher’s newsletters or print articles they have written to your list, with a link to sign up. When you contact them, be sure to tell them why you think THEIR readers would like what you have to offer and why YOUR readers would benefit from their newsletters. This is a win-win scenario; both of you will build your lists faster!

8. Give away bonuses subscribers can use. Create an opt-in bonus for joining your subscriber list. You can write an ebook or PDF report, or even hire a programmer to create downloadable or web-based software. But don’t limit yourself to only a gift for new opt-ins. Remind your readers that the next bonus is coming soon. People hate to miss out on things. If you systematically pass on “goodies” throughout the year, your subscribers are unlikely to leave.

9. Ask your subscribers to pass it on. Word of mouth is a powerful viral technique that works great with email marketing. If your subscribers find the content you share with them to be informative, they will pass your newsletter on to their friends. This can be a good source of new subscribers.

10. Let others reprint your newsletter as long as the content is not modified. Many webmasters and newsletter publishers are actively looking for high-quality content and, if they reprint your newsletter, you will get new subscribers, traffic and links pointing to your site.

11. Include a “Sign Up” button in the newsletter. If you are using plain text instead of HTML, provide a text link to your subscription page. You may feel that this is not required because the subscriber is already on your list, but remember that readers will forward your newsletters to others, or reprint it online. You want to make it easy for them to subscribe.

12. Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page has one goal − to get an opt-in and build your list. Think of it like a mini-sales letter for your subscription or opt-in bonus. It features a powerful headline and a couple of very important benefits that should make subscribers salivate to sign up to your list. Once created, use a service such as WordTracker to find hundreds of targeted keywords, and advertise there using pay-per-click advertising from Google, MSN and Yahoo.

13. Include testimonials on your squeeze page. This is crucial. Put 1 or 2 strong testimonials from satisfied subscribers on your squeeze page. This can be in any format, but you may find that multimedia (audio or video social proof) is more “believable”. To increase that believability, include full names, locations and/or urls; don’t use “Bob K, FL” as a testimonial name.

14. Blog religiously. Blogging is a great way to communicate with your potential customers, and it creates a nice synergy with your email marketing. Be sure to include your newsletter sign-up form on each page of your blog. You can start a free blog at Blogger or WordPress.

15. Post on other blogs. Post great comments and information on similar blogs with a link to your squeeze or opt-in page. Also comment on others’ blogs through trackbacks. In most cases, your comments will be posted on their blogs with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers.