feed hat blog

I don’t want to cause alarm on this but today I’ve had emails from 11 subscribers to two of my different email lists that I administrate at Aweber complaining that they’ve been inundated with pharmaceutical spam. In each case the subscribers have set up email addresses especially for my newsletters which they use for no other purposes.

In each case they’re complaining of getting the same types of emails – up to 20 of them in a few hours.

At first I thought perhaps my account had been compromised – but I began to do some investigating and am beginning to see some others talk about the same problem. For example @planetmike tweeted about a similar problem here.

I’m not sure if he’s talking about my newsletters – that’s a possibility.

Further searching in a few webmaster forums turns up similar discussions.

Webmaster World – “Today I got pharma/ED spam to various of those unique addresses. After a little research, I found the common thread: The companies I gave those addresses to use AWeber’s services. (AWeber provides mailing list services to businesses, e.g. sending newsletters to a company’s customers.)”

WarriorForum – “Today I am getting deluged with spam to addresses that are on aWeber lists, including a couple of email addresses that have ONLY been given to aWeber.”

From another user in the WorriorForum – “I’ve been having EXACTLY the same issue.

I have some test e-mail addresses that I ONLY use within AWeber and just today I’ve started receiving lots of spam to them.

These are e-mail addresses across multiple domains including my own and others such as GMail, etc.

These e-mails are only housed within AWeber so I know that the problem is somewhere within their systems.”

AWeber takes our security measures very strongly and employee tested technologies and measures to make sure that our system is not compromised. After receiving your email our team went through an exhaustive list of checks just to make sure that there are no indications that connects this spam message you received to an issue with AWeber. All of our tests have come back secure with no reports of intrusion or compromise.

Also note that after looking at the spam message in question we see that members of our teams have also received this same message to their personal addresses that have never been used in conjunction with AWeber.

We’ll continue to monitor our system. And of course if you have any further questions, please feel free to let me know.

I’m hesitant to make a call that Aweber has been compromised (I know they wouldn’t have played a part in this, they’re reputable and it’d be business suicide for them to be caught at that) – perhaps it’s a problem with some email service provider (although from the emails I’ve received it’s impacting people who subscribe with a variety of email providers) but something does seem to be wrong here.

I’ve got emails into Aweber and will update you with their response.

In the mean time – if you have received this spam and you’re on the ProBlogger newsletter list (as some are reporting) I sincerely apologise and hope we can get to the bottom of it.

PS: I’ve sat on this story for 18 hours hoping to get a response from Aweber but it seems that their support don’t work weekends (I’m actually a bit surprised that they don’t seem to have put any response on their blog or Twitter account as I’m now seeing more and more buzz about it in forums and on Twitter). I’ve since had another 10 or so angry complaints from readers and have seen the same thing happening for another list I have on a separate account which I use to promote the ProBlogger Book with Chris Garrett. That account is completely separate to my Aweber account and I don’t even have access to the password of it meaning that it’s not just my Aweber subscribers who are being hit.

Again – this could be a wider issue than just Aweber – perhaps some spammer is using some kind of system to target a whole lot of random email addresses – but it does seem that perhaps it’s somehow more centred around Aweber. Time will tell.

I don’t like to post this as I really love Aweber as a service (they’ve been brilliant since I switched to them) – but because readers seem to be unsubscribing and blaming me for it I wanted to make sure word was out that there may have been a problem.

I’d love to get comments from anyone who has similar experience with this in the last few days. Are your lists complaining of spam at the moment too? Hopefully in getting people’s experiences we’ll be able to help Aweber get to the bottom of what’s happening.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Has Aweber Been Compromised? Reports of Spam Going to Aweber Lists

Share This

More:
Has Aweber Been Compromised? Reports of Spam Going to Aweber Lists

Since Google said they where adding new features to Google Local to stop the spam I thought I would keep an eye out, normally I am banner blind to maps these days..

But how the hell do you get Covent Garden’s Hidden Village shopping centre, Adidas (Twice) and a Pay as you go car hire company !! some help me understand..

Google Local gets cleaners in london mixed up

Dave

The rest is here:
Cleaners in London – google local wtf ?

Would you follow a house on Twitter? (Yes, a house.) If you were auto-followed by a house, would you consider it spam? Think about those questions as you read along.

Ryan Hartman, a real estate agent from York, PA, has created a Twitter profile for one of the homes he currently has listed for sale. (It might be his own house, actually, as there’s a mention in the account of being FSBO.) For years, agents have been creating web sites specifically for each home they list for sale, but a Twitter profile for a house? Yep. Have a look:

The most recent three tweets are … off-topic, I guess. But if you scroll back through the account, you’ll see tweets like

“I’m in a beautiful neighborhood with a great school district.”

“French Doors Off Living Room to an additional room with outside entrance.”

There’s also a tweet that says this account will auto-follow anyone who mentions “Philadelphia” in a tweet.

In a post on the Bloodhound Blog last week, Hartman explained what he’s doing:

“Over the next few weeks, this clever little property is going to automatically follow a whole bunch twitterers in the Philly area, systematically inviting lots of local folk to take a little tour inside.”

But back to my original questions: If this account started following you randomly, would you be curious enough to learn more about the house? Would you think it’s another spam account?

Bigger questions: Is this the best way for a real estate agent to use Twitter? Judging from the headline of Ryan’s post — “The Day Realtors Figured Out A Practical Use For Twitter” — and some of the comments he got, it seems like there are a few real estate agents who aren’t sure why and how to get value out of Twitter. What would you say to them?

Advertisement: WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool delivers more keywords, faster than paid tools and always 100% free. Try it today!

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

How Should a Real Estate Agent use Twitter?

Related posts:

1. Real Estate Marketing 2.0
2. Latest SEL Column: Real Estate Marketing 2.0
3. Real Estate SEO is a Joke

Continued here: 
How Should a Real Estate Agent use Twitter?

It’s a blogger’s worst nightmare. You’re making big bucks with your blog (say $100 per day), things are going great and then, BAM! Google removes you from their index. Overnight, your traffic drops to a trickle of what it was and your income falls off the cliff as well. What do you do now? Here’s a five step plan to get your site or blog back into Google if it’s been banned.

1 – Don’t Panic and Wait

If you think you haven’t done anything wrong, the best option is to simply wait it out. Google isn’t perfect and it’s indexing system does have glitches once in a while. I’ve known many webmasters who had their sites disappeared from Google only to show back up a week later.

If you haven’t done anything shady with your blog and find it missing from the Google index, chances are it’s just a glitch and it will return in a week or two. There’s no need to panic and no need to make any changes to the blog. If the blog doesn’t come back after a couple of weeks, then you can start worrying and proceed to step two.

2 – Correct What You Think You Did Wrong

If you think Google dumped you because you did something wrong, then the first thing you have to do in order to get back into the index is to correct the mistake. This is harder than it sounds because Google doesn’t tell you why they de-index a site.

To help webmasters stay on the right side of the tracks, Google created the Webmaster Guidelines. If you’ve been dumped, chances are you’ve violated one or many of those guidelines. It’s up to you to figure which rules you violated and then correct it.

3 – Send a Reconsideration Request

Once you bring your blog back into compliance with the Google Webmaster Guidelines, the next step is to submit a reconsideration request (used to be a reinclusion request). You do this at Google Webmaster Tools.

Fundamentally, Google wants to know two things:

1. The pages that got your site banned are gone or fixed.
2. That this is not going to happen again.

Additional tips from Matt Cutts:

I’d recommend giving a short explanation of what happened from your perspective: what actions may have led to any penalties and any corrective action that you’ve taken to prevent any spam in the future. If you employed an SEO company, it indicates good faith if you tell us specifics about the SEO firm and what they did–it assists us in evaluating reconsideration requests. Note that SEO and mostly-affiliate sites may need to provide more evidence of good faith before a site will be reconsider; such sites should be quite familiar with Google’s quality guidelines.

Don’t bother mentioning that you spend money on AdWords or you’re an AdSense publisher. The person who will look at your reconsideration request doesn’t care if you have a business relationship with Google. Remember, we need to know 1) that the spam has been corrected or removed and 2) that it isn’t going to happen again.

I would request reconsideration for one domain at a time. It looks bad if you had 20+ sites all thrown out at once, and you send a reconsideration request for 20 domains in one email.

It is my belief that the quality and detail of the reconsideration request is the deciding factor on whether Google lets you back in or keeps you out. Chances are a request that reads, “I’m Google compliance now. Please let me back in.” will fall on deaf ears. Here’s a video from Google’s web spam team with more tips on filing a reconsideration request.

4 – Hope And Pray

Once you’ve submitted your reconsideration request, there’s not much to do except hope and pray Google lets you back in. While Google has guidelines for webmasters, there doesn’t seem to be any guidelines on how they decides who gets back in and who stays out.

How long do you have to hope and pray? That depends on when Google reviews your request and on the type of penalty you have. Generally, you’ll be looking anywhere from two to six weeks, and sometimes longer, to have your site reviewed and reconsidered.

5 – Talk To The Man Himself

In the webmaster world, Matt Cutts is The Man. As the head of Google’s web spam team, he can front-line your reconsideration request and get you back into the Google index within a day. If you had no luck working with Google using the normal channels, then the next step would be to talk to the man himself. However, please make sure you corrected whatever got your banned and that your site is 100% Google compliant before trying to contact Matt.

Getting an audience with Matt is easier said than done. You can try to email him (a clever blogger will be able to find the email address) but it may never get to him because of the corporate filtering system. If you want to make sure Matt gets your email, the best way would be to have someone who is on Matt’s “Safe List” facilitate an introduction. That is what I did.

If you don’t know anyone who is on Matt’s contact list, you last chance is to corner him at a trade show. Matt is an extremely fair guy and if he tells you he will look into your case, he will. You just have to decide if it’s worth the expense of attending the show.

Discover the SECRETS I’ve Learned to go from zero a month to over $40,000 a month from blogging. Download Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com for FREE!

The rest is here: 
How To Get Your Site or Blog back Into Google If It’s Been Banned

Guest Post by James from Organize IT.

Running a blog isn’t simple. Besides the obvious challenges of regularly writing great content and making sure plenty of people get to read it, there are so many elements of a blog that need regular attention. You could ignore things like spam comments, out of date posts and broken links and just about get by, but if you really want to keep your blog healthy and running smoothly you need a maintenance routine.

Many people I know don’t have a regular or organized routine, they just deal with situations as and when they feel like it. The problem with this approach is it quickly becomes a big time-consuming chore. They might get fed up of all the spam comments one day and decide to do a massive deletion session which takes several hours. Alternatively they might decide to shake up their categories in one go which again takes lots of time.

What I personally do is break down my maintance sessions into small chunks and focus on it every week. It’s much easier to take little steps regularly than large strides occassionally. Rather than editing dozens of comments in one session, for instance, you can do just ten comments in each weekly setting. Similarly with links, rather than trying to get on top of them all in one go, you might set a target of fixing twenty links each week. This approach allows me to keep on top of maintaining my blog without it becoming a time-consuming chore.

With that in mind, below are the things I focus on during my weekly routine.

• Comments
  If you do only one thing in this category clean up your spam comments. You should have Akismet or some similar anti-spam plugin in place which will capture most of it, but a little involvement on your part may be required. You may also want to edit and clean up some comments, particularly older ones. I personally check over all new comments from the week, plus a page of older comments.
• Old posts
  There are a couple of things you can do here. If you’re like me, you’re writing skills and blogging knowledge will have improved over the years and many of your older posts will be lacking. It’s never too late to freshen them up - improve the grammar, expand it, add extra links, etc. If you think that’s a waste of time, see if it’s worth just updating the post title/permalink to make it more SEO friendly (remember to redirect properly). I’m slowly working through each post each week, right from the beginning of my archive.
• Wordpress/plugin updates
  What better time to get the latest release of Wordpress downloaded or get all those plugins finally up to date than during your maintainance routine?
• Categories and tags
  This is perhaps a minor area to maintain but if you have a lot of categories or you’re quite liberal with your tagging, it may be worth giving this some attention. If you have dozens of categories or have a mish-mash of unorganized tags they’re no use to anybody. Delete or consolidate!
• Broken links
  Linking to dead content is bad for obvious reasons but it’s inevitable that over time link rot will occur. That’s why it’s useful to keep them all up to date, especially if you’re changing categories, titles, etc. Download the broken link checker for this. You may be surprised at just how many dead links you have. Don’t forget to check old pingbacks and author URL’s too (while editing your comments). I update or delete ten broken links each week.
• Backup
  The last and most obvious step. After all your hard work providing great content and maintaining it all, it would be a shame if you lost it all due to some mishap, hack or general disaster. Make sure you backup regularly!

James is a blogger and aspiring author from the UK. He writes regularly about how to work smart and play smart in the 21st century at his blog, Organize IT, and on Twitter.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Creating A Blogging Maintenance Routine That Isn’t A Chore

Share This

Excerpt from: 
Creating A Blogging Maintenance Routine That Isn’t A Chore

A Guest post by Josh Hanagarne – World’s Strongest Librarian

Howdy to you, you handsome and gorgeous Problogger readers and assorted excellent geniuses. First off, let me say that after my first two guest posts here, your comments and emails have flattered me to the point of blushing for days on end. If you are to be trusted, it sounds like you think I give a good pep talk.

I’ve got a big one for you today, and some very exciting news. But you only get to continue reading if you agree that blogging is still alive and kicking. Otherwise, take a hike and go Tweet. Of course, if you’re here, you probably think blogging has some life in it yet. Pat yourself on the back and have a cookie. You’re smart.

I do Tweet, by the way. I’m just not going to let it replace my little blog that I love so much.

Humble Beginnings

It’s been about 6 weeks since my first Problogger post, How To Land Big Interviews When Your Blog Is Small. Because World’s Strongest Librarian is relatively new (about 3.5 months now), I’ve focused more on the “whys” of blogging than the “hows,” while I learn. Anybody can blog about the process of blogging because we are all familiar with it.

I was plugging away with daily posts, soliciting guests and occasionally making a fool of myself. My series How To Have Tourette’s picked up a lot of steam and I received tons of emails from Tourettics and parents of children with Tourette’s. The links kept coming and the spam grew exponentially, so I figured I was on the right track.

The attention was nice, but more importantly, blogging was fun. That’s the only way you can do a good post every day—if you look forward to it and enjoy the process.

People said I was progressing nicely and I took their word for it because I’m a vulture for compliments. Other people said they were confused (and irritated) by how quickly I was progressing and that they didn’t “get it” at all.

Speaking of that…I don’t care about that. I write for myself first.

Then one day I woke up and read an email that made me scream so loudly that I woke my toddler up.

Not-So-Humble Results

The email was from a very famous blogger who writes dazzling books. It basically said—and I am paraphrasing here—“Your blog caught my eye and I think there’s a book in it. I’m copying my agent on this email.”

After regaining consciousness, I went to work and tried to breathe. The agent emailed me later that day. A couple of days after that I signed contracts to be represented by a real-life literary agency, not the one that has been contacting me in my head for 10 years.

I am currently in the process of finishing the book proposal with my agent (that still makes me feel too fancy and I usually say “the agent,” no offense to Lisa if she’s reading this) for a memoir with the working title of The World’s Strongest Librarian.

There are no guarantees. Maybe that book will never be published and maybe a black hole will open under my desk today and we’ll lose contact because I’m on my way to the other side of the universe. But nothing about this has been typical so far and I’m not going to start second guessing myself now.

Neither should you.

Nobody is more surprised by this than me

I’ve looked at that email every day since and tried to anticipate the questions I’d be asked. “Why you?”

To that I say, “I don’t know.”

“Ok, well…what’s your secret?”

“Uh…ignoring everyone’s advice? Maybe?” Honestly, there’s no plan. I write stuff I love and if other people like it, that’s a wonderful bonus.

Once my blog started rolling and gathering hype, the emails about how I wasn’t focused enough started to roll in. I don’t want to focus. I think it’s boring. And when the traffic stops coming, I’ll start worrying…or just go do something else.

To give you an idea of just how unfocused I’ve been, here’s the spectrum of posts you might expect to see on a week at World’s Strongest Librarian:

• A video about making your wrists stronger
• Articles and videos about battling Tourette’s Syndrome
• A book review of Where The Wild Things Are
• My sister telling a story about a one-eyed goldfish at Wal-Mart

and so on.

I wasn’t sure what to think about their comments. It seemed like things were going okay.

In hindsight, I now say: who cares what I think at this point? I sure don’t. All those little voices that tell me I’m not good enough—I’m forwarding them to the people who already have faith in me. People with a lot more clout than I do who seem to have total confidence in what I’m doing on World’s Strongest Librarian.

You’re no different

It’s true, so don’t protest. If your blog is making progress, than keep blogging. Put your head down and go. As long as you enjoy it, who knows what might happen? Do you? No, you don’t!

This is my favorite compliment I’ve been given:

I read all of your book reviews even though I don’t like to read. I also read all of your strength training and fitness material even though I hate exercising and don’t plan on starting. Keep it coming.

When I asked this person to elaborate, they said:

I read because you write it, not because of what it says.

I didn’t plan that. How could you? You can’t because you’re not in anyone else’s head. People can always surprise you and there’s certainly no accounting for taste. I’m not sure why any of this has happened but none of that means I’m going to put my hat in my hands and reject all the good will insisting that people are all wrong about me.

I mean, come on: Is that really the point you’re trying to make? That you’re just not good enough? I didn’t think so. Then why do we spend so much time correcting people when the compliment us? Quit fussing and go write something that you love and that people can use.

Who do we think we are?

Three and a half months ago I pushed “publish” for the first time in my Wordpress Control Panel. My goal was to have 100 daily readers in one year and to make myself laugh. That’s it. Two weeks ago I signed a contract with a literary agent.

You’re always going to be asking yourself, “Who do I think I am? Why should anyone listen to me?” Track down the insecure void that produces those thoughts and throw some acid on it.

Or you can decide that yes, blogging is dead and no longer opens doors for anyone. I see no signs of that.

Once you get over your nagging blogging-blues-nobody-loves-me thought loop, come listen to my voice for a while. I’m nobody, but since I’m here, here’s what I say:

Why not you?

Seriously, why not you? If you can actually explain to me why nobody should listen to you to the point where I agree, then you have no business blogging anyway and should go do something that you love. It will make you happier and there will be a tiny fraction less noise on the Web.

One of the most satisfying aspects of blogging is that I am constantly surprised. I’m surprised by the things I write, the people I meet, and the very real relationships and friends that I’ve cultivated online. Most of the surprises are small, but some are big enough to scream about.

If you’re committed to making a go at this, keep plugging away, take the steps you read about on Problogger, ask questions, and enjoy yourself.

The only thing sadder than wasting time at something you don’t enjoy is wasting time and not getting results.If you enjoy your blogging, no matter how modest it is, it’s not a waste. The results will come. I see blogging as one more way we learn about ourselves. One more mirror to look into.

The Internet makes it very easy for people to do favors for each other. Go meet everyone you can. One morning, you might receive an email from someone who thinks you are worth more than you do. When they tell you that, don’t argue.

Go go go.

Today.

Now.

Don’t look back

Don’t second guess.

You’re not the passenger, you’re the driver.

Refuse to deal with life. Make it deal with you.

I’ll be doing the same. Thank you all so much for the continued support and encouragement. I will throw each of you a parade with 1000 dancing elephant if the book ever gets published.

Josh Hanagarne writes World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog to help you get stronger, get smarter, and live better… every day. For bonus articles, videos, and original music, please subscribe to the Stronger, Smarter, Better Newsletter. If you know someone with Tourette’s Syndrome, please let them know about the blog. They need to know that someone out there “gets it.”

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

I Heard Blogging Was Dead. I’m Glad I Didn’t Listen

Share This

Read more from the original source:
I Heard Blogging Was Dead. I’m Glad I Didn’t Listen

Post your URL in an SEO forum, and get labeled as a Web Spammer? Maybe.

There are some site owners and internet marketers who attempt to increase how well their web sites rank in search engines by buying links to their sites, or exchanging links with others. Those kinds of activities are frowned upon by the major search engines because that kind of manipulation can impact which pages show up in search results. As Google notes on one of their help pages on link schemes:

Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results.

Likewise, there are forums where people publicly discuss the exchange of links to manipulate search results.

Microsoft has published a patent application that describes how they might target (and possibly hand pick) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) related forums where they believe such activity may take place, and crawl those to see if they can identify requests for links exchanges.

Forum Mining for Suspicious Link Spam Sites Detection
Invented by Bin Gao, Tie-Yan Liu, Hang Li, and Congkai Sun
Assigned to Microsoft
US Patent Application 20090198673
Published August 6, 2009
Filed: February 6, 2008

Abstract

An anti-spam technique for protecting search engine ranking is based on mining search engine optimization (SEO) forums. The anti-spam technique collects webpages such as SEO forum posts from a list of suspect spam websites, and extracts suspicious link exchange URLs and corresponding link formation from the collected webpages.

A search engine ranking penalty is then applied to the suspicious link exchange URLs. The penalty is at least partially determined by the link information associated with the respective suspicious link exchange URL.

To detect more suspicious link exchange URLs, the technique may propagate one or more levels from a seed set of suspicious link exchange URLs generated by mining SEO forums.

There’s a nice discussion in the background section of the description in the patent filing about some of the methods that search engines have developed to try to identify web spam, including a few paragraphs on the evolution of web spamming approaches:

Web spamming techniques have also evolved in time. The first generation spam involved keyword stuffing when ranking was dependent on document similarity. The second generation spam involved link farms when ranking was largely dependent on site popularity. The third generation spam uses mutual link exchange through “mutual admiration societies” when ranking is largely dependent on page reputation. In general, the third-generation Web spamming is harder to detect than the previous generations.

Link spamming techniques, which include busying/selling links, exchanging links, and constructing link farms, are a major category of the commonly used spam techniques. Link spamming refers to the cases where spammers set up structures of interconnected pages in order to boost their rankings in link structure-based ranking system such as PageRank. Since link analysis is a crucial factor for commercial search engines, link spam is among the most popular and harmful techniques for search engines nowadays.

The patent application also defines and discusses anti-link spam approaches such as TrustRank, BadRank, and SpamRank, and how they attempt to automatically detect link spam and web spam. We’re told that those methods aren’t effective in certain situations, and that the “link spam problem has yet to be solved.”

One attempt at a solution is to pay more attention to places where people may be openly discussing the exchange of links on the web, and take URLs identified in those discussions to use as a “seed set” of URLs to crawl to identify other pages those link to. The patent filing refers to these places as “search engine optimization (SEO) forums,” which may be manually selected.

Search engine ranking penalties may be applied to URLs that have been identified through the methods described in the patent filing, which relies upon finding URLs mentioned in discussions of links exchanges without actually visiting the sites themselves, or analyzing the content of those sites. We’re told there that:

To conveniently and efficiently exchange link trade information, spammers usually log onto SEO forums to communicate with each other for trading links, including link exchange, link sale, and recommendation link exchange.

These forums are increasingly more popular. Spammers post requests for “link exchange”, “buy & sell link”, and “recommendation exchange” in these forums, along with the URLs of their websites, and other interested spammers may reply the requests and provide the URLs of their websites.

In recognition of these activities, instead of searching and analyzing these spamming websites themselves, the technique described herein identifies the URLs of them by analyzing the context in the posts by spammers on the SEO forums.

Conclusion

There are many forums where search engine optimization is discussed that provide helpful and useful information to people who participate in those forums.

They may offer a chance for people to discuss best practices, exchange ideas on how to create better experiences for their visitors, offer constructive criticism on design and other aspects of a site. Many forums operate as a Community of Practice or an online Third Place as envisioned by Ray Oldenburg.

But there are also forums where discussions about “links for sale” or “exchanging links” or “reciprocal links” may take place. I’m not sure why the researchers at Microsoft felt that they needed to file a patent to protect the idea of finding such sites, and using them to attempt to identify potential web spam.

The patent application does go into much more detail on some of the processes that Microsoft (and possibly other search engines) might use, and is recommended reading if you participate in a forum that discusses SEO.

When I wrote a few weeks ago about making your email so good it can’t be stopped, a few readers wrote to ask for more specifics.

It’s an understandable request, given the percentage of permission-based messages that are being thrown away by email service providers.

So beyond providing killer content, what can we do to give our messages the best shot of getting through?

Build trust before you pitch.

Remember, the success of any email marketing program depends on genuinely compelling content. You want your readers to dig through spam filters, complain to their email providers, and do anything they can to make sure they’re getting your content.

Most email newsletters are pitchfests, which makes them no fun to read. Make sure yours is nicely loaded with cookie content, so readers begin to be trained to open everything you send.

If you don’t build this trust and credibility with great content, the rest of the techniques won’t work very well. But there are a few practical things you can do to give your messages the best possible fighting chance.

1. Start every newsletter with a great autoresponder

The autoresponder feature of your email provider lets you create defined sequences to send to your readers. The millionth subscriber has the same experience that the first did.

This means that no matter how busy you get or what disasters you might be coping with this week, your new email subscribers are always well taken care of.

A great autoresponder builds a strong foundation for your relationship with your new subscriber. The old cliché is true: you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The warm, friendly feelings you’ll establish with your first 10 or 15 messages will carry over throughout your relationship.

2. Use a single warm, personal message early on

This is a trick I learned from Product Launch Formula founder Jeff Walker, and it creates a really nice rapport with your list.

Early in your autoresponder sequence (I usually put it at message two), include a cheerful, warm, individual-sounding message. Something informal, like, “Hey, really good to see you here, hope you enjoy the content.”

You’re not trying to fool anyone that this was an individually typed message for that recipient, but you are trying to create the same feeling of personal relationship. Invite questions, comments, and feedback at this point, and let them know that you’d love to hear from them.

I typically create this message as text only, rather than HTML. This is also a good spot to use technique #3.

3. Ask them to white list you

No matter how good your email provider is, some messages end up in spam filters. The best defense against that is to convince your readers to add you to their list of “safe senders” or their “white list.” And the best way to do that is simply to ask them.

I send a text message in one of my sequences right before a message with a few red flags in the content. (The message has the audacity to talk about making money. Shocking, I know.)

The message explains that the next email in the sequence is a little more likely to get trapped in a spam filter, so this would be a great time to add me to their safe senders list.

Some readers immediately white list me, which is great. Others don’t, then the message is caught in a filter the next day and they see that adding me to their approved senders list would be a good idea.

Obviously, it’s smart to get yourself onto the white list as soon as you can, so you’ll want to bring the subject up early on.

But if you do have a message you can’t reasonably lower the spam score on, this technique can give you a good reason to ask a second time.

4. Conversations have two sides

Make sure you’ve got a real human being monitoring any replies to your email marketing, and that that person is giving thoughtful, personal replies to each message they get.

It’s also smart to use an individual person’s name in the “From” field, rather than the name of a company. Anything you can do to capitalize on the intimate nature of email just makes sense.

When I started adding the words, “Just click reply to ask me a question, your message will come directly to my personal in-box,” I noticed that more people felt comfortable doing just that. And not only do questions and feedback build nice rapport, they’re also a fantastic window into what your customers want and need.

5. Pay attention to spam triggers, but don’t obsess

Most good email providers will let you know if your content has certain hot buttons that are likely to be flagged as spam. Some of them are obvious, like pharmaceutical brand names.

Others are annoying, because they tend to be the words and phrases that have the most selling power. For example, links that say click here can make your content look a little spammier to the filters, precisely because savvy marketers know that explicit calls to click here get better results.

This is one good reason to put a long sales message onto a landing page, rather than an individual email message. The last thing you want to do is to use less persuasive language just to keep a spam filter happy.

Always remember that you’re writing for people, not filters. When you make your readers happy and deliver the content they need and want, no spam filter can stop you.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

Read more from the original source: 
Five Ways to Make Your Email Marketing Work Better

I’ve got another free report for you, this time from Leo Babauta of the popular personal development blog Zen Habits. It’s all about how he—you guessed it—grew Zen Habits from nothing to over 130,000 subscribers today.

You know, it’s funny to reflect back on the early days of Copyblogger in 2006. Much smaller group than the 70,000 subscribers we have now… almost like a social club of people figuring things out as we went along.

One of the people who hung around back then was Chris Brogan. I like to joke with Chris (usually in front of one of high-paying clients) that as much as I liked him, I was a bit afraid he was going nowhere back then.

Now that Chris is a social media rock star and in-demand speaker, he really gets a kick out of that.

Another person that hung around during the early days was Leo. I have to admit, I always thought Leo would be successful.

I just had no idea how successful he would be, both as a blogger and now as a successful author with the fantastic Power of Less (made possible by the blog). So saying that Leo is someone worth listening to about blogging is a huge understatement.

Check out the report today, and tomorrow I’ll let you know what we’re up to with this A-List Blogging Bootcamp thing.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

View original post here:
How Leo Got 100,000 Blog Subscribers In Two Years