There is Gold in that Spam – Search Engine Tactics for
21st CenturyIt’s not often you’ll hear anyone praising spam. Until today.
Ok, ok, ok -- we all hate it. When I check my e-mail box for numerous domains that I own, I have hundreds – if not thousands of spam messages. It had gotten to point that I could not tell between real e-mail and spam. I remember not logging into one account or a week, only to find out when I did that there were over 1,000 e-mail messages of which 995 were spam!
First off, what kind of strategies can you use to fight spam? Here are a few that have worked very well for me:
1.DO NOT put your e-mail address on your website in ‘plain text’. There are several other ways to give your e-mail address out. The one that seems to work very well is by creating a small GIF or JPG image and placing your e-mail address in there then displaying image on your website. 2.Make use of FORMS. Rather than have your visitors e-mail domain, create a form for them and have form e-mail domain OR another address. This is a very successful way for visitors to contact you. You could go one step further, and add a “verification word” to form so that form does not get abused.
Now that we have talked about two simple ways to fight spam, let’s talk about why you may not want to chuck all your spam message away. Am I crazy? Nope, just some common sense niche building techniques at work here.
You remember those supermarket tabloids, right? Have you ever leafed through them? Have you ever read advertising in them? You know, it is pretty expensive to place advertisements in those magazines mainly because of distribution they have and because people buy them. Now do you think that an individual will pay thousands of dollars per year to advertise in tabloid, it if was not delivering results?
Advertising is only placed in magazines, newspapers – and tabloids – if they deliver results. Companies spend tens of thousands of dollars (if not more) ensuring that their advertising is delivering expected results. They track and monitor everything that they do, nothing is left to chance. But you knew all this already.
I'm not trying to equate tabloid advertisements with spam -- but I think you get picture.
So how can you find gold in spam? Simple. When you check your message, see if there is one type of message that you are receiving more than others. Filter past gambling, and adult “entertainment” and focus on stuff that you and I could use every day. You will see e-mail advertisements for education, careers, divorce planning, private investigations and several other areas of interest.
