All posts in Email

Link Exchange emails and how to write them correctly

by Ades on July 30, 2007 in Articles, Email, SEO & Promotion, Tutorials with 38 Comments

I receive at least a dozen email from people asking for link exchange, some requesting a link from this blog and some from my other websites. Most of these emails end up in trash, there are few reasons for that. I would like to discuss some of them in this post.

Mistakes in sending a link exchange email
Not all the emails end up in trash because they were written not correctly. Some sites are rejected based on their content, some based on their category (these are usually non-IT sites), some based on their usefulness, and yet some because they are not professionally designed. But there are times when I just delete the email based on the way it was written. I will discuss these emails below and give some tips on how to write them correctly.

1. Using Ready Email Templates, a BIG no no!

If you are really interested in the link exchange that you are requesting, for God’s sake write it in your own words. Don’t go and use some email template that describes the basics of link exchange and the “great” advantages that I will get, after exchanging links with you.

Everybody who has enough experience running a website knows the advantages of link exchange, especially the ones who has run successful websites. So you don’t have to explain them the basics. Instead write an email in your own words, describing why you want to exchange links with him/her.

Usually these kind of emails, go directly to my trash. I have setup a “filter” that catches emails that have used certain ready templates.

2. Not related sites
If my website is about Web Design, please do not send me link exchange request for Construction Company! It won’t work. If you want to request for a paid advertisement, it might work, but for a link exchange it won’t. So sending such emails will just waste your time, and bring no result. Therefore before sending the email, get to know the site and its content.

3. Don’t bury the URL
Most of the sites will give you a backlink in a deep layer of their website, nobody will ever see or click on your link. This kind of offer, won’t get you any results. If you want to exchange links, give them offer that is irresistible. Give a placement that is clearly visible, if possible on the homepage under “Friends” or “Partners” section.

4. More stats is always welcome
Providing basic info like Website Name, URL and Description is necessary. But if you want to add more stats about your website, like Alexa Ranks, Google PR, RSS Subscriptions, Technorati Rank..etc it will be an advantage. As for Alexa Rank, increasing graph will be a plus.

5. Be personal, get to know the webmaster
Instead of writing “Dear Webmaster, I liked your website…” try to get to know the person behind the website, and use his/her name in the email “Dear Ades, I have been reading your blog…” sounds better and more personal. It’s always good to address the person by his name, so try to get to know his name before you send email. It will increase your chances of getting a link exchange.

Suggestion for new sites
If your site/blog is new and have low PR, don’t hesitate to contact and request for a link exchange from established sites/blogs. For me, exchanging traffic does matter but sometimes I like to help out new projects that have good potential. Like www.nice4rice.com and www.contestblogger.com, both have got a long-term link placement on my blog, just for their quality content and great idea respectively. So if you think you have a great blog, then start sending your link exchange requests.

Have sites? Use them in your email signatures

by Ades on June 15, 2007 in Email, Gmail, Usability with 5 Comments

Sometimes when I come across a good website, I contact the owner of the website for advertisement opportunities. Be it regarding paid reviews or banner advertisements on their site. In some cases, they reply late. If you are lucky, you get a reply the next day. But in some cases you get a reply only after few days, and yet in some cases you get a reply after few weeks.

Usually the email would contain info about the advertisement options and its rates. But the difficulty arises when the site owner does not include a link to his website. Not in the body of the email, nor in the signature. (It’s worse when they use free email like yahoo or gmail, because you can’t trace their site from the email address.)

Unless you know the person, normally you forget who is the email from. And the “clean” email without any links wouldn’t help to identify the website. The simple solution for this would have been, for the owner to list his sites in the signature of all outgoing emails.

Most of the time, if the rates and stats sound attractive I would respond back, and ask for the website URL. But if the rates are just normal or expensive, I don’t bother to reply. Who knows, maybe if he had included a link I would have bought an ad… looking at the site might have influenced my decision.

The point
Don’t make the mistake of sending emails without your site or blog’s URLs. Especially when you are replying to an email, that is asking for advertisement opportunities. Better yet, include all your URLs in the signature of all outgoing emails. That’s what I do.

Gmail as to-do list

by Ades on June 11, 2007 in Gmail with 1 Comment

Now that I am done with my finals at MC IIUM, I can concentrate on my blog. My exams went well, I hope the results will be good too.

Okay back to Gmail, since I started my free backlinks giveaway contest, I have been getting lots of emails in my Gmail. Since these emails are all contest related, they contain review links in them. So they were kinda “to-do emails”. I had to find a solution to arrange them properly and to mark them, which one is done and which one is to be published in the next batch.

I think I found a solution, at least it’s working for now. Here is what I did:

1. Created a filter (Gmail’s replacement for folders) with the name “Free Backlinks”.
2. Marked all contest related emails with the above filter.
3. Star‘red the emails which had to be published (when they are done, I removed the stars).

This simple procedure allows me to keep track and manage all my contest related emails. All happens right inside Gmail, I don’t have to use some other to-do related software. I thought I would share it with you, do let me know if you use Gmail for things other than email (besides using it as a back-up repository).

Gmail Usability: Delete_&_Next button

by Ades on June 6, 2007 in Gmail, Usability with 22 Comments

Often times, I find myself reading my emails (Gmail) then I want to delete it and go directly to the next one. Unfortunately this is not possible in Gmail. So I have to delete the email, and Gmail would take me back to my Inbox and from there I have to click on the next email to read the contents.

I believe this usability problem could be avoided by just introducing one more button “delete and next” inside the email page. When pressed it would delete the current email and go directly to the next, without going back to Inbox.

Did you notice this usability issue with your Gmail? Or is there a workaround for this that I don’t know? Please let me know if there is.

Gmail attachment size increased to 20MB

by Ades on May 26, 2007 in Gmail with 2 Comments

Gmail has increased the maximum size for attachments, it is now 20MB. It got a lot more easier to backup your blogs! I keep wondering what if one day Gmail crashes? And all the email data on Google servers (including the backups) are lost? Are you Gmail proof?

We tend to backup everything to Gmail, but have you thought of backing up your Gmail account? Are there any tools to do this? Do let me know if you know of any, I want to backup my Gmail (at least once ;)

Source: Gmail Help

New feature suggestion to Gmail – tags

by Ades on November 21, 2006 in Gmail, Usability with 20 Comments

If you are using Gmail you might have faced this problem -where you cannot find a particular email. Maybe you have forgotten to create a Label for it or maybe you didn’t create a Filter that auto-assigns the Label to the email. Whatever the reason maybe, if the email was not assigned Label to it and if it was an email that was received last year, your chances of finding that email will be really slim (unless you know the sender or the senders’ email).

For this reason I have contacted Gmail Team and suggested them a new feature – option to add custom tags to each email. This is how it could look (red text):

gmail new feature add tags

This would save time, and make searching and finding emails a lot easier and faster. For example if you receive one-time email from someone, you would just add a tag to that email instead of creating a Label exclusively for this one email.

Delicious.com uses tags to manage links – millions of them. I think it’s time for Gmail to introduce such a feature too. What do you think? I hope Google will consider this suggestion of mine.

New Yahoo!Mail – follows Outlook Express standards

by Ades on September 30, 2006 in Email with 3 Comments

Yahoo Mail

New Yahoo!Mail which is in it’s beta version is much like Outlook Express. It is divided into three sections: Folders, Email Headers, and Preview Pane. Once you click on the email title it will automatically load the email into the preview pane. Everything is very easy and fast now; compose, reply, and attachements are done on the fly, as opposed to reloading the whole page previously.

If you want to try it out for yourself, you can sign up for it here.

Gmail Vs Yahoo! Mail – Download Features compared.

by Ades on August 15, 2006 in Email, Gmail with 9 Comments

Note: Yahoo has solved this issue already: view here.

In any business, in general over time people expect the services of the company and the features of the services to improve. And if it doesn’t then the customer starts to look for alternative companies that offer similar or better services.

Yahoo!Mail

I have been waiting for the attachment download feature of the Yahoo!Mail to improve for some time now. Unfortunately, Yahoo seems to be busy with other things. When these kind of small things that can be fixed easily are not fixed (maybe by one web programmer?) and when customers use them everyday, it can really get annoying. And ultimately the company could end up loosing customers – lots of them, and all because of what? All because of a problem that could be solved by one man.

Today I received an email with the following 5 attachments, see below.
Yahoo Download Feature
As you can see, to download all the files I need to click one attachment at a time and download them Continue reading →

Email icon generator

by Ades on October 23, 2005 in Email, Gmail, Online Tools with No comments

Here is an interesting tool to generate xml type of icons for all the email addresses (look to the sample above). click here

30GB Email at 30gigs.com

by Ades on October 22, 2005 in Email with 3 Comments

That’s right http://www.30gigs.com is giving away 100% 30GB email. Yes, that’s a lot more than your gmail account. I guess they got the idea of invitation only registration from Gmail, here are some links where you can get your invitations http://www.30gigs.com/invite/

Add your own you@yourdomain.com to your gmail account

by Ades on August 30, 2005 in Gmail with No comments

Another great feature from Gmail and yet another reason why you should get your own gmail account. This is good for those who have their own domain name. Basically what this feature does is that it gives you option to add your own-domain-name-email to your Gmail account, that means when you send out emails from your Gmail account people will still see your you@domain.com in the From: field rather than you@gmail.com. Here is how you can set up this feature.