Have you ever sent an
e-mail that went unreturned, only to find that it wound up
in the recipient’s spam folder? Chances are, your messages have
telltale spam qualities. Modern filters such as SpamAssassin look
for patterns and give your e-mail a spam score; if the score is
high enough, your e-mail gets purged.
Following are some tips on how to lower your spam score, from
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, e-business expert and founder of www.wilsonweb.com, a
site dedicated to Internet sales and marketing.
Use capitalization
carefully. Turn off the caps lock when writing, and be
cognizant of overcapitalizing. As an added bonus, your recipient
won’t think you’re yelling.
Watch your
hyperlinks. Hyperlinks without an http:// prefix likely
will increase your spam score.
Avoid trouble
words. Try to avoid using red-flagged terms like
free or guaranteed. Also avoid subject lines
mentioning “savings” or “pounds” -- even when referring to British
currency.
Keep it plain. In general, don’t use colored or
abnormally large fonts.