My Blogging Mistakes: Email Address on My Blog

Posted by Dannie | April 26, 2008 .

As a beginning blogger there are countless things we don’t know that could help or hurt the our sports blogs, both big and small. “My Blogging Mistakes” will be a recurring series of posts on Sports Blog Earnings that will highlight a blogging blunder I’ve made in the past and will likely make in the future coupled with a better option so you don’t make the same mistakes I have.
Do you like email spam? I’m guessing the answer to that question is an irrevocable no. If you answered yes, then you’re just a little weird, but this tip will still benefit you.
The Mistake

When we first started our blog we didn’t have any way for readers, bloggers or anyone to contact us. That was mistake #1. Then I got a Gmail account for the blog and posted it as a link you could simply click on (emailexample@gmail.com) and it would open your email client so you can send your message. DUMB! That basically created a superhighway for spammers right to my inbox. My spam filter picks up most of it but the “smart” ones often find their way through.

What You Should Do Instead

One option is to spell out the “@” symbol and “.” Using the above example the address would look like this: emailexample [at] gmail [dot] com. I always wondered why some websites and blogs did this and I found out the hard way.

An even better solution - create a “contact” page and use a form that people can fill out to send messages to you like the one below.

If you use the Wordpress software I recommend using the Cforms II plugin. It offers tremendous flexibility to create any type of contact form you want and it is easy to use with the ability to add a form in a post or page with a single click. I have it on both my blogs now and I love it.

Do you have a past blunder, big or small?

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