Some business owners also use their email signature to post information about their offerings, or to advertise big discounts or sales that their customers might want to hear about or be updated on.

An email signature acts as an identifier, and if used well, it can be a great way for you to post information about yourself and get a lot of people to visit your website. However, you can also overestimate the power of this email signature, and if you do not make your email signature carefully and with your audience in mind, then no one will visit your website. If you are interested in promoting your website through a great email signature, then here are a few tips that you may want to take into account when knowing what not to do.

- Be considerate of people who have to work with slow Internet connections: avoid placing multimedia files in your email signature.

Some email software will allow you to place photos and videos in your email signature. If you are working with people who have fast Internet connections, these files can load properly and quickly. But if you are working with people who are still using dial-up Internet, then you put off email recipients, making them endure a long wait – or worse – your information is blocked altogether.  Save them this trouble by keeping your email signature to a text-only format.

- Don’t overload on the text, either. You may be tempted to put in paragraphs and paragraphs of text, with smilies and other emoticons that you think will make your signature look ‘cute.’

- Don’t just hyperlink: type your website address. Some website owners will often put the words ‘click here’ and hyperlink it to the website. This may not show up when email readers select a ‘text only’ option when reading their emails. Keep your website address readable.

- You don’t have to overload on text formatting in order to make your email signature nice to look at and appealing. Stay simple, and avoid colors. Again, if you have email readers who have the ‘text only’ option on, all your colors and formats will be gone.

- Stay with three lines of text, and avoid going for more than this. Think of the compactness of a dog tag: dog’s name on one line, owner’s name on the next, and then contact information on the last line.

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – is a veteran technology addict, consultant, and President of MidTN Technology, a Murfreesboro web design and marketing firm.