This may seem kind of obvious. But you’d be amazed at how difficult it is to get in touch with many business or pro bloggers.
There have been a couple of instances where I’ve wanted to suggest stories to people I read, and I haven’t been able to get in touch. Once I wanted to pass some work on to someone, and I couldn’t find his email address!
I know the whole refrain about spam-bots. There are ways around it. You can encode your address, or your could stick it in an image. Even simpler, do what many do and spell your address out like so: peter at theblogstudio dot com.
Stick your contact info somewhere obvious. I used the footer on The Blog Studio as an easy, always available piece of real estate.
What do you think? Am I missing something? Is there a reason people don’t want to be contacted?
After one three-named blogger complained that people couldn’t spell his name right, I sent him an e-mail pointing out that, while he provided an e-mail link, nowhere could one find his full name.
Soon thereafter, he changed his e-mail link to include that information.
One writer — a longtime published novelist — titled his blog something bland like “A fiction writer.” Since he had written so much, I was curious about his books, but he provides no links on his site, and not even his full name.
Then again, my particular problem is that my Web site is planetpeschel, but my blog is titled Bill Peschel. So now I have links to my site in both names. Moral: Settle on one name and stick with it.
I think this idea goes beyond blogs to any sort of Web site, especially a Web publication. It’s my biggest pet peeve — when I can’t fiind contact info — and one of the most common complaints among readers and customers.
Very good advice Peter.
Ive always added a directly link to my email address even with the spam problems because at the end of the day its important that you can be contacted
I use a form of my email address (xxx at xxxx) which people can type in plus a contract form, where people can just write down.
The contact form actually is one of the fastest way to reach me then. :)
I’ve experimented a bit with this and found that putting a short, memorable Gmail address in an image (there’s a site which allows you to do this) is the best way to go. Since putting mine up, I’ve had no spam to speak of.
I’m in TOTAL agreement with you. It’s sooooooo frustrating to want to contact someone and then have to search 15 minutes and not find an email address. I usually just post a “please contact me” note in the comments section of their latest post, but even this only works half the time.
Great advice… I’ve been hesitant however though to add IM or Skype contact information.
I use this email encoder…never had a problem with spam from any email I’ve put on the web.
email encoder
There are always going to be problems with spam — email, im, telemarketers. But, no matter how much filtering I do, the emails, calls and ims that make it through more than make up for the hassle.
David emailed about the
Gmail tag maker I mentioned. I find it safer not to use a hot link, though others claim it’s not visible to the harvesters.
[…] of Almost Cool and The Blog Studio has a guest blog post up at ProBlogger.net relating his amazement at how so many pro-bloggers make it so difficult for folks to get in […]
[…] There are many different opinions about what makes a good blog. Many think that you should include information about yourself. Darren Rowse at ProBlogger has some very good arguments for making yourself available. Not all of us are as outgoing though. […]