Okay, so Joe talked about it a few weeks ago, and now (a former employer of mine :)) Jim Boykin is raving about it as well. Chances are such that if you have any kind of website, you’ve fallen victim to it, as have I. I call it “email hijacking” and it happens when someone sends out their spam email campaign using your domain name in the “Reply-to” section.

It doesn’t even have to be YOUR email address. I’ve had it happen to me with addresses like ‘jpc4029dnmgal@anubismarketing.com”. What happens is typically that your real email address has been set up as a “catch all” account, and you wake up one morning to 400+ “returned mail: unknown recipient” emails. Greaaaaat, you say! Well, I’d like to share some of the things I’ve done in an attempt to stop it, and why.

First I’ll touch on the “why” - It’s because inevitably, your domain is going to end up on some company’s “spammer” list (or two, or twenty companies’ lists), and could eventually wind up banned by some ISPs or other email hosts that use spam filters and blockers. Then, in the event that you do get one of those people who WANTS to be on your email list, they probably won’t receive it.

Now, for your sheer entertainment, here are a few things I’ve been known to do when this has happened to me. I’m not saying that these are GOOD ideas, mind you. Most of them kind of just happened out of pure anger and frustration the first few times this happened to me!

• I’ve checked the whois on the domain for the site/link that’s included in the spam message. Unbelievably, these people rarely get private registrations. Not so unbelievable is the fact that they’re typically from other countries.
• After checking the domain name, I find out who’s hosting that site, and report them to their hosting company for partaking in email spam behavior. Sometimes this works, other times it doesn’t. Depends on if the IP addresses match with the emails usually.
• The registration information. I’ve gone so far as to call the phone number (yep, paid the international toll), and ask for the registrar by name. Only once did I get said person on the phone (during a call to Costa Rica), and let’s just say they got an earful of English profanity, peppered with demands to stop, etc. I’m sure I said something about “taking legal action”, at which the guy probably laughed after hanging up the phone.
• Slightly more reasonable, yet not quite effective in terms of stopping the act itself, is turning the “catch all” option off. This only works if you’re not using one email address to catch others that you’ve put out there, like sales@domain.com, info@domain.com - without actually creating those emails as accounts. Simple fix - create them, and then turn the catch all off.
• Definitely send an email to your own email hosting provider, explaining the situation. Ward off unexpected account terminations this way. They won’t be able to do anything to stop it, but they’ll appreciate the heads up.
• Try using a javascript to display your email address, as opposed to the traditional way to code it in there. Much like the way you see people posting them so they don’t receive spam (lara [at] anubismarketing [dot] com) except, they can scan and find that stuff as far as using it to send out spam so that it appears to be coming from you. They don’t even need to do that… I think they typically just pick a word they like and check for already registered domains. In this case, the javascript thing or the disguise won’t help you much. But since I’m not a spammer, I wouldn’t know exactly what they’re doing, so any little bit helps.
• When all else fails, and you’ve already removed a significant percentage of hair from your head, gone through a whole pack of smokes in the course of 2 hours, and lost your voice from yelling at the spammers - let it go. It typically only happens over a 12-24 hour period, and then it’s over, they’ve moved on. They’re only doing it so THEY don’t get the returned mail… it’s silly, it’s ridiculous (wouldn’t you want to know if the email list you paid for was worth the dough?) and it’ll drive you crazy - take the precautions with your ISP/email host and move along…

Note: I’ve seen a few people talking about SPF, or Sender Policy Framework. I really know nothing about this, nor how to implement/request it. If anyone has any experience with SPF, please let us all know!

Popularity: 16% [?]

As a follow up to the post 6 Sites To Help Your Business Blogging Skills, here’s a list of sites that will help individuals who are looking to make a living as a solo blogger. There are literally thousands of great resources out there for this, but I’ve decided to list some of my current favorites here, just to give some shining examples of solo bloggers who blog about solo blogging.

Just so you know, the art of solo blogging for fame and profit relies mainly on ad revenue. But you need to know the art of solo blogging in and of itself, before you get to the fame and profit.

Do check out the other post for more blogging help once you’ve gotten to the point where you’re really ready to make blogging your business!

• Working At Home On The Internet - Joe’s got hundreds and hundreds of posts of fantastic information here! He’s a firm believer in “spreading the link love” and therefore also shares some equally great resources for bloggers who are seeking the joys of working from home. I discovered Joe and we’ve since become friends after a writing contest over at ProBlogger.
• Lorelle on WordPress - Regardless of whether or not your blog is WP based, Lorelle is an amazing contributer to the blogging community. She’s made many contributions to WP as a whole, and her writing is clear, understandable, and from the heart. She’s truly a “must read” for anyone who blogs!
• Six Figure Blogging - Six 1-hour audio recordings with extensive, annotated transcripts in PDF format featuring Andy Wibbels and Darren Rowse from ProBlogger (There he is again!) and the b5media Network. Main points of this course: How blogs make money (sometimes thousands of dollars!), suggestions on how to drive and convert blog traffic, and blogging as an occupation (as opposed to business blogging as a marketing tool), including details on blog networks and paid blogging.

I’ll add more to this in the future - if you know of any good “Starter’s Guide to Blogging for Dollars” type sites that should be included here, let us know in the comments!

Popularity: 8% [?]

LetterPop is a free online newsletter creation service that makes “drag-n-drop” an understatement!

It’s free, whether you sign up or not, but signing up has its advantages. You can have up to 10 newsletters published at a time, for one thing. The newsletters are hosted by LetterPop, and you’re given a URL once you publish your newsletter (for posting on a website or email) and the option to email the newsletter out right from the site by creating or uploading a mailing list.

Right now, they’re in beta - which means everything’s kind of limited. As quoted from the site:

Coming soon, you will be able to upgrade your account to a premium membership that lifts many of the limits of your free account and adds a lot of useful features. Need to send more newsletters? Need a bigger address book? Want access to a wider selection of templates? It’s all coming.

It’s not a new concept in terms of creating newsletters online - however it’s really easy to do, and if you’re not too picky about templates (as of right now, there are only 14 available, and there aren’t many fonts to choose from either) or photos (the site doesn’t allow you to resize or crop them, so you have to have them done up the right way beforehand), it’s a good way to get started writing newsletters for your site visitors. It’s a habit that’s not always easy to get into, but is definitely a good practice to put in place!

Popularity: 17% [?]

Today’s question refers to “web site builders” for standard HTML websites.

Dear Lara,

I’m in a quandry about a few things and was wondering if you could help. I have a site that I built using one of those web site builders that you find all over the ‘net. I was in a rush to get “something” up there, and it was just too quick and easy for me at the time since it was offered to me when I registered my domain name and set up the hosting.

Now that I think about it, I’m wondering if hiring a company to do a customized design for me would fare me better in the long run. I don’t know how to code HTML or anything like that - this was essentially a “point and click” type of setup.

I’m worried that it’s too boring and “amateur-ish”. I’m worried that there’s code in there that might be a hinderance in terms of search engine optimization. I’m worried that if I ever do really want to get into doing some serious Internet marketing that it would be a waste of money on a site that’s not “up to par”.

What do you think?

Sincerely,
Pamela B.
{last name and site address removed for privacy}

Thanks for your great question, Pamela! And first and foremost, stop worrying so much!

The real answer here isn’t a cut-and-dried answer, I’m sorry to say. There are lots of factors to think about when building a web site and code is definitely one of them. The bottom line is that if you can’t read code, you have no real idea what’s in there that could be a problem for you in terms of SEO or anything else, so you’re either going to have to take the time to learn enough HTML code or find someone who can help you decipher what’s going on “behind the scenes”.

That said, most of what I’ve seen in terms of “DIY” websites makes them very un-search engine friendly. Very often there are “frames”, where each page is displayed next to or below a menu and the search engines can never get to the true URL of each individual page. There’s also typically a lack of CSS (cascading style sheets) files that are used to make changes “globally” in a snap. Decided you prefer black text on a white background all of the sudden? You’ll likely have to go through and make those changes individually on each page. The graphics you’re provided are rarely what you really want, and often the file sizes are large which make the pages load more slowly.

Oh, I could go on and on…

That said, there’s been a lot of talk on the internet lately about “ugly sites” and how it doesn’t always mean that a company is bad if their site is “ugly”. In a very small way, I can see the point - Let’s say you run a mom-and-pop laundromat. You offer your website up with tips on stain removal, list your hours, maybe some details on your machines and “amenities”, and hand out some coupons for dry cleaning. Do you NEED to market your site to the world? Does it NEED to look like you’re running this “high class” place? It’s a single location, and costs about $2.00 to wash and dry a load of laundry. So no, you don’t want to drive people away by making them think you’re expensive, and you don’t need to have people across the country find you. (However this is not an excuse to not do any online marketing at all! It simply means you can probably spend less than you’d think, because you’re geo-targeting your traffic.)

So yes, it does depend on your situation whether or not you should try to do-it-yourself or hire an outside company. A basic, well-designed site won’t cost you a mint, but will always make life easier in terms of SEO and marketing if it’s done professionally from the start. If you’re looking to get into more in terms of marketing (ie. you’re not running a local laundromat, but rather an online business that serves or attracts people from around the country or world), then yes, my opinion is that you should fork out the cash to have the site redone professionally so that you can pursue a successful online marketing campaign. And please - don’t take your DIY site to an SEO and tell them you don’t want to redesign or re-code it! You should never do that with any site, as part of SEO is making the site search engine friendly, and there’s no way an SEO can do that without digging into the back end of the site or re-arranging things!

Thanks again for your letter, Pamela!

To send your own questions to us and possibly have it posted here, email us at ask@anubismarketing.com!

Popularity: 16% [?]