CT Biz Blogs

If you have a blog, you’re created a presence on the web. If you have a presence on the web, you need to have a web-based way to contact you. You need to have an email address and you need to have it findable on the blog.

There are ways to avoid spam — you can have a graphical email link, such as in the upper right hand corner of this blog. I wrote earlier about how to create a graphic for your gmail account (and others), but you don’t need it — any graphics program, such as Paint, will allow you to create an image.

By the way, if you want a gmail account, contact me — I’ve got a bunch of invitations left. If you have a mobile phone, you can go right to Google and get one without an invitation from me.

Blog Flux just came out with a free email “scrambler” which makes it harder for spammers to harvest your email address. You simply type in your email address and click the “scramble email link” button, and you get some code which you copy, and then paste wherever you want your address to appear.

Make it easy for people to contact you; it could lead to great conversations, new business, new alliances, or even save you from a mistake. (If you find a mistake, typo, or whatever on CTBizBlogs, please let me know!)

Here’s a bad example. I recently went to the Business Week website, in search of podcasts. Here’s what I found on their page:

Embarassing. I might be interested in Greek wine; Greek wind conjures up images I won’t share.

I searched for a way to contact the webmaster. Nothing on the site. No page owner, just a link to customer service. There I was requested to fill out a long form. Forget it — this is way too much trouble.

Maybe they’ll read about it here.