If you have a online business, then one of the biggest problems that you will face is undoubtedly SPAM.
In writing this I must also say that spam is not just a problem for online business owners, It is a problem for everybody who uses the Internet.
In this short article I will show you methods that will cut down your spam by as much as 90% and one particular method will eliminate your spam problem almost completely.
How Your Email Account Get’s Spam
When you first come online, you are usually given a free email address by you’re (ISP) Internet Service Provider.
This is your personal email address and you should only give it to your most trusted friends and family members.
In theory this is perfectly sound and common sense advice, but in reality here’s what happens.
You give out your brand new email address to your friends and family.
Now depending on how clued up they are in using the Internet you will soon receive your first chain email message.
If you’re not sure what a chain email message is, It’s basically the same as a pass it along text message that you some times get on your mobile phone.
Chain email messages are usually funny or rather weird this is what makes them so popular, but if you look at the From section of your email account, you will see a list of all the email recipients of the chain mail that you’ve just received.
This is a spammers paradise.
Most people, and l include myself in this, pass on chain emails to other friends that we know by simply clicking the Forward button in our email accounts.
We do this because it’s quick and convenient.
This is what the spammers are relying on and that’s one of the ways that they harvest your email address. Their other favourite methods are…
- You’re signature at the bottom of any email messages
- The From:, To: and Cc: lines of email messages
- You’re email address on any of your business cards.
- In any online forums, message boards. etc
- Any trade shows and conferences that you attend
Spam can result from any of these contacts.
How Do You Stop Spam?
It’s simple really, all you have to do is never have an email address, never own a website and never buy anything online,
“Only Joking”
“Not a very practical solution for a very serious problem I know” The real truth is that you can never completely stop SPAM, but there are ways for you to manage it effectively and that is what I will show you now.
One of the first things that you should do is get yourself a throw away email address. This is one of the most effective methods of handling spam.
I personally have 6 different email accounts not including my business email address, and 3 of those are mainly used as throw aways for spam messages.
You will not need to have 6 email accounts unless you are planning on starting up your own Online Business, In fact you could probably just get away with using one.
However I do not recommend that you do this.
My suggestion is that you use 2 email addresses, Google and Yahoo.
My reasons are because both Google and Yahoo offer virtually unlimited storage capacity. If you compare that to 2 of my other throw away email accounts with Orange, that only offer me limited storage space which fills up every couple of days.
Although to be fair to Orange they do have a one click delete function included, which helps get rid of all my unwanted spam easily.
“Anyway back to what I was saying before” Google gmail and Yahoo also have a one click delete function, but you will rarely have to use it because of the enormous amount of storage capacity available.
Google gmail also clears all spam or other messages that you have read and deleted automatically after 30 days.
I’m not sure if Yahoo offer this because I spend 90% of my time using gmail, but I’m sure that they will make this feature available at some point in the future.
Another great way of handling spam is to make use of your “SETTINGS” In gmail this is located in the top right hand side right next to your email address.
Using this feature will enable you to organise your emails by using folders. For instance lets say you get 50 emails a day from Joe Blogs.
All you have to do is create a folder named Joe Blogs and then, everytime you receive an email from him it will automatically go into the folder that you’ve just created. “You can also do this in Yahoo by the way”
Making folders for all of your important contacts will give your email account a cleaner and more organised look and it will be at least 90% SPAM FREE.
