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"Contact Me"
October 20, 2006
I may be preaching to the converted, but I was just thinking today - again! - about the importance of including your contact information somewhere in your blogs.
I'm not even talking about it from a professional perspective, or from an affiliate marketing perspective.
And yes, I think even on "spammy" blogs, you really should make it easy for people to contact you.
I mean, how else are you going to receive link exchange requests?
But even more importantly, especially for content-rich blogs, having an easy to locate "Contact" or "Contact Me" or "Contact Form" link (you get the gist) is a very important thing.
Why?
It leaves the door open for opportunity.
The blogging world really is rich with opportunity.
Once you start blogging, especially if you manage to get your blog's name out there into the wide unknown and people start finding you and liking what you're writing, you'll start seeing lots and lots of opportunities come your way.
Sure, there are the link exchanges. But after a while, you really can't handle too many more, or your sidebar will just be a massively long list of links to other blogs (and we've all seen sites like those, right?)
I'm talking about other opportunities.
For the past year, I've had people making full use of the contact information on various blogs of mine to get in touch with me about a number of things.
I've received requests to review ebooks, physical books and actual products. I've received requests for paid consultations. I've been asked to join mentoring or networking groups. I've been given free invitations to industry events. I've had requests for interviews. I've had some opportunities that can't be categorized - they're not likely to happen more than once - but nevertheless they were still excellent opportunities. I've even had a few job offers.
I've also met a lot of really nice people, many of whom I continue to keep in touch with. Some of them have become good friends.
And if you're not using a contact form but don't want to use your real email address on your blog? Use a gmail address (that's what I do here and on another blog of mine) and obfuscate the mailto link. Some people might think using a gmail address is unprofessional, but that's their problem, not yours.
So don't forget the power of having that little bit of contact information on your blogs.
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Posted by BJ at 05:57 PM in On Blogging | Permalink
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Comments
Thanks for that obsfugator link to the php code. I agree with you by the way about having a way to have people contact you.
I had actually found something today, a free php-based complete form, that I realize I don't want to use after all, because it requires that a visitor enter those graphic letters into a box for security.
Myself, that would deter me from having to "work at" just simply contacting someone. I don't expect anyone to want to work at contacting me either by having to enter in letters.
So I'm going to remove that form and just use this php code for a simple clickable email link.
Posted by: steve | Dec 24, 2006 11:57:07 PM
