As many blogs that get decent traffic know, you often get a lot of spammy comments on your posts, even when you have a decent anti-spam plugin or two.  Well, there are other routes to go when you STILL get spam comments.  And I’ve found a nice one.Any good web designer knows what the htaccess file is and what it’s used for.  What a lot of people don’t realize is how powerful this file can be, when used right.

The htaccess file is a file that works properly from the root directory of your domain.  Usually it’s used to handle issues like canonicalization, but can also adjust the traffic you get in different ways.

In my case, I had found a few individuals from China that seemed to like trying to comment on my blog about luxury shoes.  Now I understand the general misunderstanding from people trying to do SEO on blogs with comments, but really – commenting on internet marketing blog entries about shoes?  That was enough to make me go ahead and take action.

So what I did is collected the IP addresses from all of these spammers (easily findable through any of my multiple log tracing tools, in addition to being blatantly visible through the blog back end comment tab).  I took these addresses and then created two lines on my htaccess file:

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} 222\.79\.17\.112
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/spammer.php [R=301,L]

Once these lines were entered, what it will do is take any visitors from the specified IPs and redirected them to a lovely page I made, just for them.  And no, the IP address has NOT been hidden to protect the guilty.  To make this work properly, all you need to do is make sure you put these first two lines in your htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on

After that, just change out the IP address for the one you want to redirect, and then make that page one which you want to point them to (can be another domain entirely, if that’s your choice).  Then they can spam no more!  Or cease to bug your site, with whichever way they have offended you.  Have fun with it!

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I had noticed recently that I was sending emails to certain people and not receiving replies (when it could be expected I’d get some).  Well, it appears that some hostings services are starting to tightly conform to RFC 2181 by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), which was updated in July of 2009.

What’s happening is basically that mails sent by the mail servers that are set up with aliases for the domain are getting bounced by these hosts that are conforming to RFC 2181.  The servers should be set to a proper A record or directly to an IP address to prevent this issue.  If you’re having similar issues, talk to your hosting company (if your mails are bouncing) or talk to the people who sent the emails whose emails bounced when they sent them to you.

For me personally, I know I need to keep my emails in check since it’s a primary form of communication and business, so this is rather important.  It’s good to be aware of such updates that can have an impact on potential business and even on personal communication.

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So what exactly is email marketing?  Well, this is a broad term that can cover a lot of material, but the basic idea of email marketing consists a method of internet marketing using a list of email addresses.

Bad email marketing is what everyone knows (and despises): spam.  This is mail that is untargeted, sent out to every email address acquired, and not always from a specific location.  Some people sell email addresses to companies who use the addresses for this purpose.  And a lot of it is sent.  More than most realize – in June of 2007, the estimated amount of spam per day was just under 100 billion messages.  That’s a lot of spam.

Why so much spam?  Because a percent of it actually converts.  Maybe not you and me, but there are people out there who see something in their spam and decide they need to buy that product.  And since the cost of spam is essentially null, the ROI is more than enough excuse to send out millions (or billions) of emails a day.

So yes, that’s BAD email marketing.  What’s good email marketing?  Good email marketing is having a highly targeted market and offering quality information through email to individuals in this market.  For example, if I had a dog food site, I might offer important information about which dog foods cause health issues in dogs, for anyone who joins my email list.

This is targeted email – the people who sign up actually WANT to receive information from me, and are happy when I give them quality information.  To do email marketing well means you should send out good information.

A lot of internet marketers use email lists as a means to sell.  While this can work, if this is the only thing they use their list for, it can turn away many customers.  If you do this, in the eyes of some people on your list, you’re becoming more like spam.  To avoid this, quality information that is FREE should be offered moderately frequently.  Consider it – if you sign up for a list, you’re not getting in because you want to be sold things, correct?  You sign up because you want information.  So give your list information!  Good information, if you want to be seen as an authoritative source.  Then, when/if you choose to market a product of some kind, they will be more open to this, as you’ve established a level of trust.

To do email marketing, one of the major techniques is by using what’s called an “autoresponder”.  This is a tool that allows several email addresses to be placed into a group, and each email can be sent individual messages, addressed to each individual (instead of an anonymous group).  In some cases, the individual’s name can be identified, to make the mails you send more friendly and personal.  The benefit is that once you’ve written your emails, they can be sent to all your list, as well as to anyone who joins your list.

With autoresponders, you can schedule each email to be sent out immediately (with a broadcast) or at set times, or you can have a number of emails that can be sent, spaced apart by a certain number of days.  So if I had five emails that I wanted sent to my list and all new list members, I could write these emails, set them to each be sent three days apart, and then not have to worry again.  When a new list member is added, they are sent the initial email, then the next three days later, and so on.

One of the best ways email marketing can be very effective is by setting up a relationship with your customers.  If you demonstrate that you truly know what you’re talking about, and that you’re just a normal person, a level of trust can be set.  From that point, it’s much easier to interact with your list members.

It’s been said that the best way to make a sale is through personal one-to-one interaction – using autoresponders comes very close doing this in an online way.  Treating your customers well will always make them value you as a merchant more than one who treats their customers just as numbers.

For me, I personally prefer using an autoresponder system called Aweber.  I’ve used them for several years, and they are a high quality system – they can handle several thousand members (if you have a list that large), but work just as well for smaller lists.  I recommend considering using email marketing for your business, if it’s applicable.  Usually there are ways you can establish a relationship with your customers doing this, and then you’ll have customers you’re happy with, as well as having customers who are happier with you.

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