1 of the complaints I hear a lot about is the amount of email people get - especially the

unwanted kind.

Well I hate to be the barer of bad news but ...

If you're going to have an online business then receiving a large number of emails daily is

1 of the things you'd better be prepared for.

Signing up for ezines, reports, special deals, free giveaways, traffic exchanges,

membership sites, updates, etc bring in a lot of legitimate email. (Not to mention the

email you'll get from your subscribers.)

And after you've joined a few lists, had your site up for awhile and kept the same email

address for a couple of years you'll also notice a greater number of "not-so-legitimate"

email.

And we're not talking about an extra 5 or 10 -
We're talking about "Hundreds" of email messages to your inbox every day.

Now I can tell you that when you're a 1 person business having to clean out the "junk" and

wade through the good stuff can really eat up your time. Time you should be using to build

and grow your business.

So today I am going to offer you a few suggestions on how to save some time in handling all

that incoming email. I don't claim to be an expert at how to receive less "spam" or how to

get off of mailing lists or even on how to effectively filter all your incoming email. But

since I don't pay for any mail filtering services I've developed a few techniques to help

avoid some spam and filter some of it out of my inbox.

6 Ways To Avoid And Filter Spam

1. Never ever post your email address as a clickable link
on your or anyone's web page. Clickable email address
are gathered by email harvesters who then sell them to
anyone wants them. So unless you're really looking for
dates, body part enlargement pills, a loan or cashing
in on someone's hidden money in some foreign country
I'd recommend you not post your email address as a
clickable link. Instead, encrypt your email address.

2. When you identify an email message as spam don't click
any of the links it contains - not even the unsubscribe
link! While a lot of spam does not contain an unsubscribe
link, much of it does appear to have 1. The problems with
clicking the links are: 1) It may or may not unsubscribe
you from that list (since they sent you unsolicited email
you can't trust them to unsubscribe you) and 2) It
validates your email address as a good address and puts
you on a more expensive list to be sold. So instead of
getting less unwanted email you'll probably start getting
more.

3. When you create your contact information for your site
use something other than "admin" or "webmaster" as your
name in your email address. Because these names are
commonly used many lists are created by gathering domain
names and then attaching "admin@" or "webmaster@".

4. Most web hosts allow you multiple inboxes and have 1
already set up for your use. The 1 that's already created
is your default inbox and will receive all the email sent
to your domain - no matter what name is used. If your site
allows you to have more than 1 inbox create another inbox
for your contact information email address. Then all your
legitimate email will go to that inbox. When you check your
default email inbox you may find that your site is receiving
a lot of unwanted messages you'll have to delete it but you
don't need to read it.

5. Try using the built in spam filters for the mail service
you're using. Recently I switched to Outlook 2003 and it has
many new features to block junk e-mail (spam). The most
notable feature is Microsoft's Junk E-Mail Filter. There are
5 key features in Outlook® 2003 to help you combat spam:
Junk E-Mail Filter
Safe Senders List
Safe Recipients Lists
Blocked Senders List
AutoUpdate
I keep my filter set to low so the messages identified as
Junk will be saved in the Junk Folder. That way I can save
the legitimate ones before I delete the rest. And every time
I identify a valid email I add it to the "Safe Senders List."
While this filter is not 100% effective it does identify
between 95% - 98% of the junk and move it out of my inbox.
You can find directions on how to use Outlook 2003 on a
microsoft - office - outlook page.
(Yahoo and other mail services also provide spam filters.
Try turning it on for a week and see if it will work for you.)

6. Whether or not you use the spam filter provided by the mail
program you're using you will still want to set up some
personal mail rules for directing certain messages to
specified folders. Since I get a lot of unwanted email to my
web site's default email inbox I've set up a rule to send it
all to my deleted email folder. To do this I have it catch
all email to my site "friendswhocare.us" and then defined
the exceptions (the valid email names I don't want deleted).
And of course you can set up rules to send mail from specific
senders to a special folder rather than have them deleted.
(You'll still have to add these senders to your "Save Senders
List" because the junk/spam filters usually run before your
rules.)

While the above suggestions will keep most of you unwanted email from getting to your

inbox, some will still make it through. Also you will still have to clean out your Junk or

Bulk folders. So here are a couple of shortcuts on how to delete email quickly.

2 Shortcuts for Deleting Email (Outlook)

1. If you have a lot of unwanted messages grouped together
then you can delete them all at once by:

* Click on the 1st message to be deleted
* Hold the Shift key down and
* Click the last message to be deleted

All the messages - 1st, last and all those in between
should be highlighted so when you click the delete
button they will all be gone.

2. If your unwanted email is scattered throughout your
inbox you can use the Ctrl key.

* Click on the 1st message to be deleted
* Hold down the Ctrl key and
* Click on each of the messages you want deleted

All the messages you have clicked on should now be
highlighted and you can delete them all by clicking
the delete button.

Yahoo and other email services usually have you check
a box to mark messages you want deleted. Look around
and somewhere they usually provide a place where you
can "check all." If most of your messages are to be
deleted then "check all" and uncheck those you don't
want deleted before you click the delete button.

When you're first starting you may not be getting much email and be tempted to look at some

of the unsolicited email. But after you've been doing business online for awhile you'll

discover that not only do you not have time to look at it but that it also steals much of

your precious online time. So take some steps to avoid getting spam and learn to use your

email program. You'll be glad you did.

To Your Success,
Susan Carroll


-------------------
Susan has been helping people with their online marketing for more than 4 years. You're

invited to join her free membership site at:
http://www.friendswhocare.us/join.htm
where she gives many free tools and resources including SpamStop to encrypt your email

address.

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