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I_Dont_Smoke_But_I_Love_a_Good_sig
| I Dont Smoke, But I Love a Good .sig!
Copyright 2005 Jonathan van Clute
.sig, or “Dot Sig” as it’s affectionately known, stands for
“Signature File” and is the text and (usually) other contact
information placed at the bottom of email or other
computer-based correspondence. It is traditionally used for
things like phone numbers, alternate email addresses, mailing
addresses, web site addresses, etc. However the real truth is,
it can contain anything the author wishes to include. It is like
having your very own piece of legitimate, non-intrusive,
socially acceptable, 100% SPAM-free advertising space on every
piece of email you send or posting you ever make!
Think about that a moment. Really think about it. Do you have a
.sig on your emails? Have you ever noticed other people’s
signatures? Have you ever clicked their links out of curiosity?
Have you ever noticed that the links can have absolutely nothing
to do with the topic being discussed, and yet it is still
considered acceptable to use this space for what amounts to
advertising much of the time?
Have you ever stopped to think about how many eyes could
potentially be reading your online postings for years to come?
Or how far an email you type could go if it is forwarded a few
times to various groups of people you don’t even know? You may
not realize this, but many online forums, Yahoo Groups, etc. are
publicly readable; you only must be a member in order to post
something to the group. But since anyone, including bots, can
read the messages, they are some of the most widely “spidered”
content on the internet (see sidebar). This means that your
comments or postings could potentially be read by millions of
people beyond the one, two, or ten people you intended it for.
What would you pay for that kind of targeted advertising? Make
sure your .sig is ready!
[SIDEBAR] Googlebot - Your Friend on the WWW Googlebot is
Google's web-crawling robot. It collects documents from the web
to build a searchable index for the Google search engine. This
automated process is commonly called "spidering" because these
(ro)bots crawl the web in their search for information. The key
is that they love text. Google tends to rank sites with lots of
text content very high - especially discussion forums! Because
of this, your online forum remarks can live almost indefinitely,
and may be seen by people years from now. This means any .sig
you include at the bottom of your post will be nearly eternal
free focused advertising. [/SIDEBAR]
So, what is the proper protocol for creating a .sig? The
internet standard is to place two hyphens (dashes) at the bottom
of your email, and on the next line begin your sig. For example,
mine looks like this at the moment:
-- |----------------------------------------------------
|ARBITRAGE == Risk Free Trades, Profit Up Front! |Why gamble,
when you can win every time! |www.ArbitrageBusiness.Info - For
Business Builders |www.SportsArbitrage.Info - For Pure Traders
|www.PMLinvestments.com - For All Investors
|----------------------------------------------------
Notice I said that this is what my .sig looks like at the
moment. Your signature is a dynamic thing, and you are free to
change it at any time. In fact, you don’t even have to have a
standard one. Though most email programs have a place for you to
put in automatic signatures, you can also simply type two
hyphens, hit return, and type whatever you wish to be your
signature on that particular email or posting. Think of the
possibilities, be creative! Play with formatting and layout,
don’t be afraid to create simple shapes & boxes as I did above.
Beware however that formatting doesn’t always survive in emails,
especially in html format, so you will want to experiment with
sending yourself emails a few times while you get it “just
right.”
As long as you follow the protocol of two hyphens followed by
your content, and place this at the bottom of your email, this
is a universally acceptable method of self-promotion. The
absolutely most critical component is, that your actual
communication whether it be email or a forum posting must be
on-topic!
This means you can’t just post a message saying “I agree!”
followed by your signature, on a dozen forums and not expect to
be criticized for it. So make sure whatever you have to say is
relevant to the topic at hand, and then be sure to include your
.sig at the conclusion of your writing.
I believe that too many investors, business people, artists, and
more do not take advantage of this amazingly powerful method of
nearly-viral marketing. The major players in web-based email
have known about the power of this for years! HotMail for
example was a success primarily because of this technique! Back
when they first started, their only form of advertising was by
putting a small message about themselves at the bottom of every
email each HotMail user sent. This meant that, whether they
wanted to or not, every recipient of a HotMail user’s email was
exposed to a HotMail ad with a link to sign up. Because of this,
HotMail was my first web-based email account back around 1998.
Today, I don’t know of any major web-mail provider that does not
include a link to themselves in each user’s email messages. This
technique works; people do click those links!
In closing, I’d like to make a confession. I myself only created
my .sig very recently. Though intellectually I knew all these
facts and benefits to be true, I just didn’t take the necessary
action! Now that I have done so, I have received many more
website visitors, and participants in some of my business
ventures, because they saw my signature and decided to click.
Creating this signature was such a little thing, why on earth
did I wait so long to do it?!
Don’t wait – take action now. Needless to say, this advice
extends far beyond just creating a good .sig!
About the author:
Jonathan van Clute is a full time investor, educator, speaker,
and online options and sports arbitrage trader. In addition to
his business activities, he is also a musician, video
editor/animator, and one of the world's greatest Segway Polo
athletes. He can be reached via email at
jonathan@PMLinvestments.com and is speaking at an upcoming
teleseminar, visit http://snipurl.com/dotsig for details.
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