In this age of spam warfare, it’s very common to send a message to someone only to have it end up in that person’s “spam” folder where it can take days or weeks to be found, if it’s found at all. So how do you ensure that your messages get past your recipient’s spam filters and sitting happily in the inbox where it belongs? Here are some tips.

1. Send messages in plain text, not HTML or rich text. Plain text is clean, elegant, and lean. Since most spam is sent in HTML format with lots of bold, color, images, and other annoying elements, most spam filters will penalize messages that include these elements. Unfortunately, most email programs send messages in HTML or rich text by default so you must change your settings to default to plain text. Tempted to place your company logo or a cute image in your signature line? Don’t… spam filters will slap a penalty on your message. For more information about the joys of plain text email, try Googling for “plain text email“.

2. Use proper spelling, grammar, and formatting. It seems that this age of instant communication and frenzied messaging has made it ok to throw style out the window when writing email. I get messages all the time from people who omit the first name greeting, write in broken sentence fragments, don’t capitalize anything, and can’t be bothered to use spell check. The occasional typo is forgivable but it seems that many email users simply don’t care about proper formatting or readability. Since most spam is written poorly and makes use of odd attention-grabbing formatting and language, many spam filters analyze the content of the message and penalize messages that are formatted poorly and have lots of misspelled words. Crafting your messages with care and style will not only get you past spam filters, it also makes you look more professional. More about proper email formatting can be found by Googling for “proper email formatting“.

3. Don’t use a “weird” email address. Ever notice how lots of spam comes from an email address that it made up of a bunch or weird letter and numbers? This being the case, if your email address is “LuckySurfer845601@hotmail.com”, you’re probably going to be penalized for it. By the same token, Hotmail, Yahoo, or AOL (or any other major consumer email service) should never be used for business email. Not only are you more likely to get blocked by spam filters, but it looks unprofessional. Instead, use your company email address for business. Example: “michael@spinweb.net”, “john.smith@ibm.com”, or “bsmith@apple.com”. Your email address should match the address of your company web site.

These are some simple tips for getting past spam filters. By following these simple guidelines, your emails will become more professional and more inbox-friendly.