How To Write Content That Avoids Spam Filters

Sometimes, campaigns can be ruined by email being sent to spam folders. There are a few things that can cause this. The first is the user marking your emails as spam and therefore your content being sent directly to the spam inbox. The other is the inbound server marking your content as being spam based on an algorithm.

This can create significant challenges for your campaigns. Firstly, anyone who is not getting your emails due to them being designated as spam is unlikely to interact with your content. This can make the ROI for your campaigns limited. In addition, if just a few mail servers mark your content as spam, then other servers could do the same. This can further infuriate you and make your marketing costs rise without any benefit.

Finally, your reputation with customers can be lowered if they constantly see your emails in the spam folder.

So, here are some of the best ways that you can write content that doesn’t mark your emails as spam.

1. Avoid Using Words Associated With Spam

There are thousands of words that are often associated with spam emails. Filters look for these in several areas of your email. The first area is the subject line. Using words like free, discount, earn and other similar words, can often mark your email immediately as spam. This is because a lot of spam emails do contain these words.

If you’re a business services provider, you might also want to avoid words like ‘marketing’ and ‘financial’. These are often associated with spam emails. And don’t write, “this is not junk”, that is one sure way to end up in the spam folder.

2. Check Your Spelling

The most obvious sign that someone is sending spam messages is that content has a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes. This is because, generally speaking, a lot of spam content is written by people who don’t have the necessary writing skills to maintain a professional writing standard.

If you aren’t confident in your writing skills there are several options for you. You could hire a professional writer. There are several places you can hire these people from, including freelance websites and local writing groups. Or you could hire an editor to proofread all your writing work.

You could also use online spell checkers. There are some available for free out there, so it doesn’t need to cost you much to improve your writing skills and ensure your content is error-free.

3. Limit The Overuse In Your Writing

Whatever you’re writing about, you want to make sure that you aren’t writing the same words over and over again. For instance, if you are writing an email about plates, you don’t want to be using the word plates more than three times for every 100 words. Ideally, you should really be using that word only once in every 100 words.

This prevents your content from being labelled as being spam because it is keyword stuffing. This is normally associated with black hat techniques in SEO, but it can also be used in emails to grab the attention of the audience and filters can penalise you for this.

4. Use Plain Writing

Don’t overcomplicate your writing by adding lots bolding, italics and underlining. At the same time, keep your content all the same size (except for headings). Those who use spam techniques often have content that is marked differently (bolding, italics and underlining) to identify key phrases to draw the attention of the reader.

Filters look for these text settings and will send emails to the spam folder if you use it too often. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it, but perhaps only once in an email when it is really important.

Conclusion

You don’t want to end up in the spam folders of your audiences. Therefore, look at ways to improve your writing to help you avoid spam folders and have better results from your campaigns.

How do you write your emails? Do you use a freelancer or a grammar program?

Let us know in the comments below.