Words to Avoid in Writing Newsletters

The introduction of spam or junk e-mail has badly interfered with those who actually send e-mails such as newsletters and e-zines. Most of the time, even legitimate e-mails are being considered as spam by the reader's spam filter.

Anti-spam programs generally search for words and phrases that are typical of spam and assign each incoming e-mail a “score.” If your e-mail has too many of these words and phrases, you receive a high score and your mail may be blocked.

The first step that you should do is to avoid the following words and phrases that “trigger” a reaction to spam filters to appear in your e-zine or newsletter:

Amazing

Cancel at any time

Check of money order

Click here

Congratulations

Dear friend

E-mail marketing

For only (amount)

Free/ Toll-Free

Great offer

Guarantee

Increase

Order now

Promise you

Risk-free

Special promotion

This is not a spam

Unsubscribe

Winner

Eliminating these words from your articles may be hard at first, but using a handy thesaurus or paraphrasing your sentences can be of help.

You can also disguise these trigger words in clever ways like inserting keyboard symbols within them or replacing a letter in them with a symbol. It's not about being cryptic, but at least make your readers still understand what you're saying. For instance, try using “pr0m0” instead of “promotion,” or “fr*ee” instead of “free.”

Your next step is to test your article if it would pass the spam filter before sending it out. Lyris' Content Checker (http://www.lyris.com/contentchecker/) tells you how your e-zine or newsletter ranks in Spam Assassin. All you have to do is copy your text and paste it into the box on their site. It would run a free report and e-mail a copy to you. The report would tell your exactly which words are probable spam triggers. You should be concerned if your text receives a score of over 5 points.