After recently revamping our ineedhits email signature, I thought I’d write a quick post to remind everyone about the importance of keeping your email signature up to date!

An email signature is basically just a standard way of signing off all your emails. When used correctly, an optimized signature can have many benefits such as:

• Building trust with your prospects – A good looking email signature will make your business look more professional.
• Increase traffic to your site - Including links to your site will encourage repeat visits and may attract new visitors when your email is forwarded.
• An invitation to interact with your business – You can also include links to a special event/conference or even encourage readers to signup for your newsletter.

So let’s take a look at how to build a solid email signature. Besides the obvious elements (Name, Title and Company) here are a few additional items you should consider adding:

1. Company Address – Increases trust/credibility
2. Company Logo – Trust/credibility
3. Phone Number – An alternative way to contact you in case email is down
4. Website URL – Reminds readers to visit your site
5. Social Media Links – Get readers to interact with your business through other popular sites
6. Tagline – This can be an organizational tag line or a link to a specific event/campaign etc.

I’m not suggesting that you include all of the above elements (unless you want a very long and crowded signature) so have a play with the layout and see what works best for your business.

I should also point out that it’s useful to have a couple of variations of your signature, one for HTML based email and one for text only. Happy emailing!