URLs And Emails

URLs And Emails by Jane Thurnell-Read

If you have a blog or a web site, do you have the URL's in your signature on your emails, and are they properly formatted? If you don't understand the questions, let me explain.

URL (standing for uniform resource locator) is the address of a specific web page. You will often see web addresses, such as www.mywebsite.com - if you type this in the web browser you will be taken to that page. Sometimes you'll see URL's written like this: http://www.mywebsite.com. If you type this in your browser, it would take you to exactly the same page. So, the question is why bother with this longer more complicated web site address?

I'd use the shorter one starting 'www' in any written material, because it's easier for people to type it in, but I'd use the longer one starting 'http://' in emails and other online material. The reason for this is that adding 'http://' will make the address clickable in almost every email programme - using just 'www' means that in quite a lot of email programmes it won't be clickable.

Making it clickable means that your recipient can just click on the URL in your email and be taken straight to the page rather than having to type it in themselves - it's important to make it as simple as possible for people to visit your web page, so use the address starting with: http://www when you send anything electronically.

If you've registered for our therapist listing, and have included your web site make sure that you start it with http:// so that it's clickable for your prospective clients. (if you haven't, you can log back in and change it - please take care typing it in as we do get a surprising number of mistyped web sites!)

If you have a web site or a blog, you should include it in your email signature, so that it will be included automatically at the end of all emails you send. If you don't know how to do it, go to the help section of your email programme and type in the word 'signature', and then follow the instructions.

You can just have the address, or you could include something like this:

Visit http://www.mywebsite.com to learn how [therapy name] can improve the health of you and your family.

If you don't have a web site or a blog of your own, then include the address of the web site of your professional association as part of your signature, e.g:

Jo Bloggs, [name of therapy]
Visit http://www.myprofessionalassociation.com to learn more about this amazing therapy and how it can help you and your family enjoy a better life.