Loren McDonald offers 20 HTML design tips in three key areas: format, functionality and usability. He covers issues that affect how your message appears, including coding, images, message width and file size.
Format:
- Code emails by hand if you can.
- Avoid nested tables.
- Do not use canvas background images.
- Host images on your Web site instead of embedding them in emails.
- Avoid 1x1 pixel spacer gifs.
- Avoid using Cascading Style Sheets.
- Keep HTML Emails to 500 to 650 pixels wide.
- Keep message file size under 100 KB.
Usability:
- Validate HTML content.
- Avoid scripting if you can.
- Link to a Web version of your email message.
- Use image alt tags.
- Redesign the top of your email template so that readers will see your key content, even if they don't see the images.
- Use horizontal layout rather than vertical.
- Incorporate both text and HTML and use alt tags, color and graphics instead of live images linked to your Web site.
Functionality:
- Provide lots of active links to content at your Web site.
- Navigation through your email should reflect your Web site navigation – don’t use different terms.
- Add functionality such as Send-to-a friend...carefully.
- Add a subscriber-management section to each template.
- Host rich-media functions such as inline audio, video or Flash on your Web site instead of embedding them in an email.
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Mar 01, 2006 | Permalink | Category: Design & Layout
Comments (3)
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Tamara,
For future reference Loren (me) is a he, not a she. :-)
Loren
Posted by: Loren McDonald | Mar 05, 2006 at 09:25 AM
ouch! :-) I had no idea! Sorry for that. I'm change it immediately!
Posted by: Tamara Gielen | Mar 05, 2006 at 10:20 AM
Very Useful information about Email marketing.
Nice Posts. Thanks.
http://www.kishoreblog.com
Posted by: kishore blog | May 19, 2008 at 02:59 PM