Important Issues in Sending HTML Email
If you want your HTML email to put into recipient’s INBOX, you have to follow some rules.
Following are some important issues for sending HTML email:
1. Remove unnecessary HTML tags:
Remove these tags from your mail content:
– DOCTYPE
– <html>, </html>
– META Tag
– HEAD
– BASE
– LINK
– TITLE
– Comments
2. Use table for layout
Because of the very limited support of style sheets in webmail clients, the best and safe way to layout your html e-mail is to use tables.
3. Use Online Image
4. Hide Image Toolbar
5. Use Shortcut URLs:
URLs of email should be short/small.
6. Dont Use Anchors
7. Use Simple Inline Stylesheet
For example:
<td style=”font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:
10px;” >Vivamus ut sem. Fusce aliquam nunc vitae purus. </td >
8. Create your design with a white background color
Most webmail and e-mail clients use a white background color to display messages.
<td bgcolor=”#FF0000″>
9. Use the title attribute instead of alt
The alt attribute for images doesn’t work in Gecko-based browsers such as Firefox and Mozilla
10. Use <br /> instead of <p>
11. Don’t use forms
12. Don’t use _JavaScript:
_JavaScript in HTML e-mail is never a good idea because of all the dangerous scripting (for example XSS attacks) that can be executed. For this reason most webmail and e-mail clients disable _JavaScript by removing or ignoring it.
13. Provide a link for display in the browser
14. Keep Your Subject Short and Informative
15. Don’t Use DHTML and Flash
16. Send your e-mail as multipart/alternative
If you send a HTML e-mail to people with a webmail or e-mail client who can’t read HTML e-mail, they will only see the HTML code. If you don’t know what your recipients use, send your e-mail as multipart/alternative. This is the HTML version and the plain text version.
These issues greatly affect the HTML email. Currently I am working on a project where the emails must have to be sent to INBOX. I got success following these issues. I am researching more on that.
Regards,
$Rupom