Teach42

Before I go off on a rant, let me preface this one by saying that I’ve been as guilty of this as anybody else. It’s corrected right now, but as recently as 10 days ago, I was suffering from the same problem that many blogs suffer from. It’s called, “Contact Deficiency Syndrome”.

This occurs when someone has a blog or website that is publicly viewable, but leaves no way for people to contact them directly. No ‘contact me’ page, no email address, no form for submitting a general question, nothing… This leaves visitors and people who would like to contact the author three possible solutions. 1) They can leave a comment on a post that is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and HOPE that the author gets email notification of comments. 2) They can do some searches for the persons name/alias and try to find a means for contacting them elsewhere. 3) Decide that they aren’t worth contacting after all and just give up.

If you’re taking the time to publish publicly, then you want someone to read it. So why not give them a means for extending contact with you? I’ve noticed this quite a bit recently as I’ve tried to contact many bloggers directly for a variety of reasons, both personal and professional. An astonishing number of bloggers, particularly Blogger.com users, have no way for people to contact them.

If you’re worried about SPAM, there are a ton of potential solutions. You don’t have to give out your email address. You could use an online form instead. I saw Alan Levine’s comment on this Wordpress plugin, saying that he used it himself. I figured if he recommended it, it would probably work for me. Easy install, easy setup, and now I have a Contact Me form available again.

There’s plenty of other ways to do it (besides just listing your email address). If you use Blogger, you could check out these directions. Or just come up with your own. Totally up to you. But you never know when someone might visit your blog and decided that they want to make direct contact with you. When that happens, will they be able to do so, or will the opportunity just walk away?

Take a few minutes right now and check out your blog! Be sure to log out so you are experiencing it the same way that visitors are. Is there a means for making contact with you?

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