What is an email signature?

An email signature is a small bit of information that one attaches to the end of an email message. This information is typically your name and contact details; however, you can choose to put whatever you like. For instance, if you have a habit of signing off each email with God Bless, Regards, YOUR-NAME, you can put this as an email signature and it will be added at the end of all messages you compose.

Email signatures can be plain text or something fancier with images and colors. Any email program worth its salt allows you to create these and the popular ones even let you have different signatures for each email account you have configured in the software. For example, Outlook Express, which is a free email program from Microsoft, lets you quickly create and attach email signatures to outgoing messages.

The importance and advantages of email signatures

The main advantages of an email signature are ease and time-saving. Even if you have a simple thank you followed by your name, imagine the convenience of having it automatically added to your email message. However, email signatures become much more useful once you put in your contact details including your web site address, phone numbers and alternate email addresses - the recipient will immediately know how to contact you!

Another way in which you can exploit the power of email signatures is to mention ongoing promotions. So if you have a 20% off sale in progress, be sure to include it in the signature.

Email signature contents

There are no set rules as to what email signatures should contain. For personal email addresses that you use to communicate with your friends and family, including your name and contact details would be sufficient. Email signatures for businesses, however, can take on a whole new dimension - put in your company logo, ongoing promotions and full contact details. You can even throw in your company tag-line.

However, care needs to be taken in keeping the email signatures short and to-the-point - it would be unwise to have a signature that spans half a page... right? Don't stuff the signatures with irrelevant and meaningless information.

Though fancy email signatures can contain images and colors, remember, the recipients will only be able to see those images and colors if they have chosen to accept email messages in HTML format. A plain text signature provides better compatibility across different email programs; the complex ones can become illegible if the recipient has opted to receive email messages in plain text format.

Creating email signatures

If you use an email client such as Outlook Express, Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail, you can find help in creating signatures on this web site. Refer the links below:
Create email signatures
Create fancy colors email signatures with images

There are some online services that allow you to create an email icon that you can use an email signature.

• Hyplet.com
  Create "Hyplets" (personal IDs and Online Flyers) with the free online editor and use them as email signatures or on social web sites.
• Nexodyne
  Creates an email icon for various online web services such as Gmail, Comcast, Hotmail, Bellsouth...
• HKwebs.com
  The site is not in English, and at the time of writing doesn't work properly (I've written to them). They supposedly provide an email icon for Gmail accounts.