1. Make the effort to learn about the etiquette (now known as “netiquette”) involved in email writing. There are plenty of good reference websites and books on the Internet that will tell you the basics. I know it may seem a bit vain to place so much importance on social niceties when the Internet is basically very casual. Whether we like it or not, however, many people take online etiquette very seriously. So if you’re writing emails for business, you have to assume that your recipient may be one of those…

2. Never send and preferably don’t even try to write an email if you are angry, annoyed, drunk or not in full control. If you’re having a heated conversation with someone on the phone, you can sometimes sidestep things. But with emails, once you hit send, everything you’ve written is there, carved into tablets of stone, for as long as the recipient wants to look at it. The old adage about “counting to ten” before responding couldn’t be truer here. Only send angry emails if you can handle, or really don’t care about, the recipient’s resulting feelings!

3. One thing you might not think about is that it can be helpful to carefully consider the timing of your emails. For starters, it’s always a good idea to avoid sending emails that coincide with the hustle and bustle of Monday morning and the lethargy of Friday afternoon. Also, I have occasionally found that emails sent to businesses over the weekend get lost in cyberspace. And on a rather more subtle level, if your recipients see you’re emailing on a Sunday morning or late night, they may feel like they can interrupt you for a business chat right then and there. While you may think it’s cool to impress a client that you work all the hours, your partner won’t when the same client calls you on the phone in the middle of the night.

4. Because almost everyone at some point or another has been infected with a computer virus, it’s understandable that people are wary of attachments. I never send attachments to anyone I don’t know very well, and I also never open attachments unless they are from people I know well. And then some contemporary viruses and worms clone themselves into genuine names and email addresses, so even an email purporting to be from someone you know could be infected. If in doubt, add text to the body of your email or contact the recipient beforehand and make sure they’re happy to receive it as an attachment.

5. Email design is something that few people pay attention to, especially if (like me) your system uses only text. However, even with simple text, sensible design can make everything more readable. Above all, you should avoid writing emails that are spread all over the screen. Those are very hard to read and in order to see everything correctly as text, your reader may have to change the fonts. The safest format to use consists of lines of no more than 65 characters. That fits, works everywhere, and makes email much more pleasing to the eye.

6. Your subject line should focus on what it contains for the reader to grab their attention. You will find that the best way to do this is to include some kind of benefit. For example, if you’re writing an email about a project budget being revised down, instead of saying “Project X: Costs revised,” say “Project X: Costs reduced by XX%”). If there is no genuine benefit to use, try to make it interesting and intriguing anyway. Also, avoid the words most hated by spam filters like “free”, “subscribe”, etc.

7. Online writing should be concise and clear, largely because the screen is a particularly hostile reading medium for most people’s eyes. If only for that reason, the KISS (Keep It Short & Simple) principle is useful. With emails, you need to get right to the point and stick to it. Someone who gets dozens of emails a day doesn’t have time to read a lot of preamble. By concisely stating your point, you will have the best possible chance of avoiding the unworthy fate of being eliminated.

8. In terms of writing style, here more than any other medium it is very, very useful to write as people speak. Also, it will make your email clearer and more concise if you leave out all but the essential adjectives and adverbs. Keep your awards brief and only include one main idea or thought per award. Paragraphs should be no more than 6 sentences maximum, less if possible. And if you list more than a couple of items, use bullet points.

9. If you write business emails, make good use of the signature feature that follows your name. It’s surprising how many people don’t use that feature correctly; however, it is an excellent opportunity for you to pass on some promotional words. Because the email signature appears last, your recipients probably won’t be irritated by it. In fact, as long as it contains useful contact information, it will be seen as a useful addition to your message. And even if your email is just text, you can still make it look reasonably smart.