In the late 1900′s, the Internet Mail Consortium came out with an electronic business card format called “vCard.” Because this format is widely supported by email software, such as Microsoft Outlook, you can use the vCard file (ending in “.vcf”) to save all of your contact information and pass it along to your customers and clients. Once you create your vCard (instructions below), you can either attach it to an email message to your client or post it on your website (or both). When your client opens the file, it will automatically be added to their contact folder or address book.

How Do I Make a vCard for a Website?

1. In a Contact folder, create and save a contact with your name, title, company name, etc. You may also want to add further information about your business in the “Notes” field, such as the services you offer and benefits of doing business with you.
2. Click to select the contact you just saved.
3. On the File menu, click Save As.
4. Optional: In the File name box, remove all the spaces in the file name: this will make it easier to link to this file later on.
5. In the Save file as type box, click to select VCARD Files (*.vcf).
6. In the Save In box, select the folder where you want to save the vCard file, and then click Save.

You can send the vCard file as a file attachment in any email message – just insert it like a regular attachment, and when your client opens it, your contact information will be added to their address book or contact folder.

How to Present a vCard in a Website

If you have a web server, or web-hosting, you can also upload that file to your website. You can use any FTP client to do this, or (if you use BlueHost) you can do this via your cPanel File Manager ñ just use the Upload button on the File Manager toolbar. You would put it somewhere within the public_html folder. Then, you can add a link to the file to your email signature block and even to your Contact Us web page.

Example: <a href=”http://yourdomain.com/vCards/YourName.vcf”>Add my contact information to your address book</a>.
Looks Like: Add my contact information to your address book

If your file just opens up in plain text, you may need to do a few extra steps.

1. Create a folder for your vCard file on your webserver
2. Move the vCard file to that folder
3. Create a blank, text-only file called .htaccess and add the line AddType text/x-vcard .vcf
4. Save the .htaccess file to the vCard folder you created

NOTE: This file is not secure, therefore anyone who discovers it on your website will be able to have your contact information. Thus, I would not put anything in your vCard contact unless you are also willing to put that information on your public webpage.