Email marketing is nothing new—businesses have been using this inexpensive marketing tool to generate sales as long as email has been around. While those emails can get annoying, email marketing is an effective way to market to the masses and impact your search engine optimization.
The first recognizable email marketing message was sent back in 1978 by “Father of Spam” Gary Thuerk. Though it was only a few hundred emails, it gave way to what is now a daily occurrence—businesses bombarding our inboxes with messages.
Today, automated emails and RSS feeds make it easy for small business owners to get content out to customers and prospects with minimal time and financial investment. And using email marketing effectively can drive traffic to your website and social platforms, improving your SEO to get more organic traffic. Here are just a few reasons why email marketing is a good way to go:
Encourages Engagement
Simply emailing your audience isn’t going to improve your organic SEO, because search engines don’t index emails. But when you provide value in your emails—value that includes your own original content—your audience will read it, click through to your website and, here’s hoping, share it. This drives even more traffic to your website.
Your email campaigns shouldn’t simply provide links to your blog posts and other content, but rather encourage engagement with that content by providing more information. In essence, repurpose your content and give more value. The more your content is read, the more search engines view your site as authoritative, which improves organic SEO.
[bctt tweet=”Email campaigns: Don’t just provide links to your blog; encourage engagement with content by giving more info.”]
Direct Potential Customers
When you write fresh content for your blog, does your audience see it? If you’re in a highly saturated industry, your goal is to stand out. It’s not always possible to do that through traditional SEO avenues. It’s very expensive to rank high in industries saturated by huge conglomerates. And paying for online ads is pricey and doesn’t always return on your financial investment, especially if you’re a small fish in a big pond. Hook potential customers in through a valuable opt-in giveaway, then send quality content to their inbox—where you know they will at least read your subject line. Want to make sure your email gets opened? Read about email subject line best practices.
Keeps You Top-of-Mind
People who opt-in to your email list to get a freebie are not ready to buy. But if you give them value through a targeted email campaign, encourage them to visit your site for more value (hello, SEO!), they will come back to your website when they are ready to buy.
It may not seem like email marketing and SEO have a lot in common, but emails are truly a tool to help boost your organic SEO. And the best part is, it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Find the email provider that fits your needs and your budget, utilize its design options to brand it and develop your content calendar to include regular emails to your list.
