6 Email Marketing Tips to Improve Your SEO

On the surface, search engine optimization might seem completely unrelated to email marketing. But these two channels can actually work together in so many ways. In fact, your email strategy can offer tons of value to your SEO efforts. With proper planning and the right tools in your service, you can definitely hit two birds with one stone as you engage your email subscribers while boosting your rankings on search engine results pages.

The value of email marketing to SEO

Your emails are capable of boosting the authority of your blog or website on search engines. Beyond that, a well-crafted email campaign can lead to valuable insights that will help you create more relevant and compelling content for your audiences. More specifically, here are ways email campaigns can contribute significantly to SEO:

Drive targeted traffic

In the context of email campaigns, it’s easy to think of your subscribers merely as the recipients of your marketing messages. But if you consider the fact that every individual in your email list deliberately opted in to receive your messages, you’ll begin to appreciate why your subscribers are an excellent source of qualified traffic for your blog or website.

Targeted traffic impacts your business in significant ways. The more targeted your audience, the higher your conversions, and the better your sales. But from an SEO perspective, email subscribers can be a source of direct website visits, which is arguably the most critical contributor to SEO rankings.

Improve engagement

Direct and targeted traffic also lead to better engagement rates. Because email subscribers are interested in your business and know what to expect when they visit your site, they’re more likely to stay and look around. That means lower bounce rates, longer times on site, and more pages per session. All of which directly contribute to your search engine rankings.

Along with direct website visits, time on site, pages per session, and bounce rates make up the four most critical factors that affect search engine rankings. Thankfully, a carefully planned email outreach strategy can help you score high marks on each of those factors.

Source: Ranking factors by Semrush‍

Provide useful data

You can develop your content strategy based on what you know about your audience. But armed with the proper tools to monitor your email campaigns, you’ll have access to valuable data that will tell you exactly what you need to boost your website’s value. You’ll know the best subjects to cover for better click-throughs and even better engagement. Eventually, that leads to better search engine rankings.

Data from your email campaigns also allow you to gather insights to improve the user experience on your website. You’ll know which specific formats, design concepts, and calls to action result in better on-site engagement. All this contributes to SEO.

Foster social engagement

Email marketing can be an excellent way to gain a social media following. Often, all it takes is a properly placed link with a compelling call to action to get email subscribers to connect with you on your social media account. But what does that have to do with SEO?

Although it’s generally accepted that social links don’t directly contribute to SEO, social media engagement can help boost search rankings in many indirect yet significant ways. Since you can update it more often than it’s acceptable to send out emails, it’s an excellent way to drive targeted traffic to your website.

Social networks are also useful for expanding your reach and achieving top-of-mind status for your brand. In turn, when people use search engines to find relevant products and services, they’re more likely to click through to your website. Consequently, your website gains a higher authority status.

How to boost SEO with email marketing

The potential value of your email campaign to your SEO is undeniable, but what does it take to maximize those benefits? Here are six specific steps to take in order to design an email strategy that would effectively improve your SEO:

1) Feature your web content

Publishing great content on your website or blog is critical to SEO. But to really make the most of new articles, videos, infographics, and similar content, make it a point to share them with your email subscribers. Doing so will allow you to direct plenty of targeted traffic to it. Your email subscribers have already expressed an interest in your offerings and are more likely to click through, spend more time on your site, and even share your content to their own networks. All that contributes to SEO. And because they’re a targeted audience, they’re more likely to convert. That, in turn, enables you to derive more sales from your web content.

Source: SEOFOMO newsletter

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2) Publish email content on your blog

Reach a wider audience by making your email content available on your blog. Use email as a platform for previews and teasers and then lead your subscribers to your site for more in-depth versions of your content. Apart from giving you direct and highly targeted traffic, you’ll also have more content for search engines to index. Consequently, you’ll get more opportunities to gain organic traffic and further boost your visibility on search engine results pages. 

Source: Morning Brew‍

3) Gather insights for better content & SEO

When you’re running a successful email campaign, your data will be a source of valuable insights that you can use to improve your web content and support your SEO efforts. Use your campaign results to pinpoint your best performing emails and create more content around them. You should also take advantage of UTM parameters and use Google Analytics to track them so you can get incredibly detailed and valuable insights about your audience. You’ll know what led them to your site, what triggered their engagement, and other critical information you can use to create compelling content and improve your user experience.

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4) Launch an email strategy to gain backlinks

Backlinks from established websites are critical to gaining search engine visibility. Not only do these links direct highly targeted traffic but also boost your website’s authority. Rather than waiting for relevant sites to stumble upon your own content, you should proactively pursue them and convince them to link to your pages. Among the best ways to do so is through email. Although your typical newsletter campaign won’t work, a dedicated email outreach strategy for high authority sites should help you gain more backlinks.

5) Segment your email lists in detail

Using an email marketing tool that allows you to segment your subscribers in great detail allows you to personalize your messages in ways that drive even more targeted traffic. Doing so allows you to delight your audiences to a greater extent since you can reach them with even more relevant content. Furthermore, actively using an email verifier ensures that you are filtering out inadequate prospects, and only reaching out to potential leads that are more likely to respond and convert. That leads to more traffic, better engagement, and higher conversions, which all ultimately lead to better visibility on search engines. 

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6) Ask customers for feedback

Every once in a while, or whenever you complete a transaction, ask your customers and newsletter audiences for feedback. This allows you to improve your services and gain insights to enhance your overall customer experience. From an SEO perspective, this is useful because it will help develop a more engaged audience for your site. Additionally, it will enable you to discover new keywords that your audience uses to describe and refer to your business. Most importantly, customer feedback will help you develop more relevant content that will feed both your SEO efforts as well as your future email campaigns.

‍Source: SEOFOMO newsletter

While an email marketing campaign can offer excellent results on its own, you can multiply its value by using it to support your SEO efforts. A carefully planned email strategy can drive highly targeted traffic to your website. It can also be a source of valuable insights, allowing you to enhance your customer experience, continuously create compelling content, and engage your audiences in meaningful ways. Ultimately, an email marketing campaign working in tandem with SEO will enhance your brand, boost your visibility, and bring in more sales.

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About the Author

Laura Cerbauske is an experienced digital marketing and SEO specialist at Omnisend - Ecommerce Marketing Automation platform. When not blogging, she likes to read about SEO, digital marketing and ecommerce trends, technology and personal productivity. Follow on Linkedin.