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We often hear the following question from small business owners who are (rightly) trying to prioritise how to spend their marketing budget:

Given the fact that email is a dinosaur of sorts…is it really worth it to invest in email marketing?

It’s a fair question to ask, especially when you consider the very first mass email campaign was sent out nearly 45 years ago (yes, email really has been around that long!). But the truth is, email is still very much alive and well with more than 4 billion global users and it remains one of the easiest and most effective ways for you to make meaningful contact with potential and established customers.

And it just so happens that, when used correctly, the emails you send can have a significant impact on your search engine optimization (SEO), so it’s important to know how to get the most bang for your proverbial buck.

And that, dear readers, is where we come in.

Today, we’re going to share 3 of our favorite ways to use email marketing to boost SEO…and some of them just might surprise you.

1. Segment Those Emails

Sure, you can create a single, general email and send it out to all your contacts…but doing so casts a wide net that might annoy those who aren’t interested. Instead, segment recipients according to category…and the more granular you can get, the better.

Demographics are a great place to start, so begin categorizing email addresses according to gender, age, and income level among others. If you’ve sent out a survey or quiz recently to discover which products/services your followers are most interested in, now is a great time to break out that information and divvy up your audiences accordingly.

Why? By sending recipients an email that is more targeted to their interests, you have a greater chance of pushing them further through your marketing funnel and increasing the odds that they will actually interact with your email which, in turn, benefits your SEO.

2. Make Graphics Shareable

There has long been a debate over whether social media interaction really affects SEO (for years, Google has stated it does not). If you’re interested in going down this rabbit hole, you might find this experiment conducted by Hootsuite of interest. The general consensus these days—and, just FYI, you should stop reading now if you don’t want to know the results of Hootsuite’s experiment—is that social engagement does drive traffic to your website which, in turn, improves your SEO.

Imagine yours is a business selling reusable containers and shopping bags to cut down on single-use plastics. As part of a monthly email newsletter, you might include a graphic like this one created by the Canadian government to show various alternatives to single-use plastics.

Such imagery will certainly have an impact on your followers, so why not increase its reach by making the image shareable to social media? But you can’t just assume people will know to share it, so include a clear call-to-action (CTA) button that tells readers to share the image to their own social media pages. Doing so has the power to create the kind of organic social engagement that drives SEO.

3. Request Reviews

We’re going to preface this tip with the caveat proceed with caution. We say that because, in general, your emails should give more than they get. You should be providing readers with interesting industry information, helpful tips and tricks, and details about events they may find interesting.

If you are giving enough, it is ok to make an occasional request of your readers and asking them to review your business can have a significant impact on your SEO ranking. Each time a customer leaves a review, they’re creating content on your behalf that informs search engines about the products you offer and the services you provide. So, if you haven’t yet claimed your business on sites like Google My Business, Yelp, and even Facebook, be sure to do that before asking for reviews.

Hopefully, you’ve already done your segmenting from tip 1 and know which email addresses belong to followers of your business and which belong to customers. You’ll want to send this email to people who have actually benefitted from your products or services.

As you’re crafting your email, keep the “give more than you get” rule of thumb in mind. Give them your thanks for being a customer. Explain to them how much their honest review means to your business…then ask them to leave a review and provide a clear CTA button to make it that much easier.

Don’t give up on email marketing. It remains one of the most effective ways to communicate with your customers…and, when used correctly, it can have a profound impact on the SEO for your business.

Thanks for reading,
Digital Canteen Team
02-9025-4304