18 june 2024, 11:56
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Search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing are cost-effective yet very productive methods to boost your brand. Combining SEO and email marketing helps you connect with your target audience and increase sales. This article will show how marketers can combine both techniques to increase brand visibility and build a resilient long-term business.
The basics of SEO
Search engines are the primary source of organic traffic for any website. SEO is about optimizing a website’s content to rank high on search engines and get more organic traffic. It entails tweaking your website’s content so that search engines can discover and recommend it when users search for relevant keywords.
For example, someone might open Google and search for “best laptops in 2024”. You’ve recently published a review of the best laptops people can buy in your technology blog. However, many other blogs have similar articles, and Google uses proprietary algorithms to determine which links to show first. Proper SEO involves tweaking your website to increase the likelihood of getting to the first page of relevant search results.
How email marketing helps SEO
Email marketing enables companies to build direct customer relationships by sending targeted content. Effective email marketing helps convert leads into long-term customers and drives traffic to your website.
Search engines do not index email content. However, email marketing boosts a website's traffic and thus increases its reputation with search engines. The latter take into account the site’s overall traffic, including non-organic (which they can evaluate indirectly). Sites with more traffic are ranked better in search results. It’s a positive feedback loop where email marketing leads to more traffic, which yields better search engine rankings and in turn, more traffic.
Optimizing your site and email content
Email marketing and SEO revolve around optimizing your content to stand out and increase brand visibility. Below, we’ll examine the steps for optimizing your content to perform better on search optimization and email engagement.
Align keyword research with your email strategy
A major part of SEO is researching the relevant keywords to include in your articles. What keywords do people often search for, and can I include them in my articles? This question is essential for web publishers across all niches.
You can use popular keyword research tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Google Trends to stay constantly updated on the top-performing keywords in your niche. Remember our earlier example of publishing an article about the best laptops to buy in 2024? Let us search Google Trends to see the search trends for this keyword in the U.S. over the past year. We got the chart below:
In the 12 months before May 29, 2024, U.S. Google searches for “best laptops to buy” peaked in November 2023 and then gradually decreased. This chart suggests that November is the best time to publish an article reviewing the best laptops for people to buy.
You can also use Google Trends to check the most searched queries at a specific time. The table below shows the most popular searches on a particular date (May 28, 2024), with the Timberwolves vs. Mavericks basketball match being the number one search. If you run a sports publication, writing an article related to the Timberwolves vs. Mavericks match will increase your chances of getting more traffic from Google.
But keyword research is not limited to SEO. You can use the same research tools to find high-quality keywords for your email marketing campaigns. For example, a sports blog can send a newsletter analyzing the Timberwolves vs. Mavericks match. Whatever is popular on search engines will likely be also popular with email readers in the same niche, so aligning keyword research with email marketing brings better results.
Convert emails into blog posts where suitable
You can convert some emails into blog posts to boost your brand visibility. Analyze your emails to see which ones have the best engagement rates. Those with the highest open and click-through rates are best suited to turn into blog posts.
Email newsletters and offers are usually short (200 to 400 words or even less), while blog posts are typically longer. Hence, you can't always convert an email into a blog post verbatim – you’ll need to add more detail to the email. Expand the email topic to create a more detailed blog post. Add relevant keywords, internal links, and contextual information to make the article more informative and valuable to the reader. Use charts and pictures to illustrate your point, transforming a shorter email text into an explanatory article that appeals to search engine algorithms and blog visitors alike.
Encourage social sharing and engagement
Social media is the second-biggest source of unpaid traffic after search engines. So, it's wise to encourage readers to share your content on their social media platforms. It’s not just about asking users to share content – you should create valuable content that’s worth sharing.
Here are some tips for creating content people would like to share on social media:
- Use high-quality images and videos to illustrate your written content. Visual materials are easier to digest.
- Your content must be relevant to your target audience. The more relevant an article is to a visitor, the likelier they’ll share it.
- Write in-depth articles that answer users' questions. Provide actionable advice for your target audience.
- Leverage user-generated content where possible. For instance, a fashion blog can curate a list of the best outfits from its readers, thus encouraging people to share the article on social media.
- Create giveaway contests and challenges contingent on social media sharing.
Write in the proper tone for your audience
Different target audiences warrant different writing styles. If you're writing an in-depth article for business executives, it warrants a formal tone and structured format. In contrast, if you're writing entertainment articles for young people, you can use slang your audience is familiar with. The idea is always to adhere to the writing tone best suited for your audience.
How SEO complements email marketing
1. List building
Search engine optimization draws organic traffic to your website. Every new visitor who finds your website via a search engine is a potential subscriber to your email list. The key is providing valuable information that'll make the visitor want more content from you and be willing to add their email address to your subscriber list.
Include a call-to-action form on your website that lets visitors subscribe to your email list. This form can be placed in a static position or implemented as a popup. If it’s a popup, set it to display slightly earlier than the average time a visitor spends on your website. This way, you'll show the popup when the reader has digested the article and just before they're about to leave – the best time to snag a new subscriber.
Once you get email subscribers, you can send a steady stream of informative content and promote your products.
2. Email list segmentation
Segmentation entails separating your email list into distinct groups and sending targeted messages to each group. You can segment your email subscribers by many factors, such as age group, gender, income, interests, etc.
For instance, a sports blog owner can segment their email list according to different sports: baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, volleyball, etc. After segmenting the list, they can send more targeted emails to each group, increasing the chances of getting conversions.
SEO helps you segment your email list effectively. You can group subscribers based on what page they visited before subscribing to your email list. For example, anyone who fills the subscription form on a basketball article is added to the basketball segment, readers of a football review go to the football segment, and so on. Then, you can send basketball-related newsletters to the former group and football-related newsletters to the latter, improving the chances of getting engagement and conversions.
3. Generating ideas for subject lines
Keyword research helps you discover great ideas for email subject lines. The same keywords and headlines that attract search engine traffic also lead to higher email engagement.
Keyword research helps you choose the right words for your emails to entice customers to buy your product. The more relevant the words in your email are, the likelier it is for recipients to respond.
SEO title tags are similar to email subject lines. They’ll give you ideas for subject lines to convince subscribers to open your emails.
How email marketing complements SEO
1. Establishing trustworthiness and relevance
Google evaluates a website's content based on its experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, fondly called E-E-A-T. The higher a website ranks on the E-E-A-T scale, the likelier Google will suggest its content.
How can a new website build expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness? Email marketing helps a lot. You can start by focusing on email newsletters and building an engaged audience. Emails spread the word about your brand because subscribers can easily forward your emails to their friends, family, and social circles. As more people consume your content, your website's E-E-A-T score gradually increases, improving the chances of landing on the first page of relevant search results.
Other search engines, like Bing and Yahoo, follow similar patterns to Google. They rank websites according to authoritativeness, which email marketing helps you improve.
2. Organic link building
Backlinks play a significant role in your website’s search engine ranking. To the uninitiated, backlinks appear when other websites link to a page or article on your website. Backlinks signal to search engines that your website provides valuable information, increasing the chances of hitting the top for relevant search queries.
Many people pay for backlinks, but email marketing can help you get backlinks for free. Some of your email readers may decide to link to your content because they find it informative. The key is publishing engaging content that other publishers would love to recommend.
3. Analyzing your audience
Analytics is an inseparable part of email marketing. You constantly monitor your engagement metrics (open, click-through, and conversion rates) to see which subject lines and content work best. This analysis allows you to better understand your audience and the type of content they most often respond to.
When you observe specific topics performing well in your email newsletter, you can convert them into more detailed posts on your website to attract readers. Email analytics helps you create more relevant website content and boost search engine rankings.
Conclusion
SEO and email marketing complement each other in many ways. Combining SEO and email marketing improves your ability to build a larger, engaged audience, increasing brand awareness and sales. We’ve explained how SEO complements email marketing and vice versa, helping you understand how to do both effectively.
