If you want to boost your search engine optimization initiatives, you need to consider the benefits of email marketing. Do you need more inbound links or greater visibility? Email marketing puts your content in front of interested readers. Does your website need high-quality content? Email marketing content can also be repurposed for the website. But this is just the start. Here are four ways that you can improve SEO through the use of email marketing.
Four Ways Email Marketing Helps SEO
#1 SEO Wants More Inbound Links—Email Marketing Creates Them
How does a website rank high in search engines? There are many signals, but a key one is having a variety of high-quality websites pointing back to it. Through email marketing, you can create content that links back to your website. If your audience visits your site to view the content—blog post, video, white paper, or otherwise—and finds it of value, they are more likely to link back to it.
But you cannot expect that people will just share the information, so be sure to use a call to action that encourages them to do so. Ask them to link to the specific content highlighted in the email or direct them to share it on their social pages.
#2 SEO Requires Content Visibility—Email Marketing Puts Content on Stage
Email marketing is more likely to be opened if it is sent to an expectant, willing audience. Individuals on your mailing list are eager for your content. This is a great way to drive people to your website. Let’s say your email includes a summary of the findings from your latest research report. To get the full report, the reader must visit your website and read the post about it. Once they are on your site, you can entice them to stay with links to additional material. Thus, you’re keeping them on your website longer and providing them with a wealth of information and improving your SEO markers (you can even find more about SEO here). And if they are compelled to do so, they will share this information with their peers, pushing your content pieces even higher.
#3 SEO Requires Great Content—Email Marketing Can Be Repurposed
Websites that rank high frequently publish content that is informative and well written. Often, it can be a challenge to come up with new content for blog posts or videos. But you can use the content you developed for your email marketing and repurpose it as content for your website. A newsletter, with adjustments, can be turned into a blog post. Or a longer email can be condensed into a one-minute video. You already have all the information you need, so it’s just a matter of adjusting the existing content for a different format.
#4 SEO Seeks to Establish Engagement—Email Marketing Has an Interested Audience
In order to rank well—especially on Google—your website needs to engage the audience and prove that it contains valuable information. As mentioned, people who are interested in hearing from you populated your email marketing lists. They are already anticipating the content you will produce and are more likely to engage with it versus an uninterested party. And by offering fresh content on a frequent basis, you are going to keep them actively engaged—they will spend more time on your website and interact with your content.
Many Benefits of Using Email Marketing for SEO
As you may have noticed, many of the benefits using email marketing to boost SEO go hand in hand: An engaged audience is more likely to create inbound links and interaction with your site. Both of these help with content visibility.
Now that you have an idea of how email marketing can help your SEO, it’s time to take a look at what you’ve already done. Have you noticed that your readers are sharing your content, or do you need to try including a call to action? Have you been repurposing your content or only showcasing it on email?
Although your website ranking won’t be affected directly one way or the other by email marketing, it can influence your readers to take actions that will. So, get to emailing!
Author: Chris Hickman is the Founder and CEO at Adficient with 15 years of experience in search marketing and conversion optimization. Since 2006, he founded GetBackonGoogle.com, helping businesses and websites suspended in Adwords to Get Back on Google
