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13 Ways Email Marketing Can Boost Your SEO
What does email marketing have to do with SEO? I know, it may seem that these two strategies do not have an obvious correlation. But they can actually work together to boost your website traffic and rankings.
In this article, I’ll explain how you can use email marketing to give your SEO efforts an uplift. So grab a cup of coffee, and let’s dive in!
Email marketing vs. SEO: General stats
Email marketing and SEO are obligatory in any digital marketer's toolkit. According to Hubspot’s research, 33% of respondents use email marketing, and 32% use SEO on a regular basis.
Hubspot’s statistics also reveal that nearly half of all marketers (48%) plan to increase their investments in both SEO and email marketing in the upcoming year. This means that more and more marketing teams recognize their potential to increase traffic and user engagement.
23 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website
Speaking of the effectiveness of these approaches, the figures are also quite promising. In 2023, 52% of consumers bought something directly from an email. And more than 40% of revenue comes from organic search traffic driven by SEO efforts.
In other words, the stats above are direct evidence that email marketing and SEO can create a synergetic effect, driving better marketing results.
Further, let’s discuss what you can do to put this synergy into action.
Perks of using email marketing for SEO
Increased website traffic
Emails packed with valuable content and catchy calls-to-action (CTAs) can bring highly targeted traffic to your website. Such an influx of visitors will signal Google that your website is active and engaging. Thus, you can indirectly grow organic search rankings through email traffic.
Here’s what you can do to increase website traffic using emails:
How-to #1: Share latest articles
One of the simplest yet effective ways to drive traffic to your website is to share your latest blog posts through emails. Instead of waiting for users to find your website in the SERP, you can reach them directly in their inboxes and invite them to read fresh content.
At SEO PowerSuite, we send fresh blog posts weekly. Here are the examples of our recent letters:
This helps us keep our audience engaged and in the loop of things. But it’s also important to have a foolproof email marketing platform.
How to choose an email sender?
Like with any digital marketing platform, selecting the right email sender requires meeting your goals and resources. Here’s the breakdown of key considerations:
- Deliverability rates: The nightmare of any email marketer is when half of your emails land in spam folders. To avoid this, choose the tool with a good deliverability reputation.
- User interface: A user-friendly dashboard can make managing email campaigns a breeze. Plus, it’s nice to have a variety of customizable email templates to save time.
- Set of features: You’re the only one to know your business needs – whether you want automated email campaigns, or personalization capabilities, or segmentation, or anything else.
- Analytics and reporting: You need to track the results of your campaigns, so ensure that the platform offers comprehensive reporting on metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and conversion rates.
- Integration capabilities: It’s cool when you can smoothly integrate the tool into your existing ecosystem and streamline the workflow, right?
- Pricing: Yep, agreeing on marketing budgets is tough. Since nobody wants a tool that breaks the bank, make sure that your sender meets your budget needs.
To share new articles regularly, we use GetResponse, a platform we've trusted for over a decade. We prioritized an intuitive interface and rich customization features when choosing an email marketing platform. At this point, GetResponse provides a nice choice of templates and a code embedding feature for well-tailored emails.
How-to #2: Repurpose content
Do not reinvent the wheel. If you have a high-performing blog post, consider repurposing it into an automated letter that will be sent regularly, for example, to new blog subscribers. This will drive even more traffic to this post.
Our case: once, we published an article about ChatGPT for SEO, which performed exceptionally well. Recognizing its potential, our team decided to boost it further. The idea was the following: when new users subscribe to our blog, a week later, they receive this post.
To make it work, we set this up through a simple automation chain in GetResponse. This move helped our high-quality piece attract traffic long after its initial publication.
Improved user engagement
Email marketing is more than just a tool for announcements and promos. It’s a powerful way to keep your audience engaged with your brand.
When you share cool, valuable content through emails, you bring users to your website and encourage them to explore other pages. Apart from increased engagement, it’s also a positive signal to search engines.
The following steps can help you improve user engagement:
How-to #3: Craft strategic CTAs
Making users open your email is halfway to success. Your engagement metrics will increase only when users click the link, visit your website, and do what you expect them to do (read the article, sign up for a webinar, make a purchase, etc).
To motivate them to do so, you have to write attention-catching CTAs and make them visible – whether it’s an appealing button or a well-placed link.
Mostly, we create emails by adding our custom code. But sometimes, when we need a creative boost, we head to GetResponse’s AI-powered editor. It helps us to design beautiful and thought-out layouts so that CTAs are placed as impactfully as possible.
How-to #4: Promote events and sales
Promoting events and sales through email campaigns is a common practice. When subscribers receive timely and relevant information about upcoming events or exclusive sales, they feel connected to your brand and are more likely to interact with it in the long run.
At SEO PowerSuite, we regularly organize sales and notice spikes in purchases through our email channel. Promo campaigns are also a fantastic way to re-engage less active subscribers. Here's how we do it:
- Create a segment of subscribers who haven't engaged with us for a while.
- Send them a promo email with a discount.
- Check which subscribers respond by opening the email and clicking the links, or even making purchases during the sale.
- After that, include these newly active subscribers in our regular Tuesday newsletter list and test if they keep interacting with these emails.
The takeaway? A well-timed sale can revive inactive subscribers, turning them into active participants in our email community.
How-to #5: Use targeted keywords
You may wonder why you should add keywords to emails if they are not indexed by Google anyway. But that actually makes sense.
Let’s recall the importance of search intent. As you know, search intent is the reason behind a user's query – what they are looking for when they type in specific keywords. By understanding and incorporating the right keywords into your email content, you create highly relevant emails that resonate with users' pain points.
Pick keywords with high search volume and use them in subject lines and preview texts. These are the first things your audience sees, so they can grab attention and entice people to open the email.
To identify top-ranking keywords, you can use Rank Tracker. For that, create a project and head to the Keyword Research module. Go to Ranking Keywords to see keywords your website already ranks for, or choose search methods to find new keywords.
How-to #6: Share social media links
Sharing social media links in your emails encourages users to engage with your brand across different platforms. If they find your content valuable and catchy, it’s your chance to go viral – subscribers will likely share it within their networks (again, amplifying your reach and engagement).
Such multi-channel engagement not only increases your brand’s visibility but also strengthens your online community. For instance, we often invite our users to a private Facebook group.
Link building opportunities
Email marketing isn't just for content sharing – it's a nice way to enhance your link-building strategy. You can directly reach out to influencers, bloggers, and webmasters and offer them to link to your content. These backlinks can really boost your website's authority and improve your search engine rankings.
Here's how emails can fit into your link-building efforts:
How-to #7: Reach out to website owners
One effective way to build valuable backlinks is to use email to connect with website owners in your industry. By doing so, you can propose guest blogging opportunities and earn high-quality backlinks.
If you don’t have a list of websites for guest posting, use LinkAssistant. The tool helps you identify relevant websites and track your outreach efforts. To do that, head to the Search for prospects module and click Guest Posting: Top 100 Blogs. The tool will show relevant resources and contact emails for outreach.
How-to #8: Promote shareable content
If you have bloggers and influencers on your email list, you're in luck. Including links to insightful, shareable content in your emails can inspire these folks to share your links on their own blogs, spreading the word.
You can also run contests or giveaways to motivate your audience to share your content. For example, you can ask participants to sign up on your website or add links to your content as part of the entry requirements.
These shares can bring your content to a broader audience who might not have discovered it otherwise. And let's face it, what website owner wouldn’t love a bunch of new visitors? It's a rhetorical question, really.
Better understanding of your audience
Probably the most intriguing part about email marketing is checking results after the mailout. Analyzing metrics such as open and click-through rates, and engagement patterns can tell a lot about what your audience likes and how they behave.
We always keep an eye on our email performance to figure out which newsletters get the most engagement and why.
For a more detailed overview, you can also check a click map for your emails in GetResponse.
Pro tip
If you know what resonates with your subscribers, you can segment your audience based on their interests and tailor your content accordingly. The more personalized your emails are, the more likely your readers are to visit your website.
For example, we wanted to group all our Spanish-speaking users so we could send them a localized onboarding email. With GetResponse, we used simple filters to set up the conditions we needed. This allowed us to easily gather all the Spanish-speaking users into one segment. Now, we have this segment saved and use it for automatic mailings. It's really that easy!
Now let’s explore how you can use emails to get to know your audience better:
How-to #9: Gather customer feedback
Want to learn your audience’s needs? Just ask them directly. By sending surveys or feedback forms, you can collect insights into their preferences and pain points. You can also encourage participation by offering incentives such as discounts or freebies for completing your surveys.
In fact, analyzing this feedback is your chance to fine-tune your offerings and improve customer engagement. For example, if people say they want more use cases and expert content, you can tweak your content and SEO strategies to meet those needs.
How-to #10: Run A/B tests
Everything is comparative. So, to identify what works best for your audience, you need to run A/B tests. You can experiment with various elements of your email campaigns – subject lines, messages, calls-to-action, designs, etc.
Once you know the most effective options, you can apply these insights to also refine your on-page optimization efforts.
For example, if an A/B test shows that a certain call-to-action gets more clicks, you can use similar wording on your website’s landing pages to boost conversions. Similarly, if a particular subject line increases open rates, try using related keywords in your SEO strategy to attract more traffic.
How-to #11: Send exclusive content
Everyone likes feeling special and getting great deals. When you send exclusive content, discounts, or personalized offers to your subscribers, you make them want to keep coming back.
As an example, you can send out monthly newsletters featuring behind-the-scenes content, sneak peeks of upcoming products, or early access to sales. This kind of exclusive stuff makes your subscribers feel valued.
If you run an online shop, you can tailor your email campaigns based on what people have bought or browsed before. Say, a customer frequently buys skincare products – offer them a special discount on a new skincare line or some personalized tips for their routine. If your message hits the target, you’ll likely see a boost in retention and maybe even some immediate sales.
Enhanced brand awareness
Using personalized and consistent emails keeps your brand top of mind for your audience. This ongoing engagement builds trust and ultimately enhances brand awareness.
Here are a few tips to make your brand awareness stronger through emails:
How-to #12: Maintain consistency
It’s crucial to stay visible in your readers' inboxes. But it’s also important not to bombard them with too many emails. Finding the right balance takes some trial and error, so keep an eye on your analytics to see what frequency works best.
Being consistent and providing valuable updates will keep your brand fresh in your audience’s mind. Over time, this regular contact builds brand recognition and loyalty.
For example, a weekly newsletter featuring industry news, product updates, and special offers can remind people of your brand’s value. This way, they’ll look forward to your emails and keep coming back to your website.
Pro tip
To make your email marketing strategy more effective, it's important to find the right time to send your emails. GetResponse has a helpful efficiency graph that shows how emails perform on different days of the week.
Source: GetResponse
You can use this graph as a starting point and experiment to see what timing works best for your audience.
How-to #13: Include visual branding
Adding your brand’s logos, colors, and design elements in your emails makes readers remember your unique brand identity.
This visual consistency across all marketing channels ensures that whenever your audience sees these elements, they’ll instantly think of your brand.
For instance, we use our brand’s colors and logo in every email we send to keep a cohesive look that matches our website and social media profiles.
Final word
I hope this article has provided you with a fresh perspective on integrating email marketing with your SEO strategy. With the right balance, both approaches can work together to help your website achieve sustainable growth.
If you have more tips on how the synergy of email marketing and SEO can boost search engine rankings, we’d love to hear them. Join our private Facebook group and share your insights with our community.
