How to Dovetail SEO and Email Marketing: An Ultimate Rundown

SEO and Email Marketing

The use of appropriate SEO and Email Marketing strategies is vital in the management of the business. As the most utilized channel among marketers, email marketing complements website and blog development powered by SEO.

The Statista report shows 347.3 billion emails exchanged will be estimated by 2024 worldwide. And by 2026, the number is predicted to increase to 392.5 billion. Out of 100 people, 59 stated that they are influenced by marketing emails when making their purchases. Hence, SEO, in combination with email marketing, can offer high-quality leads, increase the conversion rate of your website traffic, and increase your revenue. Therefore, to engage your target audience, fulfill their needs, and gain new loyal customers, making your email marketing SEO-optimized is essential.

In this article, we will sort out how these two aspects can smoothly interrelate and create a highly effective synergy that will trigger audience preferences and enhance engagement to drive business growth to the next level.

Are you ready to dive into the study of SEO and email marketing and how to maximize their potential? Let’s jump into it! 🚀

Table of contents

What is SEO, and where do I begin?

SEO refers to the process of implementing strategic techniques to improve a website’s ranking on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and drive organic traffic.

  • At the core of SEO remains keyword research because it enables one to know the terms that the target market uses and make the website relevant to those terms through on-page optimization. The process involves placing some keywords in the titles, sub-headings, and the content of the article while maintaining the quality of the content.
  • Off-page SEO mainly involves the process of getting quality backlinks from other reputable websites, which will, in turn, pass a signal of trustworthiness and credibility to search engines and, hence, increase a site’s ranking.
  • Technical SEO is equally crucial, involving site structure and technology enhancements to aid search engine crawling and indexing, which covers aspects like site speed, mobile-friendliness, and secure connections. 

Therefore, understanding and applying these core SEO components are crucial for enhancing a website’s ranking on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and garnering increased organic traffic.

Combining SEO techniques for email marketing success

As mentioned by Hubspot in the 2024 Marketing Strategy and Trends Report, 33% of marketers greatly depended on emails as a marketing channel. On the other hand, SEO is a close second, and 32% of marketers choose it as their primary channel.

The most popular marketing channels according to Hubspot, September 2023
The most popular marketing channels according to Hubspot, September 2023

However, both email marketing and SEO are fast-growing channels. Hence, for 2024, the respondents’ preferences for new investments were website/blog/SEO, which was the second most preferred, and email marketing, which was the most preferred. When the study was done in more detail, 48% of marketers were keen on increasing their spending on SEO, while 49% did not plan to change their spending on email marketing in the upcoming year.

This growth in SEO investment is mainly attributed to the fact that Google has added ‘experience’ as a factor in its E-A-T model and AI Overviews, previously known as Search Generative Experience (SGE). One can, therefore, conclude that SEO experts are adjusting their strategies and coming up with new ways of dealing with these changes to remain on the SERPs.

Among the list, email marketing and SEO are the two most popular channels, which creates a special connection between them. Together, these strategies can produce top-tier leads and increase the conversion rates of website traffic, resulting in increased revenue and business augmentation.

SEO methods to complement email marketing

Employing SEO techniques can significantly strengthen the impact of your email marketing.

SEO TechniqueUse in Email MarketingExpected Outcome
Keyword OptimizationIncorporate intent-specific keywords into email subject lines, headers, and body textImproved email visibility and open rate
Content QualityPublish high-quality, engaging content in emailsIncreased reader engagement, website visits, content shareability
Link BuildingInclude valuable content links within the emailEnhanced web traffic and potential for backlink generation
Customer ReviewsEncourage email recipients to leave reviews on your websitePromotion of local SEO and increase in brand trust
Usage of HTML TagsOptimize email formatting using HTML tagsBetter email readability and SEO-friendly formatting

Improving SEO email marketing with keywords

By utilizing specific keyword research, you can transform the content of your email campaigns. Keywords are closely related to the needs of your audience, just as a mirror directs the user’s attention to themselves. When such insights are discovered and incorporated into the emails using a suitable email marketing tool, it becomes effortless to communicate with the target market. To do this, the target keywords need to be long-tail keywords because they are more specific, align with the user’s intent, and are often phrased in everyday language.

Placing keyword in the email subject line in MailBluster
Placing keyword in the email subject line in MailBluster

Spice up your emails with engaging content

Let’s not forget the importance of engaging content in your emails. Evaluating the performance of content on your website can offer precious insights into which topics your email list is interested in. Try doing SEO research on top-performing pages on your website and consider incorporating those topics into your email marketing SEO. With a website traffic checker, like the one by SE Ranking, you can analyze these pages. If they perform well in organic and paid channels, then you should include them in your email marketing to grow your traffic more.

Organic traffic research by SE Ranking
Organic traffic research by SE Ranking

Nurturing leads by segments

80% of SMBs indicate that email marketing is the most effective way to retain customers.

Here’s how SEO and email marketing can be used together to keep communications relevant and appealing: post-subscription. You can leverage information about the pages your prospect visited before their subscription to help shape your lead nurturing strategy. 

For example, if a visitor reads an article about SEO on a specific topic, do they not deserve a follow-up email on that topic? Another good way is to divide your subscribers by the category of the content they have chosen or by using different signup forms. This way, you can set up personalized welcome and follow-up emails, making them more engaging and effective.

Using SEO in email formatting

SEO is not only about the catchy headlines and the text of the email but also about the optimization of the HTML email template. Here’s how email and SEO are similar:

  • Make Your Keywords Work. When using keywords as anchor text for your links, make sure that the links direct users to the right page of your site. Though it doesn’t directly boost your search engine rank, it aligns your emails with your audience’s interests and search habits, which could lead to more link clicks. 
  • Attention-Grabbing Titles. Remember to optimize your titles, headlines, and subject lines in your HTML email templates, much like you’d do for H1 and H2 tags on your webpage. A catchy subject and email opening lines with suitable keywords can lead to better open rates. 
  • Mobile Ready. As a good number of emails are opened on mobile devices, so make your email content mobile-friendly. This practice is similar to mobile optimization SEO efforts, where you aim to offer a seamless user experience. 
  • Embed Links. Add links to your site or specific pages in your emails. These links can drive traffic and indirectly aid your SEO email marketing. Make sure the links are relevant and benefit your subscribers. 
  • Social Share Options. Although social shares don’t directly enhance email marketing SEO rankings. But search engines take it positively since it can boost visibility and traffic. 
  • Measure and Learn. Tracking KPIs like open rates, click rates, and other important email marketing metrics is essential. This data can help shape your email marketing SEO strategies, leading to more efficient content and keyword targeting.

Publish newsletter content on the website

Likewise Newsletter archive
Likewise’s newsletter archive gathers all the company’s newsletters in one hub

While newsletters are typically seen as a way to engage directly with the audience, using them as a source of content often goes overlooked. Creating a publicly accessible archive of your previously sent newsletters on your website can offer some significant benefits.

For openers, it gives potential subscribers an opportunity to peruse your email and SEO content before deciding to sign up via your newsletter’s subscription form, thus mitigating any reluctance they might have about handing over their emails. Therefore, you can get more involved subscribers interested in your content, increase the open rate, and reduce the unsubscribing rate.

An archive also helps to improve the experience for your current subscribers. They don’t have to search through their email for the previous newsletters – they can find them on your website. This also enables them to go through past issues that were sent out before they became your subscribers and increase their interaction with your newsletter. Remember to include all the keywords that may be needed for the archive so that the visitors of your website can easily find it.

SEO and Email Marketing: A hidden organic growth catalyst

Email marketing is more than just a pathway to keep in touch with customers. It can also help to bolster SEO initiatives. This happens when your emails highlight your expertise, promote link building, and ask for reviews, and it also indirectly boosts your SEO standing. 

SEO and Email Marketing Organic Growth

Building expertise through content sharing

Using emails, it is possible to spread content that shows the company’s competence. By sending your audience interesting, comprehensive, and informative articles, you are branding your business as the expert. The probability of the content you shared being forwarded to other people not in your email list also rises. Compelling content attracts more visitors to your website and gets people talking about your website on social media, which is good for your email marketing and SEO.

Link building with SEO email marketing

Links are a crucial element of any SEO plan. Emails can play a significant role here by encouraging recipients to visit your website and find more link-worthy content. Adding links to your latest content within your emails encourages subscribers to visit your website and even share those links online. Even more, using email marketing to reach out to influencers, bloggers, and other industry-specific websites can share your content and get you backlinks, which will help improve your SEO.

Urging reviews through email interaction

Customer reviews on Google Search for best watches for sale in Los Angeles.
Customer reviews on Google Search for best watches for sale in Los Angeles.

To local merchants, customer reviews are a trust indicator and a helpful element for local SEO. Google Business Profile and Google Local Search use reviews as ranking factors. You can improve your visibility in specific search areas by using emails to ask satisfied customers for reviews. A simple thank you email with a CTA link to leave a review could do the trick – this is how SEO email marketing is crushing it!

Employing SEO email marketing advantages

To get the most ROI from email marketing, keep these best practices in mind: 

  • Divide your email list to ensure the content matches the recipient’s interests and increase engagement and site visits.
  • Refine your email content with the right keywords, particularly in the subject lines and headlines, to increase the chances of opening your emails and sharing them.
  • Add a clear call-to-action (CTA) telling your readers to visit your website or your page, leave a comment, etc.
  • Monitor opened emails to check how your email marketing efforts influence the traffic on your site and its interaction.

While looking at email marketing and SEO on the surface, one might not find a connection between the two. However, it is possible to combine both and get a lot of value by following a well-crafted marketing strategy. By sending useful content, supporting the formation of links, and asking for feedback in emails, companies can improve the results of SEO and receive more traffic and a higher conversion rating.

Summary

From proving a certain level of competence and helping with link building to actively engaging the customers for their feedback, it is clear that email and SEO are valuable marketing assets. All these include proper keyword usage, quality content, smart lead nurturing segmentation, and proper email formatting for the best results of SEO and email marketing. To get the best results while using both of them as part of your digital marketing strategy, understand that both channels can benefit your company and that, when combined, they can also strengthen your overall business success.

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