When you think of email marketing, it’s probably not something you immediately associate with search engine optimization (SEO). However, when these two elements are combined effectively, they can be incredibly successful in driving traffic to your website.
Table of contentsHere’s how email marketing and SEO can work together to support your business:
It increases traffic to your website: With the right planning and strategy, email marketing can drive a lot of targeted traffic—people who are already interested in what you're offering. Emails are sent directly to customers—existing leads who already show interest in your product or service, which can improve sales.
It supports off-page SEO: When you send emails with valuable and engaging content, recipients may be willing to link to your website from their own, helping you gain backlinks—an important SEO factor.
It builds trust: Promotional emails often feel more authentic than ads on other platforms. Emails can feel more personal to recipients, helping to establish trust between businesses and customers, potentially leading to more sales in the future.
Email marketing campaigns that align with an SEO strategy are generally more successful because you already know who’s interested in your business. That’s why it’s highly recommended to combine the two for a more effective online marketing approach.
Email marketing and SEO go hand in hand. While SEO helps improve your website’s visibility and rankings in the SERPs, email marketing is about building a relationship with your audience through targeted communication. Both work to increase brand awareness and trust, which ultimately drives more traffic to your site.
To better understand your target audience, consider using SEO platforms like SE Ranking. Tools like keyword research and SERP trackers give you insight into what your audience is searching for and how to match your content with their search intent. This helps you create more relevant content tailored to their needs.
Here’s how email marketers aiming to improve rankings should implement email marketing:
Include relevant keywords in the subject line and throughout the email body, including the call-to-action. Avoid keyword stuffing.
Link to relevant pages on your website through footers or sidebars. Internal links support SEO and help keep visitors on your site longer. Include keywords in anchor texts, and only link when the content is relevant.
Make sure the URLs of your email content include relevant keywords.
Use HTML text in the main body of the email to support SEO. Incorporate keywords naturally.
Leverage social media to engage customers, while keeping SEO in mind—include keywords in your profiles and make your content easy to share.
Creating and sending a successful email marketing campaign is more than just typing a few messages and clicking ‘send’. A well-thought-out strategy is essential. Let’s explore some of the key elements you’ll need to succeed.
Email marketing is about reaching people with content that matters to them. But figuring out what your audience is interested in can be challenging. Your emails need to be current, relevant, and consistently offer fresh, valuable content.
How do you know what your audience wants to read? That’s where email lists come in. Targeted email lists made up of your most relevant customers help you pinpoint the topics that interest them the most. This insight allows you to create content that appeals to others with similar interests, extending the reach of your campaigns.
Keep in mind that different customers expect different information from your business. Allow subscribers to choose what they want to receive—whether it’s discount codes, product updates, or general company news. This helps you deliver the most relevant topics to each segment.
Creating roundups that showcase your most useful and recent content can support link building. If you include links to your website in these roundups, it can increase your site’s visibility and authority, making your site a more valuable resource.
Roundups are a clever way to gather blog posts, articles, images, or other content in one place. Add interesting commentary to keep readers engaged.
Including links back to your site helps improve its ranking. By offering valuable content in an easily digestible format, you attract new readers and the attention of other bloggers who may share your content.
Personalization goes far beyond inserting a first name in the greeting. You should create different versions of your email campaigns for different types of contacts. This requires advanced software to track which topics are most relevant to each contact.
Personalized emails typically have higher open and click-through rates, and better conversion rates, than generic ones.
Here are five tips for using personalization to build stronger connections with consumers:
Segment your audience into groups based on behavior, demographics, etc.
Gather data from customer profiles to make emails as specific as possible.
Don’t hesitate to use first names in subject lines, greetings, and signatures—it increases opens, clicks, and conversions.
Make sure your emails are responsive and mobile-friendly.
Regularly update your email marketing service provider (EMSP) with the latest data and segmentation.
Personalization means more than just sending one message to your entire list—it’s about targeting specific groups efficiently and sending content tailored to their interests and needs. This strategy helps bring highly relevant traffic to your site.
Email marketing is often seen as a standalone method for driving traffic and conversions. But emails can also boost engagement on your website, which is crucial for customer retention and increasing ROI.
This only works if the content in the email matches what’s on the website. When you align these, you can increase engagement and conversions by:
Reminding users to complete a task on your site.
Providing informative email content that links directly to what users are looking for.
Offering a relevant next step or call to action.
If you want users to make a purchase, for instance, include a buying guide in your email that links directly to your shopping cart, product, or category pages with detailed item descriptions.
Reviews are vital for SEO and brand awareness. Positive customer reviews increase your visibility and play a key role in local SEO. That’s why it’s important to ask for reviews in your email campaigns.
Email marketing alone doesn’t directly impact your website’s position in search engine rankings. However, when combined with SEO, it can significantly increase your website traffic and help maintain high rankings in the SERPs.