At enCOMPASS Agency, we’re proponents of integrative digital marketing. What that means, in a nutshell, is that there are many channels for effectively marketing your company, ranging from SEO and PPC to social media and video. These channels work best when they work together in tandem; indeed, the most efficient way to market your company is to combine different digital channels, aligned to a common goal and a comprehensive strategy.

Case in point: Email marketing and search engine optimization may seem, at first blush, to be largely unrelated. By siloing these two disciplines, however, you’re cutting yourself off from some major benefits. In actuality, email marketing can be a powerful tool for enhancing your SEO. Allow us to explain how.

Social Sharing Signals

SEO experts have long contended that social sharing can have a huge impact on your SEO rankings—even if Google has been reluctant to admit this. Indeed, studies have confirmed that the highest-ranked listings for any given search term tend to be the ones that have received the most shares on Facebook and on Google+.

It’s critical, then, to get people sharing your website content—but how? Your email marketing list provides a unique opportunity.

It’s a simple strategy: Use that email list to distribute your company blog posts, either every time you publish a new one or perhaps monthly, as a regular “blog round-up.” Make sure that you not only distribute the new content but also encourage your most loyal customers to share the link with their friends. Embedding social sharing buttons within your emails is a must, as it makes it easier for your recipients to do their part.

Note that this approach effectively kills two birds with one stone: Not only does it help you get more social shares for your blog posts, but it also makes it easy for you to generate email content!

Website Bounce Rates

Social sharing is only one of the many ranking factors that Google considers when determining the placement of your website. Another key factor is your bounce rate—basically, the rate at which a user arrives on your website and then leaves immediately, without taking any actions, visiting other parts of the site, or spending much time with your content.

You want to have the lowest bounce rate possible—for a simple reason: If your bounce rate is high, it means people generally don’t find your content to be helpful or relevant to their inquiries. As such, Google penalizes your content with lower rankings.

So how can you keep your bounce rate low? The most important thing is to create strong and compelling content and to ensure positive UX throughout your site. Something else you can do is use that email list to keep in contact with your loyal customers—people who have already shown an interest in your content and your brand.

By reaching out to these users to let them know about new blog posts or website pages, you can get clicks from people you know will have an interest in the content—and thus, reduce your website bounce rate.

Online Reviews

This tip won’t necessarily work for all businesses, but if you have a retail store or a brick-and-mortar presence, you’ll want to make sure your local rankings are strong. And one of the key ranking factors for local SEO success is getting a lot of product reviews.

So how can you get more reviews at sites like Google, Facebook, and Yelp? You guessed it: Use your email list. Send a message to your most loyal and satisfied customers and simply tell them how important their feedback is. Bluntly ask them to help you out by writing a quick review and provide them with a link where they can publish their feedback.

This is a simple form of outreach that can not only bolster your online reputation but lead to a real improvement in your search engine rankings—and it really doesn’t cost you anything except a few minutes of your time.

Email Archives

A final tip for using email marketing to improve your search rankings: Make an archive of your older email newsletters. After sending a unique message to your subscriber list, post its contents to your blog or to a special section of your website—possibly revising the content just a little bit to add SEO keywords, improve the formatting, etc.

There are a few benefits to this. One, it allows you to get more mileage out of your email newsletter content. Two, it provides you with some great content updates for your site, something that can make a big SEO impact.

The bottom line: An email newsletter archive can become a valuable resource, and a key SEO center for your company website.

Using Email and SEO in Tandem

Email marketing and SEO are both important components of any integrative marketing strategy—but remember: An integrative approach means ensuring that these elements work together in tandem. To do that, you’ll need a broader marketing strategy in place—and we can help you develop one.

Contact enCOMPASS today for a consultation. We’d love nothing more than to chat with you about the best channels for promoting your business on the Web.