While in the midst of a new campaign at work to promote the latest download, I brought together some tips on what will get maximum exposure and better SEO for your next email campaign. Whether you are a website owner or designer it is important not too waste resources by not getting the basics right. I will cover the technical and email client rendering issues later but rather draw attention to what I think is poor use of resources and missed opportunity for the website owner. It is mostly common sense but I think with a little more awareness and effort that the website owner can enjoy better SEO and return on investment for their website and email campaign .

For those will short attention spans like me here is the TOP 5 for better newsletter content.

1. Publish and archive your html emails on your website. Add a link from the email version.
2. Give em a good read not just a deal.
3. Links, go nuts for best link reputation.
4. Design, make sure it’s bulletproof in all email clients and clean code too.
5. It’s a webpage too, take pride in the code and validate, why not add unique metadata for that page.

For fresh content I would always recommend blogging but for many corporates out their blogging does not suit. Banging the drum via email is alive and well and the industry has really cleaned up it’s act.

It may surprise you to know by taking more care with your emails campaigns that there is a chance that your html newsletter web pages can and will rank higher than your website pages! When your website is done and dusted and content is rather static the best way to get search engines excited about your URL is to get busy and publish. Your html newsletter content can be crafted to be more up to date, keyword focused and drive some organic search to your site. This kind of SEO opportunity is too good to be missed.

Website owners should be thinking of an html newsletter as opportunity to build on the published web content for their organization and not just a email blast to launch the next ripper deal to improve cashflow. Results should not just be based on those 1% formulas that direct email blasts will bring in the bucks by jamming as many inboxes as possible. But rather what the content is doing well after email newsletters have been deleted and well into the future of the website. Or why not do both!

A html newsletter should be published and archived on your website firstly and remain there to be indexed by all search engines. Content is king on the internet (sorry for the overused cliches) and the opportunity to get more keywords for your product or passion should not be passed up. Put your email newsletters in their own folder on your website. Ultimately a menu system on your website to link your website would be ideal. No worry as it is still has great value by being published and indexable by search engines and link back to your web pages.

Not to be forgotten but near where you might put your un-subscribe link put a link to the web version of your html newsletter. It’s just another way to bring interested users to your site and if the page is not rendering well in the users email client it will be a reminder that a more readable version is available.

Good linking strategy will include making sure those links go to as many relevant internal website pages as possible. Remember to employ sound anchor text linking practices when choosing which text to use as a link. Your choice of linking text (anchor text) is important though just make sure that is meaningful and that keyword phrases are used whenever possible. The choice of good and meaningful anchor text within your site goes toward what is called the link reputation of your website. Link reputation is referred to as more critical when it comes to inbound links but still has a place with internal linking strategies. At the very least it promotes good usability by re-enforcing to the user that relevant more content relating to the keywords is a just a click away.

With the ever changing browser and email client landscape make sure you designer is aware of some of the changes that will effect the rendering of your html newsletter. There are some new concerns especially with Windows Vista that your designer should be aware of. To make your email newsletter bulletproof some modern css techniques that apply to web page design cannot be used in html email design. Your designer should be aware of these and I will cover them in future posts.

With this new mindset I believe that this will change website owners decision making. Good linking strategies and decent content becomes more relevant well after the offer or deal has expired.

Thinking of new content is tough sometimes and this a great topic for another blog. Start by thinking back to your product or passion and those keyword phrases that you stuck in your website metadata all those moons ago. That should get the juices flowing remembering that they are probably the reasons your users are there in the first place. It’s up to you to give them a good read ,not just a deal!
So theres no time to waste.

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Filed under: Newsletter design |

Posted on July 7th, 2008 by admin