The rules for SEO have changed over time.
In the past, SEO focused mainly on singular keywords.
Also, the internet is already flooded with so many tips, tricks, and tutorials on how you can push and boost up your SEO strategy for your blog and your website. There’s also an overload of internet advice regarding blogging mistakes to avoid in order to maintain or improve your search engine rankings. You’ll also find a lot of resources on what to do to attract more organic visits and generate more conversions.
That's why we won't get into that today.
Instead, we will be focusing on two underrated marketing strategies that are both integral to your website and blog.
Or more accurately, we will be pointing out the blunders common to Email and Social Media Marketing that may be heavily detrimental to your blog or website's search engine rankings.
Before we go into more detail, check out these Email Marketing Tips from Ms. Ileane that show you how to get started with email marketing now.
Bonus: She shares two of her favorite tools along with some special offers to help get you started [for free] right away!
Email Marketing
When used responsibly, Email Marketing can be both an effective and efficient tool. On the other hand, you'd be surprised at how many companies and businesses lose out by stumbling into the pitfalls I'm going to mention in a bit.
Be sure to look out for these lapses and try to stay away from them:
1. Non-targeted campaigns
Avoid purchasing large email lists and then sending unsolicited messages to all in it. Nobody appreciates receiving emails that are nowhere in line with their business or personal interests. Building up a reputation as a spammer is never a good idea.
Instead, begin with your existing email contacts and grow your database from there. LinkedIn is a good place to start. You can import emails from there.
It also helps to have an email newsletter signup field on your blog or website. Use strategically-located call-to-action buttons on your Facebook, Instagram and other social media accounts. Lead them back to your website or encourage them to share your link to others. In these ways, you can be sure that you’ll be reaching out and responding to people who have previously expressed interest in hearing from you.
2. Not bothering to identify your audience
The first thing you need to determine is who your ideal customers are, what they need and what they are looking for. Having a clear idea of what makes your customers happy is essential in writing effective emails.
Otherwise, you'd be wasting a lot of time and resources only to lose your customers to somebody else who had taken their time to understand them better.
3. Not linking emails to your website
What's the fastest way to ensure that the prospects you send emails to don't visit your website? Not having links leading to it, of course. No visits = no conversions.
These are the most strategic locations to place your internal links in your email newsletter:
- Your logo
- In the top portion
- In the body of the email itself
- In the footer
Your links should look natural and unobtrusive and yet be inviting enough to make your receivers want to click on they
4. Having an invalid reply email address
The purpose of starting an email campaign is to make sure you and your customers are in contact with each other. Imagine the irritation your customers might feel when they try to send you a message but get a reply from mailerdaemon@domain.com instead. Instant turn off.
Make your customers and prospects feel that you want to maintain a connection with them. Avoid sending messages from a domain that starts with DoNotReply@ or NoReply@.
Social Media Marketing
Kissmetrics says that your social media profiles can help in increasing your rankings in Google SERPS, even if the number of your followers and social media shares from them cannot.
For example, if you look up “AT&T” on Google, you immediately get a link to their Twitter account as the 2nd listing, with their Facebook profile at a pretty close 4th.
Not to mention the sidebar that shows links to the company's top social media profiles.
Trust me on this. Social networking sites are not places you'd want to miss out on.
So what are the worst blunders you can commit in relation to social media?
1. Not sharing your content across several different platforms
Come on. You've gone through all that trouble coming up with a good design for your website and creating all that deliciously informative content. So why would you limit yourself to reaching out to just one or two social media platforms?
There are a lot of social networking sites (SNS) that you can join and explore. For example, the power of using Twitter as a marketing tool has been vastly understated, but statistics show that it can still be extremely effective in getting your message across to your targeted audience. Same goes for other social media platforms.
Regardless, you definitely don't want to miss out on the top players in the field.
· Youtube
· Google+
· Tumblr
2. Not including your blog link on your social media profiles
You most likely already have a good idea how blogging helps SEO.
Your profile is one of the first things users will check when they see a post of yours that matches with their interests or catches their attention.
Boosting your blog's visibility by including a link back to it on there is one good way to ensure that your blog gets the attention it needs.
3. Sharing your latest blog posts only once
People like to see fresh, hot content. That's why you should always share your new blog posts immediately after publishing.
Better yet, optimize them for sharing to various SNSs. Vamp your posts up using images, videos, gifs, and whatever cool stuff you can lay your hands on to enhance their visual appeal.
Your followers may follow you on various social media platforms so it would be nice on the eyes to present your posts a little differently for each one that you have.
Then, be sure to share them more than once for maximum reach.
Coschedule suggests this logical timeline for when to share and reshare your content:
- At the time of publishing
- At a different time within the same day
- By the next day
- 3 days later
- A week later
- 2 weeks later
After that, you can use social media managing tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule reposting at regular intervals throughout the year.
4. Not connecting with influencers within the same niche
Crediting your sources by mentioning them within your blog content is an extremely important thing that you must never neglect to do.
In addition, studies show that connecting to these influencers can drive traffic to your blog and have a positive effect on your SERP rankings. Yes, that means having a connection with even those influencers whom you view as your competitors.
There are many ways to do that. Face to face. Email. Reaching out to them personally via their website. But the easiest way would doubtless be social media.
Create and maintain a good relationship with influencers within the same niche as you. Not only does this open you up to possibilities of learning something new from them. There's also a big chance their followers might discover you and follow you too!
That's a wrap!
So just to recap, here are the things we have tackled within this article:
For email marketing, you should avoid non-targeted email campaigns and making your move without first identifying what your customers need. You should also steer clear from having no links to your website on the emails you send and most of all avoid using an invalid reply email address.
For social media marketing, remember to share your content across various SNSs. Also, don't forget to include your blog link on every one of your social media profiles. Next, share your posts more than once and lastly, try to create a connection between you and other influencers in your field.
And Voila! That's it.
The current SEO rules might only be foolproof until the next search engine upgrade, but there are other rules that never change.
We're fairly confident that the points we raised in this article will remain relevant for years to come.
Keep these pointers in mind the next time you send an email to your customers or publish your next blog post.
If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to reach out to us by leaving a reply.