You probably already know that the top way to drive traffic to your website is through organic search. But did you know that a very close second is through email?
Source: Conductor.com
Obviously email doesn’t have a direct connection to Google or other search engines, but there are ways for you to encourage others to improve your website ranking via email marketing:
Build social signal strength.
Links with lots of social activity rank higher in Google search. The more people share your content, the stronger your social signals. Be sure you include social share buttons in all your email marketing efforts to make it easy for your followers and subscribers to share your content. Use blog post links in your newsletters and encourage your recipients to share them.
Decrease bounce rate.
If someone visits your website and then leaves immediately, that is counted as a bounce. It signals to Google that they have not found the relevant information they wanted to find there. Having a low bounce rate helps your Google ranking (you can check your bounce rate in Google Analytics).
To reduce your bounce rate, your landing pages and blog posts must have high quality, relevant content in order to engage users. Your email list needs to be full of people who have already demonstrated an interest in your firm, either through signing up for your newsletter or blog, downloading a free report, etc. To keep your list healthy, be sure you include an easily found unsubscribe function in each email.
Archive email newsletters online.
Email newsletters contain a wealth of great, targeted content and you can put them to further use by archiving them on your website to improve SEO. Either post the articles as standalone pieces or convert your newsletters to PDF files and host them on your site so Google can index them.
Ask for reviews.
The quality and number of reviews your law firm has online directly affects your local search ranking. Have a process in place that makes it easy for clients or referral sources to review your firm on Google and Facebook, which are the two most heavily trafficked sources for reviews. Send links in an end-of-engagement email and include them in your newsletter. Incentivize your staff to gather reviews. Add a review widget to your website. Even ask in person and provide a paper form. All are legitimate ways for gathering reviews.
Create great content.
Stumped about how to create content that will encourage your readers to engage and share? Create email list segments of specific groups of clients or prospects, then conduct polls and surveys to learn more about them. This information will help you craft better content that will not only engage your current subscribers, but will also help you attract more of your ideal clients and rank better on Google.
