Rather than jumping on the bandwagon and writing another article flooded with Google Penguin speculations and predictions, I’d rather focus on a strategy to help you loosen your SEO dependency.
Today, I want to focus on email marketing.
Uh oh… am I losing you already?
I say that because my posts on email marketing are never as popular as the ones about AdSense or SEO. Part of the reason is because most people just don’t get email marketing and would rather ignore it.
And if you are one of those people who never subscribes to email newsletters yourself, you may assume that no one will subscribe to yours.
So what’s the point of wasting time on it, right?
Six years ago, many predicted that blogging would kill email newsletters. I hate to admit it, but I believed the hype. Not only did I stop collecting email addresses (I was failing at email marketing anyway), but I deleted my entire list.
After all, it was costing me more money in AWeber fees than I was making from my list. (Your monthly fee increases for every 10,000 subscribers.)
So I abandoned email. Not to mention, SEO was much easier to master and it’s free.
Times Have Changed
Well, as I’m sure you know, SEO is getting harder to master. Since the first big Panda update in February 2011, Google has proven to be more unpredictable than ever.
If you want to stay afloat, it has never been more critical to master other stable marketing methods. I’ve finally gotten better with email marketing in the last two years, and I’m going to show you an easy way to get your feet off the ground.
And for the record, email is far from dead. Anyone who says that today, just hasn’t figured out how to make it work for them.
Create an Autoresponder “Quick Tips Series”
The reason why autoresponders are less intimidating is because you can create your messages in advance and have them go out on intervals you choose (every 3 days, 7 days, 30 days, etc).
This eliminates the stress of trying to come up with fresh content every week, month, etc. You can create a bunch of content in advance, then set it and forget it.
I prefer to setup a series of quick tips on a focused topic like I did with my beginner-friendly WP Starter Tips for WordPress.
My subscribers seem to appreciate the short, easy-to-digest emails rather than long, drawn out messages.
I have been using this strategy successfully on my flat stomach website for years, and finally decided to do the same with 2 Create a Website last month.
And to those who think email marketing is dead, the fact that my list received over 1500 subscribers in two weeks proves that people still sign up to receive emails if they believe they will fulfill a need.
It’s Not About Selling.
When you hear the phrase “the money’s in the list”, it’s easy to misinterpret that to mean you should only use an email list to promote products.
Not hardly.
In fact, most of your messages shouldn’t be promotional at all. Just like your website, you want to build credibility with useful content, so when you do have something to sell, people will be more receptive to buy.
With my WP Starter Tips, there are very few promotional links. On occasion, I will add a related affiliate link in one of the tips and there’s a link to my WP Starter Guide in the signature of all messages.
Other than that, I keep promotion to a minimum because I know my subscribers wouldn’t want that.
Getting Started
I’ve only used AWeber for email marketing, so that’s the company I’m most familiar with. With a subscription, you can send an unlimited amount of autoresponder messages to your list.
In addition, you can send separate, broadcast emails to that same list.
MailChimp is another alternative. It’s free for the first 2,000 subscribers, but it’s against their terms to use them if you are an affiliate. When you reach 2,000 subscribers, their pricing is pretty similar to AWeber’s.
Once you’ve decided on a service to send your emails, you’re ready to begin.
Now, think of a topic in your niche where you can write enough quick tips to create an autoresponder series. Maybe you have a site on home improvement. You could create a series that shells out weekly tips that reveal how to save money on household repairs.
Works for Almost Any Website!
What’s cool about the “quick tip” series idea is almost anyone can apply it to their niche. I’m sure there’s a way for you to work this strategy into your website.
Even if you have an ecommerce site and sell clothing, you could send out weekly fashion tips. Every now and then you can include a tip that corresponds with a product you sell on your site and provide a link to it.
And to keep people coming back to your site, some of the tips can highlight important pages that relate to the tips.
The possibilities are endless, and it’s a great way to ease yourself into email marketing without enduring the stress of coming up with messages on a frequent basis. At the same time, you’re building a list of people who trust and want to hear from you!
You’ll also be taking a step toward traffic diversity in a world of SEO uncertainty.
So tell me… Do you use autoresponders on your site? If so, what is your strategy?
I tried to explore email marketing but it doesn’t work quite right in the niche I am in… I have 300 emails all lined up for 1 year, and I also subscribed just to see if my email are being sent properly and the formatting is good. I use Aweber, but the problem is that my list is unresponsive (e.g. they do not buy, reply on my posts, comment on my posts etc)..
How do you get around it?
Experiment, experiment, experiment and test, test, test. I’m still doing that. Email marketing is all about…
1. The headline (Give them a reason to want to open it. Make it benefit-rich, ask a question or even try shock value.)
2. Make the emails extremely useful and offer something unique that you don’t offer on your site
3. Be consistent with your mailouts or people will forget about you (that’s why an autoresponder is a good idea)
4. Keep the emails short and use small 4-inch size paragraphs to make the email easy to read an scan
Trust me, it takes time. I’m still learning.
Lisa as you said SEO is getting harder but i think if it followed in its natural way then it would be great to increase or maintain position in google.Now i think that all SEO cowboys have to change their strategy and would then get better pay.Nice post btw.
Based on your article, I can safely says that the Penguin really breathe new life into e-mail marketing companies such as Aweber. According to Web Pro News, even top site like wpmu.org has been hit hard by the new update by Google. I guess bye bye SEO for the time being as e-mail marketing rock!
hey lisa,
Email marketing, blog commenting and article submission to ezinearticles.com are the only way to succeed in this fluctuating world of SEO…Your article has indeed improved my confidence in the Email Marketing again.
I am still trying to get my website indexed, but after reading your article I will definitely take email marketing into consideration. Thanks!
Great tips of email marketing. I need to know about one thing that, can i use any other option instead of Aweber and MailChimp? Aweber is costly and MailChimp is same costly like Aweber after reaching 2000 subscribers. Please tell me about an option which is totally free.
Constant Contact is another option. I have no experience with them though. EDIT: Also not sure of their cost.
Lisa, I use Constant Contact for one of my sites. Price is comperable to Aweber. ($15/month for the first 500 subscribers, $30 up to 2,500, $50 up to 5,000, $75 up to 10,000, etc.) However CC is not so “blog-friendly” as Aweber as far as the features and tools available. It is more for traditional websites.
Targeting on Quality and consistency will definitely help to recover from panda. I heard that its not to build backlinks when Google Algorithm is changed, is that right ?
The past couple of months have definitely taught me not to rely on any single source of leads, and that having an email list is essential
Google penguin is definitely one of the major problems of site owners today.. I just hope it will all turn out good after it..
hi lisa thanx for the post, even i had abandoned my email list but i should get back to it soon
Hi Lisa, Autoresponder is surely a good thing, but I had issues building an email list. I have noticed not many people opt-in. I paid for almost 1 year and a half and decided to destroy my email list. It wasn’t working well. However, I hosted giveaways and ebooks so many things, but didn’t worked well. Would love to see posts about building an active audience and email marketing list.
I have read tons of articles/bloggers that they were affected by Penguin and that their blogs’ traffic is dropping like a rock, which kinda sad to hear. Since you said that e-mail marketing would be one of the best ways to promote a blog and gain traffic, is using AWeber for email marketing won’t hurt my budget? Thanks for these tips.
Also love your new design!
Nice post lisa…Simply put.
Your website is not your business, your brand is your business. Every other thing is a funnel!
Since January 2012, I have been studying building up my own business by having my own potential customer base which is my email list…there no google or search engine can reach.
That is my brand.
So for example if i have a website about Children SLeep problems..my goal is to get subscribers now and embark on relationship marketing.
My site, will just be a funnel for brand website where i sell my products to parents who need help with babies that wont sleep. This website is my brand..not the first site i mentioned above that gets traffic from the SEs.
I gain in 2 ways.
1. I build my brand
2. I have a sustainable business( No panda issues)
3. I make tons of money cos my fans love me!
Please dont get me wrong i still make money from my initial site.
1. Adsense
2. Affiliate fees
3. Advert etc
But my focus is my brand My brand is my business!
Hi Lisa,
I use email marketing every month or so but heavily rely on social media and SEO in order to keep traffic moving to my blog. I do love the service MailChimp offers me and my subscribers and everything is as simple as possible for posting a quick hello letter to a long tutorial or information guide.
The Google Penguin update hasn’t affected my blog at all. If it has, it isn’t noticeable to me since I’m getting twice as much traffic as I was prior.
Thanks for the tips and encouragement to use email marketing as another source of traffic,
– Jonny
Since the day i started bloggign my only focus was on search engines, But the day i got hit with this penguin update i ahd to seriously make a choice.
Now i am trying my best to make sure that i build a good amount of readers using email marketing so that i don’t have to depend on google for sending me visits.
Email marketing is best whenever we have some series of articles or something to offer. Otherwise why people will love to subscribe our mailing list.
I can’t believe I fell for it! I was rubbing my hands at the thought of getting some nice tips on how to get my site back on track after the attack from the evil penguin. 😛
Ha ha! Sorry, Dean. The best way to get yourself back on track is to develop other traffic streams, which is why I wrote this today. That way Google updates won’t be so devastating if they hit. Hang in there!
It makes sense to just send helpful information and then when it is time to go and look at something, the subscribers will be far more willing to do so.
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for the info! I like the idea of testing e-mail marketing waters with MailChimp (free for less than 2000 subscribers). It’s perfect for me. Thanks again for the recommendation!
damn penguin hit ma head 🙁 traffic tremendously went down !
hoping to recover at the latest
thanks for the post Lisa 🙂
I do not use email marketing, but I like what Aweber does and they are a professional company with good business practices. I like the way as a person that does not use their services they still give me the opportunity to opt out.
Brilliant informative post, the penguin update has hit a lot of small businesses hard, some that haven’t even used bad seo techniques, it’s really sad.
I have read that a lot of people use Aweber’s Blog Broadcast feature for people that want to receive an email whenever there is a new blog post. A lot of people still prefer email updates instead of using RSS.
Is this considered a mailing list?
I have also read that Aweber’s Blog Broadcast feature is better than using FeedBurner’s email update function.
I really need to switch to be honest, just haven’t done it. The problem with Feedburner is you can’t do anything with the list other than send blog updates so I ended up with two lists — which can be tricky to manage. The problem is I have so many people on my Feedburner list I know I will lose a lot of people if I switch.
You will lose some people sure, but your site and content is valuable and I’m sure most people would resubscribe.
So, basically if send my blog broadcasts using Aweber right form the start then I will be better off in the long run.
I wonder can this list be used for more than blog broadcasts? Like if I want to communicate something more to my audience besides just alerting them of new posts…
You most definitely can which is why so many Feedburner users are switching over to it.
Hi Lisa,
I think this is so true most people forget about email marketing. I have seen great results from email marketing and I believe others can also if you get targeted subscribers to your lists.
Aweber is also very affordable, you can set it up and have several lists for numourous sites for a small $19.
Thanks
Dave
I would strongly advise against using Mailchimp if you do any kind of affiliate marketing. Not only does Mailchimp not allow permit it on their own system, but they have been known to close accounts for people who do affiliate marketing, even if they don’t use Mailchimp to do it. Yes, it’s free, but it’s not worth losing your list over.
I’ve heard their terms and conditions are really crazy. Glad I chose AWeber. Thanks for chiming in.
I don’t use autoresponders; maybe in the future. But, all the same thanks for sharing your knowledge on the above topic.
Thanks for the post Lisa. I do have a question though. I want to set up an autoresponder through Aweber, but don’t have a lot of money. I have several sites. Can I set up email lists for more than 1 account for the $20 monthly price? Or do I need to purchase Aweber accounts for each site? Thanks.
You sure can! I have about 8 different lists and some are under different websites, but they’re all under one account.
Thanks for the info Lisa! You’re the best! I have been reluctant to sign up for Aweber but after reading your post and the comments by others I think that I’ll sign up soon.
I’ve been using Aweber to deliver a writing eCourse and it has worked out really well. I don’t give a hard sell in any of my emails, but it keeps traffic returning to my site. I like it because it gives people a no commitment option to stay in touch.
I’m planning on using it on my next site too and I recommend it to all the other writers I know!
I subscribe to several newsletters that have great info. I know they also have stuff to sell (at a good price too) but their newsletters are full of great content and are very low key on the selling (you almost have to look for what they are selling). I really appreciate short useful newsletters and thing this make a lot more sense in many ways than trying to figure out how people might be searching for you.
Thanks for being another reasonable voice in the marketing world Lisa.
Thanks Lisa once again for a great post. I plan to try your email marketing advice on my SBI site. I agree with you that diversification is the best way to take control of an online business.
With more and more website boom, Google will always continue to hurt many site, but if one has build a site that does not only depend on G, I cannot see why that site can loose its reputation.
Many thanks Lisa.
I would never utilize email marketing because I don’t believe in bombarding my readers with my attempts to make money. Personally, I find it to be extremely rude.
Hi Kevin
Wow, is that what you think I’m doing here? It doesn’t have to be like that and shouldn’t be. As I said in the copy most of of my emails do not sell anything. And when I do launch a product (like I have in the past) the sales were great from the email. I don’t support the “email bombarding” idea at all. Big difference from what I’m talking about here. Also the emails I subscribe to don’t bombard either… that’s why I stay subscribed.
I’m not really convinced you actually read the article at all Kevin. There’s a HUGE section with a GIANT subheadline called “It’s Not About Selling” that says:
I never considered email marketing because I associated it with efforts of marketers to sell their products or spam tactics. I will have to look into perhaps creating a newsletter. Something I haven’t tried.
i’m not seeing much change in my google traffic, but I’ve had a newsletter for a while so repeat traffic to my site has been great to have.
Strange thing about Google (just thought I’d toss this into the mix) – everytime my blog PR drops a point, my total overall traffic and my blog revenue from ads (primarily adsense) doubles. Go figure!
Hey Dave, I’ve definitely noticed a huge increase in AdSense earnings every single time they make a big update like this. This is why I don’t think they are going to roll back anything too much. Apparently the advertisers are happy because they are spending more…. at least in my niche. Although I’ve heard others say the opposite so I guess it depends on the niche.
Great blog post Lisa. Like you I started and gave up on email marketing then restarted again.
I use it now to build a list of women who receive my ecourse. It is all set up and prepared in advance. Each message provides a link under the title “recommended reading” which is a blog post so I bring return visitors to my blog. The recommend reading is an option rather than a necessity to understand the message in my email.
I write ebooks so if the message is relevant I will promote an ebook at the end of the message but not in every single one.
I have built my autoresponder messages so that I have 52 weeks of messages in there and I go back in and check them for broken links or to link to more up to date blog posts once or twice a year. I didn’t sit and write all 52 at once. I did it over time. Two weeks in a go one time, 4 weeks another time etc until I had all 52 in place.
As well as the weekely ecourse they always receive my blog updates via a blog broadcast so they hear from me twice a week at the most but defintiely at least once.
I like the idea of being able to send out one email to thousands of people and have 10 or 20% of them go ahead and buy something. When you have a relationship with them that does happen. But I realize I need large numbers to make that work and I am building them up more and more each day.
I play a game with myself to try and get 10 new subscribers every day either from a blog post or via social media. some days (like yesterday) I get 7, some days just 2, other days over 10.
When I am ready to travel the world 4 years from now (waiting for my youngest to leave high school) I aim to have an active and responsive list. This is one method of marketing Google or any other search engine can’t take away from me!
Same here. I’ve just been writing my tips over time. That’s the other nice thing about using the autoresponder. You don’t have to do them all at once. Thanks for sharing your story!
Since the release of Penguin Update, I realized that there are more ways to gain traffic besides the usual SEO. And this post is just one of them, another one is paid traffic.
I am doing seo and work as a freelancer recently one of my client website hit by Penguin and received an email that 50% anchored links are not relevant.
But how can i get more relevant links to to get seo easy?
Waiting for suggestions
Regards
Ehmad
I have heard about this Google penguin update a week ago and I have read some blogs about it as well.. Anyway, thanks for this Lisa..
I would rather have frequent visitors than have a list of people that might read your email. People who comment are more valuable to me.
But that’s just it, effective email marketing can help foster repeat visitors if you do it right. That’s the whole point. The more ways you can drive business and loyalty the better.
Hi Lisa,
I have around 20 small Halloween sites and last year I added an auto-responder to all of them with Halloween tips aswell as the latest deals in costumes and accessories and it has worked wonders, each site gather up plenty of emails gathering a nice list for the coming Halloween where extra tips will be sent out aswell as what is happening with costume companies and where to find the best deals, last years conversions were excellent and the list has growing and growing, bring on Halloween.
People love the recipe tips I give (been a chef helps) and this type of connection keeps people subscribed.
Hey Stephen, that’s great you’ve found a way to make email work for you.
I once used Mailchimp for months, but I never had anybody sign up to my newsletter!
I once used mailchimp. Now I’m going to use it again. I think it’s a great way to keep track of who’s coming (and who’s staying), on your blog.
Hi Lisa. Another very worthy post. The power of building up contact lists should never be underestimated even it isn’t paying immediate dividends, especially as Google search traffic may have become more difficult to gain.
Hi Jason
I think that’s one of the reasons people shy away from it. Sometimes it’s hard to know how much your list is worth since you aren’t constantly selling. Email can be tough to master, but worth it in the end.
I’ve tried my hand at email marketing before and just didn’t get it. I just started a new blog though and I signed up for Mail Chimp. I hadn’t decided what to do with the account yet, but your tips idea sounds good. I have monthly newsletters with my SBI sites. Sometimes that is difficult for me to pull off though. An autoresponder would be much easier after the initial set up. Thanks again.
Cool, let me know how it works out Lovelyn!
Thanks, Lisa. My site is new, but I learned early not to rely on Google. In fact, I have done a terrible job at learning about SEO at all and some of my posts have NO tags. I know I need to understand it better, but I guess I feel like, “what’s the point if they are just going to change it up as soon as people understand it?” It feels like a game I don’t want to take time to play.
Lisa, i would want to disagree you with that SEO is more difficult than ever. i run on a blogger’s blog and even with the recent Google penguin, i still rank on some good keyword that still bring me some cool traffic.
I am not saying that email marketing is not worthwhile,but i wouldn’t want you to write off ranking on Google search engine because of their constant update.
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I would never write off Google search engine rankings as I still get good traffic from Google too. I’m just saying it’s best to diversify. Google can be good to you today but drop you tomorrow. No one can take your email list away. I hope you are not only relying on one source.
Lisa, thank you. I think I have been among those who are doing it all ‘wrong’.
It makes sense to just send helpful information and then when it is time to go and look at something, the subscribers will be far more willing to do so.
You have given me food for thought now and I appreciate that!
Hey, we live and learn right? I fought “email marketing” for so long but it’s been worth taking the time to learn.
what a great sharing tips for noobs !! Yes you are right that in fact email marketing will not die as I still saw so many people subscribing them self for such info they needed then we just need to do a proper email marketing jobs after that. Another idea about SEO is keep learning for a new info and issue flying out there as its still free to dig more deeply for our knowledge and skills.
Terima Kasih (Thanks)
This is an excellent post. Lisa, you have highlighted some of the best points of email marketing. One thing I’ve learned, if we can generate great content on our sites and mix the new article notifications with periodic emails promoting products, subscribers tend to stay on the list.
With all of the unpredictable algorithm changes, we need to leverage all of the tools we can to bring people to our pages. My email list has sure helped me continue to make money online as SEO traffic has dipped lower.
Jordy – couldn’t agree more with you and Lisa on the fact that Google’s unstable a traffic source as you can get.
Lisa mentions Panda, Penguin just made things that much more unpredictable (unless you had 1000’s of sites or so to spread the risk).
List building is far from over – even HomeDepot and all major brands like it build and maintain lists.
Definitely room at the table for little businesses to do the same, and the big benefit is building an asset that can later be sold or leveraged for other purposes…