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?
Really Lisa Awesome Post as always your writing skills are awesome and you also explain hard things in easier way 🙂
Currently I’m using MailChimp, not yet use auto-responder but yes, will give it a shot. Thanks for the post!
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..
This post really helps me a lot especially now that I’m beginning to like the SEO world. I have been doing some research on how to promote a site without disobeying the rules of googles and not to be tagged as spammer.
Good tips Lisa!!! Like always, thanks again!! 🙂
Oh man… i did also abandoned my subscribers list… oh i dont like to email! I guess i will also need to re-start…and more work work work!
I’m focusing more on content and depending less on trying to get backlinks. I feel like this…if I keep putting out quality content for people to read and enjoy, as well as search engines to index, there’s no need to worry about future Google Panda and Google Penguin updates.
Great post Lisa. Like some, i didn’t make the effort to offer email subscriptions to my visitors, considering that i run a coupon site. I think i will try the email marketing approach and see how it goes. Looking forward to your ebook on “understand email marketing”.
you’re absolutely right Lisa, when it comes to “it’s not about selling.” I too got hit by the Google panda and Google Penguin update. The only thing that I really focus on nowadays is writing one article a day “on most occasions,” in addition to keeping site content fresh on DrewryNewsNetwork and DrewryNewsNetwork business directory. All that adds written on DrewryNewsNetwork business directory for all unique. Nothing one there is copied and pasted from anywhere. With that in mind, I’m going to continue following your directions of moving forward faithfully with keeping site content fresh, and worry less about Seo back link building. I feel that back links will come in due time, and content is more important. Don’t you agree? 🙂
Really a good post I have read so far and I have not thought about email business.This article is knowledge base for whom those not know the importance of email business. Let it starts after 2000 emails /mont.I also think to try aweber email . Thanks again.
good thing my web design program offers a built in newsletter…the only money I had to dish out went towards my server for a faster response but I never went away from email marketing…it’s the best way to sell…keep giving them free information and material then they’ll feel entitled to give you something in return…(which always turns out to be money)…people that knew this, never went away from email marketing…however, people that sell tangible goods as well as electronic downloads have always known the power behind it…good post
Great post and website! Personally I do think Aweber offers a great service and really helps, but also that it is a little expensive for starters. If they had a lower price for lets say only 500 people on the lists it would have been better for many users I guess.
Thanks for the post. My websites had a massive drop in traffic back in January and February. As I’ve started a new job, and been busy with life in general, I’ve not had time to really investigate improving things. However, when I was looking through the settings of W3 Total Cache, I decided it was time to investigate CloudFlare. I did a little research on CloudFlare and SEO, and there were some positive comments, both from CloudFlare and third parties. Now that I’ve started using CloudFlare as a CDN for most of my sites, traffic has improved. On one site in particular had a big problem with comment spam and ‘fake’ author signups. As CloudFlare block known dangers, this was instantly taken care of. Additionally, CloudFlare, as a CDN-provider, get a boost from Google crawlers (documented on the CloudFlare website, and can be seen in the Google Webmaster Tools under the settings for crawl speed). So while stopping a dependence on search engine traffic is great, there are additional things that can be done to remedy the situation. Funnily enough, I attended an SEO webinar, and this simple solution was overlooked (of course they have a $1000 product to endorse and sell). Soon, I’ll be writing an article for my site about my experiences with Cloudflare.
I had a few hundreds of visitors daily before Penguin, now I have a lot less. Now I wish I had an email list.
If I will ever get my rankings back, I will definitely start an email list.
I found many people who recommend Aweber. I personally use the services of Comm100. Why? because comm100 is free. have you ever heard of people successfully using comm100? or should I move to Aweber?
Never heard of comm100. How long is it free? Is there a limit of email addresses? Also, do they have the targeting options that AWeber has? It’s up to you, but free usually comes with a price.
Yes you are right. Comm100 has a limit. although they do not limit the number of subscribers, but they limit the amount of email delivery. Only 2000 emails per month is allowed. if it exceeds the limit, you have to pay;)
I stopped sending my email newsletter earlier this year because my open rate kept going down,down, down. I’ll have to think about how I can use autoresponders more appropriately in my biz. Thanks for getting me thinking. You really have to learn to be creative and resourceful these days to keep a business going. 🙂
Are you on my email list? I’m coming out with an ebook that will help you understand email marketing and my subscribers are getting it for free. Sign up on this page https://blog.2createawebsite.com/about/
After a few of my sites got hit I started using YouTube videos to get more interest and keep people coming back for more information.
Thanks – you hear again and again that email is dead yet year after year the first thing I do when i wake up… Check that… The second thing I do when I wake up is check my email.
Eric
Google penguin help the internet user to get quality content from search engine. I think its fair
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for your posts. I have been following your posts. I got motivated by you and just started my website.
please, take a look at it and let me know what do you think about it.Now I am working on driving traffic to it.
Thank you
Thank you for great posting, Lisa.
Email subscriber is really genius exit for Google Penguin slaps..
Beside that, if a website has been drawn in the base serp and not repairable, than what we can do is just copy the content, make an adjustment to accommodate Google guidelines, then upload them in a new website. It is not hard to get backlinks when you have already the contents. What makes people hard to build a website is genuine content, indeed.
rak toko
Hey Lisa, email marketing is one area I see newcomers neglecting both for the reason you mentioned (monthly fee’s that increase as you grow), and also because they fail to see the traffic potential that an email list holds for them. Many who would think nothing of dropping a few hundred on a PPC campaign that will drive a limited amount of traffic are hesitant to get started because of it.
If my list didn’t make me a dime, it would still be worth it for the traffic it drives each week!
Have a great evening!
Good for you, Warren! Regarding the monthly fees, they are quite reasonable. If your list keeps growing, ideally you should be making more money to more than cover the costs. That wasn’t always the case with me because I hadn’t learned to engage my list. Nevertheless, I think AWeber’s fees are quite reasonable.
Thanks Lisa for such great advice now i know where i was doing wrong with my email marketing campaign, it really helped me a lot.
When Google penguin was released, everything changed, everyone were affected including my sites. Urgggh! I hate it badly.
Hi there,
One of my (over a year old) sites disappeared off page one, position one of the Big G after Penguin – not amused!! Personally I’d like to give Google a slap! 😉
But that, and your post above have really made me question the logic of relying on just SEO, and making sure my traffic is not reliant on Google, just incase!
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.
my blog traffic drop, sad to see this