Tuesday, 18 January 2011, 1:16 PM

Create Rush Hour Traffic with an SEO Newsletter Archive

I started working with email marketing four years ago, and here I am, working with a web agency with none other than, email marketing. However, I also work with design, web development, and search marketing. It’s fun when you combine these and watch how one compliments the other.

Sarah and I are about to give you a head start. This is something Sarah came up with. Here’s to all of you working with email marketing!

Here you are going to use your current, future, and other newsletters.

“Search engine optimization” (also dubbed SEO) for a website is optimizing the text content and the HTML code behind it to increase the traffic to your website, but it can be a dirty business with dirty tricks to go with it. For example: some people spam search engines by placing links to their home page from other home pages that are not relevant to their own website or business – this means that the search engine bumps the rating on their home page.

Don’t worry, there are ways around this. If you’re honest – and if you choose to look ahead – you’ll want to start with creating relevant links with relevant content.

Your newsletter enters the equation…now.

The honest way to accomplish this is to gather your newsletters, new and old, and create a newsletter archive on your homepage. In this newsletter archive, every letter must have an HTML page of its own; in other words, a duplicate of each individual email newsletter for viewing in your web browser. These must also be optimized for search engines. This will explode your traffic, especially in the long run. When the world is out there Googling, they’ll find your website through the newsletter archive you’ve set up, assuming your newsletters are relevant.

An SEO newsletter archive is good and honest search marketing. The content is yours, it’s posted on your website, and it’s relevant to what you do. Think about the work you’ve put into your newsletters, that content is helping you generate traffic and business long after it’s sent.

What’s effort worth? How do you send your letters?

Sarah recently wrote a funny post about a company sending their newsletters with Outlook. They sell water heaters and tires. When people would search for their products, they would land on our blog, only a few hours after she posted it. There we are, iloveemail.org, the first to pop up on Google, even though we sell neither tires or water heaters, though I’m sure it’s a lucrative business. The point is, this happened because our website is optimized.

If this water heater selling, Outlook abusing company had built their newsletters in HTML, archived them on their website, and then optimized for search engines, they would have churned in some serious traffic.

Thanks again for the idea, Sarah!