What does email have to do with website traffic anyway?
They seem like two separate parts of the funnel. You blog on your website to get people to your email list - from there you use email to get them back to your site to push the buy button on your sales page. Once you have people on the list - they don't need to go back to the blog... or do they?
Email is a Powerful Driver of Web Traffic
Actually, email can be a powerful driver of traffic to your website. Email is second only to organic search in driving traffic to your website. In fact, according to this research, 51% of people discover new websites through email marketing. But, beyond helping your community discover new resources, there are some definite advantages to having your community visit your website regularly.
Adding Value, Building Trust...
A typical sales funnel starts with content and ends with a sale. A good funnel is not that linear - customers are moving back and forth between your offers and content. Customers buy from people they know, like and trust. Providing consistent value to your community through your blog is an excellent way to build that trust. You can also use your content to help segment your audience. Finally, sending your audience to content is training them to click your links and take action (even if that action is not always buying something new from you.
Click here to download my email sequences to use content to segment your audience
Crowdsource Your SEO
Other than just sending traffic to your site, encouraging your list to visit your content also helps your SEO in two important ways:
- Social Sharing There is a strong link between social media shares and Google rankings. The more a page or post is shared, the more traffic the page will get, and the more the page will appear in search results. The people who are most likely to share your posts? Your loyal subscribers. Be sure to let your list know when you've published something new.
- Reduce Your Bounce Rate One of the criteria the Google algorithm uses to rank your site is its bounce rate (ie how long do people stay on the page). Sending your loyal subscribers to read a long blog post (vs sending them to a quick decision lead page) will only help increase the amount of time people spend on your site and decrease your bounce rate.
Creating Your Boomerang
The easiest way to create your email - website traffic boomerang is to start sending messages with content links to your audience. I've included some sample sequences for you to download in the box below.
Here are three times to use these sequences to send content:
- New Subscribers One of the first messages my new list members receive is a simple message offering articles and resources on different topics. I use Active Campaign to segment the list member into a group based on what they chose.
- Disengaged Members Every six months or so, I delete non-active subscribers from my main list. Before, I do that, I send a few emails with content links to see if I can re-engage them. I also segment them into a new interest group based on what they chose.
- Adding Value All the Time - You should always be adding value and helping subscribers, regularly sending them to information (as opposed to just offers) helps you to do that.
Email Sequences for Driving Traffic Back to Your Site
01 Free Content
Do you let your subscribers know when you’ve posted something new? Use simple two-email sequence to use to send traffic to your most important new blog posts and other content.
02 Download
An easy way to get traffic to a website is to offer a free download for your current subscribers. You can do that as part of a blog post - or also just by using an existing opt-in and giving the download page link in the email (your people don’t need to resubscribe - they are already on your list. If you use Active Campaign or another autoresponder that supports tagging, you can add a tag when your subscriber clicks the link to the resource to further segment them.
03 Use Your Content to Survey and Segment
Using emails with links to posts or resources about different topics is a great way to both get a feel for what your list is interested in while at the same time segmenting your list so that you can send your subscribers offers that are targeted straight to them. Here are templates to use with current members, new subscribers and people who haven’t opened one of your emails in a while.
Want to learn more about how to get traffic to your website? Check out what other experts have to say right here.
