It’s time for a bonus episode! This episode was inspired by something I’ve been doing in my own business this past week that WORKS. I’m showing you 5 ways to boost your email subscribers using the power of Search Engine Optimization. And, (the best part) you don’t have to write new blog posts or new email content to do it! Plus, this is work you can do from your sofa in your pajamas if you want! It’s easy to change with a huge outcome. This is what I’ve been doing in my own business right now, and you can do it too.
If you’re listening to this episode live, then coronavirus probably has you stuck at home, and you might be thinking about ways you can enhance your business for the online space. If so, then this episode is for you, and don’t worry, if you’re sick of content about the virus, I won’t be talking about coronavirus here! We are focused on getting you email list growth.
LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:
Search for episode 59!
Before we dive in, let’s talk about what SEO actually is. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is defined as “the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.” This is basically fixing up your website so more people (and more of the right people) find you on Google.
One of the main search engines that most people think of is Google. There are also other search engines too like Bing, Yahoo, and even Pinterest. Yes, Pinterest! I LOVE Pinterest, and I personally consider it a search engine and content creation site, not a social media platform.
Your email list is the people you have as subscribers in your email marketing platform, whether that be ConvertKit, FloDesk, or something similar. To grow your email list, people have to sign up to get your emails.
5 Ways to Leverage the Power of SEO:
1. Add a content upgrade to your top ranking blog posts on Google.
Maybe you are thinking, wait how do I figure out what my top ranking blogs are? Look at Google Search Console. It’s a free tool made by Google to give you all the information on so many things about your website. The main thing is what people are searching for that leads them to your website, whether that’s you showing up in search results but not getting clicked on, or you being clicked on from a search query. Basically, you get to see exactly what people searched that lead them to your specific blog posts.
If you have purchased a template from EM Shop, Module 8: Optimizing For Search Engines in your Showit Blueprint Course will teach you all about this!
How to find this area in the search console:
- Click on “performance” in the left sidebar
- You want the search type to be “web” and it’ll automatically be set to “last 3 months”, which is great! You can expand it to longer or shorter time periods as well.
- Now you can see what the queries were and how many clicks and impressions each one gets. When you click on the queries you can see which page on your site that search leads to.
- You can also look at your average position on the results page for all of the searches, which is super insightful to see!
- So, the ones where you are getting the most impressions or clicks, I want you to add a content upgrade to that post.
- The content upgrade should be relevant to the content! Not something random.
- For example: in the blog post for this episode, I can add my already existing freebie “How to Create the Perfect Opt-in Incentive to Grow Your Email” because it’s relevant to this content even though I didn’t make it for this episode!
- Make the post better overall. Add links to other content that is similar, update images, etc. Probably don’t change the SEO settings since it’s already ranking so well, but see if there are any other ways you can make the user experience better.
2. Add a content upgrade to your top ranking blog posts on Pinterest.
Same thing here! You will want to add a content upgrade to the blogs that are ranking well on Pinterest! To find this, make sure you are using your business account on Pinterest and go to your analytics overview. From there, you can search your pins by impressions, link clicks, engagement, all kinds of things that are super helpful! Focus for now on link clicks since those are the people who are actually clicking to see your content that you are wanting to upgrade.
For the pins that are linking to your blog content, add a content upgrade to that blog post. Make the post any better by adding links to other content that is similar, update images, editing copywriting mistakes or anything that makes the post a better experience for your audience.
3. Beef up the SEO settings on blogs that rank well on Pinterest, but not on Google.
Now that you figured out which of your pins are crushing it on Pinterest, compare them to the ones crushing it in Google searches. There might be some overlap from your Google Search Console results, or they might be totally different from each other.
For the ones that are totally different, go into the SEO settings on those high-ranking Pinterest blogs and make the SEO settings better. A great tool for this is Yoast SEO on WordPress that helps you with SEO on your blog posts. This is what you’ll use for your blogs if you use Showit as your website host. It’s an awesome tool. Check out this episode all about Showit and WordPress if you want more information!
Basically, if it does so well on Pinterest, it may also do really well on Google when you do the SEO settings right! You can also look at your pin description on Pinterest for some SEO setting ideas.
4. Make Pinterest images for your top ranking blog posts and content upgrades on Google Search Console.
So, those posts and freebies rank well on Google, now set them up to rank well on Pinterest too. Do this for both the blogs AND the freebies as separate things.
Make sure you are embedding your freebies directly into the relevant blog posts, and ALSO putting them on their own landing pages so that they can be accessed separately from the blog post.
Make those top posts and freebies into pins! To decide what posts to do this for, just look at your Google Search Console. To decide what freebies you want to promote on Pinterest, look at your email marketing platform analytics. Create some images for the ones that are performing really well already. Also, create images for those freebies that are most relevant to what you sell. The people who opt-in to those types of freebies are going to be most like your ideal clients.
5. Put a content upgrade in your website footer.
The website footer is that part of your website that stays consistent throughout the whole website. This is a great place to put an opt-in to get on your email list! This way at ANY POINT on your website someone can get something for free from you and get on your list.
If you already have a freebie and email opt-in in your footer, but it’s been the same one forever, mix it up by changing it out with something new. Especially if you’re a regular content creator! That means a lot of the same people are going to your site once a week or multiple times a week. Showing a different offer to them might get them to get on your list.
It really is as easy as that! Looking at your analytics then do these things to really help you utilize all that’s out there for you with Google search engine and Pinterest to grow your email list.
Links mentioned in this post:
EM Shop Showit Website Templates & Showit Blueprint Course
FREEBIE: How to Create the Perfect Opt-in Incentive to Grow Your Email
Episode 32: WordPress Vs. Showit (+ What It’s Like To Switch From WordPress To Showit)
Episode 23: Morning Journal Prompts To Start Your Day With Intention
