Campaigner, an e-mail marketing solutions provider, launched a series called  101 Tips for Getting Started with E-mail Marketing to help small business owners implement successful e-mail marketing campaigns. One of the topics covered by Campaigner includes using SEO (search engine optimization) best practices to enhance your campaign performance.

To take advantage of SEO, you need to archive your e-mail campaigns online—on your own Web site or blog. On your Web site, you should offer links to your past newsletters right from the main page navigation.  Not only will this provide new content for your site visitors to read, but you will also get more mileage out of relevant content when you repurpose your e-mail campaigns.

Wendy Lowe, Campaigner's director of product marketing says that SEO and e-mail are a great compliment to one another. She continued, "Using SEO best practices can really help you hone in on what customers are searching for."

Five Tips for working SEO into your E-mail Marketing

If you want to optimize your e-mail content for search engines, Lowe offers these five tips that can help small businesses get started quickly.

1. Start SEO and E-mail Campaign Planning with Keyword Research

The best way to have your e-mail content optimized for search engines is to research relevant keywords that not only reflect your product or service but that also signal buyer intent.  Keyword research is not a difficult task.  Lowe recommends the free Google AdWords Keyword Tool to get you started. Using the tool you can search existing Web sites and topics to see top keywords for the site. This will also let you check your main competitors’ sites to see their best keywords.

2. Coordinate SEO and E-mail Marketing for Best Results

You don’t have to choose between SEO efforts and e-mail marketing. Most people look at SEO as a way to optimize their Web site, but you should combine the two and incorporate SEO elements into all aspects of your online marketing efforts.  When preparing your e-mails, Lowe suggests that you actually “think in keywords” when you write—just as you would for Web site content. Any SEO changes made to your site or special sub-pages on your site should always carry over to your e-mail marketing campaigns.

3. Surround Text Links with Relevant Keywords

Once you have completed your keyword research and are ready to optimize your e-mail campaigns, Lowe recommends that you surround hyperlinks with those important keywords.  Wherever you use a keyword it should be hyperlinked back to your main Web site or a landing page for best results. You should also include relevant and descriptive words around the hyperlink, as search engines do look at the words which are near hyperlinks on pages.

4. Bolster e-mail Marketing Results with Specific Landing Pages

Landing pages—unique Web pages that contains information that would interest your targeted readers—are extremely important for e-mail campaigns. In the e-mail you would direct your subscribers to a special landing page that would explain the product or promotion details. It’s really about providing your best-of-the-best sales copy to encourage the visitor to make the desired action, such as download an eBook,  purchase the product or sign-up for a special offer list.  When you create the landing page, it is important to incorporate SEO by using your targeted keywords on all landing pages.

 5. Repurpose E-mail Content into a Blog for an SEO Visibility Boost

Rather than “orphan” your e-mail content, Lowe recommends that businesses get a blog and repurpose their e-mail campaigns to it.  If you currently do not have a business blog, then you use a free blogging service, such as WordPress or Blogger to repurpose your search engine optimized e-mail content.  In addition to putting the content on your blog and linking to it from your Web site, Lowe says that the content can also be used in other marketing tasks, such as including portions of the content with the keywords in any press releases you send out.

Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.