It’s no secret that including a link within your email signature is a simple way to promote your blog. But almost all people who do this still miss out on optimal traffic generation.
Few people realize that Google hides content that you’ve already seen in your inbox. For example, I just sent an email from my personal gmail to work one.
Pre-Send Compose View:
Default view from my work inbox:
The default Google view does not display the signature from my personal email. Why? Because I’ve forwarded messages to my work one already this week. Due to the fact I’ve already seen all the content within my email signature, Google’s default view hides it.
The only way to view my signature is by clicking the small elipsis under “Howdy”.
Expanded View After Clicking the Elipsis:
If your maintaining a static link to your blog (or any other site) within your signature, most of the people you frequently email aren’t even seeing it – you’re leaving pageview dinero on the table.
How to Optimize This
Instead of just linking to my blog, I link to each post individually within my signature following the precursor “Most Recent Thoughts.” In the instance above, I linked to my last post on How to Land Your Dream Job. This not only ensures my link appears, but also provides more compelling copy that’s likely to inspire a click.
What’s The ROI on This?
It took me 20 seconds to change the hyperlink in my email signature within my gmail settings. In order to measure the amount of traffic this drove, I used a Bit.ly link which I reserved entirely for the hyperlink within email signature.
It turns on that 45 people clicked on my “Most Recent Thoughts” link over the past 3 days. Granted I email a ton and participate in a few large google groups, but still for a personal blog, that’s not completely meaningless traffic.
Wait!! Scott, 45 does not equal 100. No it doesn’t. But from those 45 clicks three people re-shared this content via twitter. Assuming an equal number of referrals per tweet, I used Google Analytics to project that this link was responsible for over 100 page views…not too shabby for an extra 20 seconds of work.
Some bloggers will read this post and still believe engaging in this practice is not worth their time. That’s fine. I just think spending 20 seconds to optimize something that took two hours to create isn’t the worst idea ; ) #finish
If you enjoyed this post you might also like:
What You Should Know About LinkedIn Search (Whoa Tumblr post!)
10 Reasons You Should Consider Blogging
