3 Tips For More Clicks and Website Traffic

Sometimes our emails are focused on a single goal, aiming the entire message at driving to a specific landing page.

Other times when our purpose is more general, it makes a lot of sense to take a broader approach, aiming to get our subscribers back to nearly *anywhere* on our website. We can let them choose their own adventure from there, hoping they’ll eventually complete a site goal (e.g. ordering, membership sign up, etc.).

For those times, here are 3 techniques that could significantly boost your click through rates back to your website:

Include Some Website Navigation Links

If your site uses a navigation bar, most likely every page of your website contains those links in a predictable place, allowing visitors to select from at least a few things that might catch their interest, so why not experiment with adding them to your email newsletter?

Adding links to the most popular sections of your website in a consistent way across all messages might bring more overall traffic to your site.

As Chris Lovejoy points out, even if the specific topic of your newsletter doesn’t speak to someone, they may be interested in checking out more general (or specific) information section at your website.

Great tip, and definitely worth a split test.

Link More of Your Text

It’s called “the web” for a reason. Most websites aren’t structured hierarchically or in a linear way where a single page leads to just one other page, which leads to another, and so on.

Instead, pages are linked together from one another in a web, where a single page can link to many others, and many others pages can link to a single one.

A single email can link to several pages in this same way.

Hyperlinking Contextual Words and Phrases

This tip is like icing on the cake, and because plain text messages are just that — plain-text — it’s an option only available to those of us sending HTML versions of our newsletters.

If you are sending in HTML, take a look the images in your messages. Readers’ eyes are naturally drawn towards them, and often times, so are their mouse pointers.

So, the difference between them seeing a (non hyperlinked) or (hyperlinked) pointer can ultimately make a minor or sometimes a significant difference in the click through rates for your campaigns.

It is especially important to link your logo, which people tend to expect is directed to your homepage, whether its seen on your website or in your email.