Increase Your Email Open Rate By Improving Your Subject Lines

Just like a direct sales letter, the subject line of your email is usually the most important part of getting your readers to actually read your email. If you have a compelling subject line the chance of your email improves dramatically.

According to a recent MarketingSherpa.com survey, 40% of email marketers said testing changes to just their subject line had a high impact on their return on investment (ROI). 45% said subject line changes accounted for a medium ROI and only 15% said that testing changes to their subject line results in a low ROI.

For every email you send you've got room for about 50 characters in your subject line so use them wisely to improve your open rates. Below are some tips to help improve your subject lines:

1. Test the subject line – Take a look at email campaigns you've sent in the past. Which subject lines worked the best and gave you the highest open and conversion rates? You might find that for a particular topic there's a general trend or subject style that resulted in higher open rates.
   
2. The subject of importance – Try and put as much important and relevant information into your subject lines as possible. For example, if you're sending out an email about a special offer make sure the product name and details on the offer appear in the subject line in a clear and concise format such as "$40 off ACME Widget Until - Today Only".
   
3. Personalize the subject line – If you have details about your contacts then you can use them in your subject line to get their attention. A subject line containing the contacts first name can sometimes out-pull one that doesn't.
   
4. Avoid spam keywords – Most email servers automatically filter out any emails that contain spam keywords in their subject line – Words such as free, stock, ebay, password, mortgage, etc all trigger spam detection software so keep them out of your subject lines at all times.
   
5. Trigger curiosity – The best way to improve your open rates is to pique the interest of your contacts. A compelling headline that entices them to open and read the contents of your email can do wonders for your conversion rate. Headlines that trigger curiosity can sometimes work well for example: "Hi [First Name] - I have a question for you.".
   
6. Make the offer clear – If you're making a special offer to your contact then be upfront and include it as part of your subject line. People love bargains and special offers so let them know about it before anything else.
   
7. Emphasize the benefits – We use this technique for our newsletters. We always use the format of "Newsletter – [Benefit]". In our case, benefit is always the title of an article contained in the newsletter, such as "Company Newsletter – 10 Tips for Better Subject Lines". It works every time ;)
   
8. Easy identification – Make sure your contacts know the email is coming from you. Deceptive subject lines can confuse people so always try and including your company name in the subject line. Also, make sure you set the "From" attribute of your email to include your name and your companies name, such as "From: John Smith ".
   
9. Exclaim nothing – Avoid using excessive punctuation at the end of your subject lines. Google bans punctuation from AdWords ad's for a reason – too much hype can annoy and confuse people.

Here are some do's and don'ts for websites, particularly those with limited web experience or expertise.

• Don't add music to your site that plays automatically; use a media player and allow users to turn it on and off as they wish!
• Don't add objects that flicker and flash; these are harsh on the eyes and can negatively affect people who suffer from certain types of headaches and seizures!
• Don't use dashes in your domain name - people forget where to put the dash!
• No "Under construction" signs! Don't publish your site or section until it is complete.
• No junky advertising – it makes your site look cheap and your product less professional!

Designers are well aware of these rules, but let's face it  - not everybody has the funds for a professional designer, and a lot of small businesses find themselves working with very limited resources and a do-it-yourself mentality. There's nothing wrong with that, unless customers can obviously tell that's the case.

Here are five sins business websites make without knowing it. They are:

1. Writing content that focuses on features instead of benefits
2. Not making your business website search engine friendly
3. Failing to keep your business website fresh
4. Not having a call to action
5. Making it too hard for customers to buy from you

That last one is probably the most important of the list.

Usability is imperative.

If you're looking for help on making improvements to your website - contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

There is a common misconception that in order to develop a successful online business you need to be targeting hundreds or thousands of keywords.

This perception often causes a great deal of confusion and can lead to ‘Analysis Paralysis’ as people spend months analyzing keywords looking for the perfect opportunity. As a result they never follow through to create a complete and profitable business.

Last week, a group of us were discussing this problem and came to the conclusion that the reason this misconception is still so prevalent is that in the past, focusing on quantity versus quality DID actually work.

In the early days of Internet marketing, if you placed a large number of related keywords on a page or included them in Meta and Alt tags you could often get rankings that led to traffic.

Similarly, in the early days of Google Adwords, it was possible to load your account with thousands of keywords and generate a steady stream of traffic to your site.

However, while this may have been the case in 2003, it is very important to realize that THINGS HAVE CHANGED.

The old approach was a ‘shotgun strategy’ in which you targeted a large number of keywords, took a shot and hoped for the best.

With the continuous improvements in search engine algorithms and the development of quality metrics such as Google’s Quality score, this approach is no longer effective.

The mantra of “The more keywords the better” is a thing of the past.

The alternative to the old shotgun strategy is a new ‘laser like’ approach in which you explore your market carefully and then zero in on a small subset of specific keywords.

To understand why this laser focused approach is so important we need to examine something we call the ‘Iceberg Principle’.

According to the Iceberg Principle, finding a good keyword is just the tip of the Iceberg.

In order to transform a keyword into a genuine asset for your business, you need to undertake a range of tasks that most people unfortunately never get around to.

These tasks include:

• On-page optimisation
• Off-page optimisation
• Obtaining high quality backlinks
• Writing articles
• Conducting targeted PPC campaigns
• Etc.

The truth is that every one of these activities requires time and effort. Clearly, if you are trying to target thousands of keywords, following through on these activities becomes virtually impossible.

So, instead of generating lists containing thousands of semantically related keywords, here is the laser focused strategy that we recommend in today’s SEO environment.

To get started, use a website developer like Hyperweb to generate a sample of keywords in your niche and then continually refine and filter these keywords until you find 5-10 keywords that have the following characteristics:

1. They are highly relevant to your niche
2. They have reasonable levels of traffic eg. 100 visitors per day
3. They have acceptable levels of competition eg. Less than 30000 competing web pages
4. They have low strength of competition ie. The top 10 sites in Google are not well optimized

Once you have identified and selected your target keywords, redirect your focus to the on-page and off-page SEO tasks necessary to transform your keywords into genuine traffic-generating assets for your business.

Our one time Search Engine Optimization service offers you the strong foundation you need to build your company's internet presence.

By partnering with Hyperweb, you will make sure that the keywords and descriptions for your web pages—the factors that control who finds your pages and how they are represented in search engines—are carefully chosen to attract the most interested customers for the best sales prospects.
keywords are only the first part of a larger effort to promote your online presence
But keywords are only the first part of a larger effort to promote your online presence. We look beyond keywords to incorporate a variety of methods that will raise your company’s online profile and help you stand out from the crowd. Hyperweb will help you establish a presence on the internet outside of your website and harness the power of social networking. We will also ensure that your websites are listed on the most popular search engines, creating content pages focused on specific keyword phrases to establish your business as an authority in the industry. Finally, Hyperweb will use powerful reporting software to determine your optimal keywords, what kind of competition you face for them, and where you stand regarding backlinks and page rank.

Reporting software is perhaps the most frequently overlooked part of an effective online presence, but we use some of the most powerful analytics software available to identify your website's strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for growth. With so many social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, it can be difficult to know where to focus your efforts, and accurate reporting helps cut through the clutter. By understanding what works to promote traffic for your business, you can spend more time drawing in customers and waste less time on sites that yield no results. 

The one time SEO service offers:

• Optimization of your page descriptions and the keywords you are using, so that your site is found by people looking for the solutions that you have to offer.
• A listing in the results of the most popular search engines, such as Google, Bing!, and MSN.
• Specially created content pages for your site, focusing on the specific keyword phrases that you need to attract search engine traffic.
• Reports generated using Google's powerful Google Analytics software, to let you see how your site is attracting visitors and what you can do to improve your internet presence.

Consider taking your website to the next level by requesting ongoing SEO optimization by Hyperweb.

Ongoing Search Engine Optimization: Do You Want to Get to Page 1 and Stay There?

Optimizing your site with our SEO service will establish you as an authority in your field. However, the internet is always changing, and smart business owners keep an eye on the shifting landscape so that they can act accordingly. Are you prepared to deal with the changing tastes of the public, or to capitalize on breaking trends as they happen?

Your business may not have the in-house staff to constantly monitor and maintain your online presence, but our ongoing SEO service can help you make sure that your site stays relevant to the search engines and that you maintain your position in the marketplace. Our experienced staff will use their optimization expertise to keep you active on the web.

Our ongoing SEO service offers all the benefits of our one time optimization package, but you also get:

• Ongoing keyword optimization, because today’s hot topic could be dead and cold tomorrow. Our ongoing SEO service continues to track the keywords that are most relevant to your business as they develop.
• SEO-specific page creation for new content, because knowing the new keywords is worthless if you aren’t drawing traffic from them. We will keep providing you with content designed to capture traffic from new keywords as they are identified.
• Content development for blogs and news feeds, because online conversations take place across multiple channels. Reaching out to blogs and news feeds will give you new ways to interact with potential customers.
• Social Media assistance, because you need to make the most of your web presence by taking your company to the places where web users gather. We will assist you with Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter feeds, videos for Youtube, and other methods to build backlinks and take part in the online conversation.
• Listings in online directories, because you should be recognized as an expert. We will help you with directories including Google Business Listings to strengthen your site’s position in the search results.
• Recommendations for domain keywords, because customers want to find you easily. In addition to optimizing your own site for keywords that customers enter into search engines, you can purchase domains that use those keywords so that they redirect traffic to your company’s website.
• Monthly ranking reports, because effort without direction is worthless. You can use your ranking reports to track ongoing efforts and determine which keywords have yielded the best results.