Is Email Marketing subject to Google's Panda Update?

Now more than ever, content, presence and more importantly; domain authority in terms of organic search results are becoming more a part of the same email marketing struggle . Optimisation experts are still busy altering their sites to test the reach and SEO punching power of Google’s Panda Update, which may well be more relevant to the HTML newsletter industry than you might think.

Google is moving to reward well-written and relevant content, so keeping your website on the safe side of the bamboo-chewing algorithm is a key part of staying top-of-mind with consumers, since ranking well on a Google search has become the single most important aspect of online marketing.

The most recent change to Google's ranking machine, the Panda Update, is hitting the international online marketing and SEO community hard, and suddenly declared worthless hours of article syndication and link building. With its new sweet-tooth for quality content, Google is making a break from standard online marketing practices that have been successfully pushing products on search engine users for years.

A lengthy list of questions have been posted by the search-behemoth in an attempt to clarify what the Panda update is about. The main considerations, according the Google, when evaluating content should include:

• Are the topics driven by genuine site reader interests, or does it generate content by guessing what might rank well in search engines? 
• Does the site have redundant articles on the same or similar topics? 
• Does this article have factual, stylistic, or language errors?

Which is really just another way of saying that large amounts of poorly composed or duplicated content will negatively impact your entire online reputation. This has been something of a moot point for email marketers since sending email Newsletters via opt-in mailing lists directly to subscribers means that the big bad panda has no direct influence on their email marketing campaigns.

Or does it?

Normally email newsletters that you distribute have no impact on your sites page authority, since they are sent directly to a subscriber’s inbox, which doesn’t get crawled and read by Google. However, newsletters (or parts thereof) get forwarded to friends, shared socially or can be referenced, republished or repurposed or in any number of ways. You may be in the practice of adding HTML newsletters to your own website. Google will see this and consider it to be a part of your domain’s standard content. 

There is an excellent chance that your email newsletter could at some point or another fall under the Panda’s pouncing peer, whatever the case may be.

Google’s unleashing of their new verb-savvy pet  may not be as much out of the good intentions they have claimed in the press - which they say relates to eliminating black hat SEO practices and ensuring that readers are directed to the best and most relevant content mathematically possible. 

Social share is going big and the search empire is ever aware that their iron grip on site ranking is slowly slipping. Bite by bite, Facebook is devouring typical search engine bread and butter.  Due to this, Google is kicking up algorithmic fur to try and fend off what seems like an almost inevitable downturn.

It’s still business as almost-usual for now though, as the Panda is king of numbers. Our advice for the next time you build an email marketing newsletter is to take steps to create impactful, quality content, to increase the chances that you're out of the grips of the panda's claws.

Win a ticket to the IMCC to the value of R5415!

GraphicMail is giving away a ticket to the IMCC in Johannesburg valued at R5415.

GraphicMail will be running free workshops at the IMCC on email, mobile and social integrations for your business. Get hands on tips on how to best run online communications and promotions.

The Integrated Marketing Communication Conference is perfect for all marketing gurus and is tailored to small business owners and entrepeneurs. If your business is in it's initial stages than the IMCC will be hugely beneficial, covering topics such as advertising, direct marketing, public relations, digital marketing, sales promotion and social media.

The IMCC will take place on the 6th and 7th of June at the Hilton Hotel in Sandton.

To win this ticket to the IMCC is very easy. All you have to do is visit the GraphicMail website and share your favourite page via the social network of choice. Then email us the link to your favourite page that you've just shared. It's as easy as that!

The ticket includes:

• Two full days of insightful information on the newest and most innovative marketing techniques
• Addressed by 7 keynote speakers – each an expert within their relevant industries.
• Two Keynote Panel Discussions with experts from all fields of Integrated Marketing Communications.
• Admittance to 10 interactive workshops
• Two canapé lunches
• 5 star Canapés and drinks
• Tea / coffee and snacks
• A 1 gig flash disk

Get sharing! You don't want to miss out on this fantastic event!

New Email Food-chain: Mobile snacking on Webmail usage

Mobile is a great way to keep the lines intact to whatever is here and happening, out there in cyberspace. It doesn't matter what the online trend of the day is, mobile can keep you in the loop where Webmail and desktop services cannot. Mobile email enables consumers view what they want, when they want, in real-time and on the go -  backed up by the fact that 91% of mobile internet access involves socialising, compared to 79% on desktop computers.

With many businesses having banished Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms from their office systems, in an attempt to protect their productivity from the attention-ravaging reputation of Web 2.0, a good portion of the wired-up population relies on their mobiles to get their daily social fix and check private emails.
 
With that said, the leading means for reading email is still Webmail, which includes such email hosting websites as AOL, Hotmail and Gmail at 38% of viewership, and Microsoft Outlook flexing its 63% of desktop email views. Mobile access has exploded to around 16% of the email market share (according to Return Path), making it a significant channel when you think that it nets roughly 33.6 billion of the estimated 210 billion new emails circulating every day. An impressive figure.

Typically, mobile email has been noted to spike over the weekend periods when people are on the move (while showing a steady usage pattern throughout the week) whereas desktop webmail-use shows a consequently large narrowing during that time. Using desktop email during work hours has the highest on the typical weekday engagement patterns with Webmail heating up on lunch-breaks and mobile peaks peppered everywhere in between.

Desktop services and Webmail don't have the email monopoly that they once enjoyed anymore.  Marketers should adapt to the way consumers are viewing their content on mobile - making full use of new smartphones and tablets that provide excellent rendering capabilities and a larger viewing area.

“We offer you a great solution with GraphicMail mobile marketing, which allows you to do exactly all that: Send newsletters that render well on mobile screens, with images and videos when and where needed. It’s all about quick access, functionality and on-the-go news.”

Barbara Ulmi, GraphicMail Marketing Manager