6 Mistakes to Avoid on Email Subject Lines

If you are a online employee, site owner, SEO/SEM or blog a lot, you probably need to contact people via email all the time. On some occasions you will also be the one starting the conversation and looking for a reply. Like, you might want to offer a guest article for a particular blog, or you might want to propose a business partnership to someone. Unless you craft your email messages smartly, though, there are good chances that the other person won’t even read them. Spam filters are the first obstacle, but even if your message goes though the other person might just delete it.

The subject line is probably the most important part of your message, and in this post I wanted to cover six mistakes that I see people making:

1. Creating one word subject lines

Have you ever received an email with the subject line “Hi”? If you have, you know how annoying it is. One word subject lines are terrible because they fail to communicate what the email is about, where it is coming from and the like (more on that later). Additionally, they might also reveal laziness or carelessness from the sender’s part, which might lead the receiver to ignore the email.

2. Making requests

People want to receive, not to give. If your subject line makes a request right away, the receiver will be less likely to open it. Examples include link exchange requests, voting requests and so on. A better approach to get the conversation going is to start by offering something.

3. Using spammy keywords

Using spammy keywords in your subject line is a no-no. Even if you get lucky and the spam filter does not block your message, there are good chances that the receiver will tag your message as spam as soon as he reads the subject line. Here is a short list of words to give you an idea of what should be avoided:

* free
* money
* win
* degree
* gift
* deal
* sign-up
* survey

4. Begging for attention

Using “Please Read This” as your subject line will not help convincing the receiver to open your email. Quite the opposite. The same is true for using words like “urgent,” “important” and similar.

5. Making it sound too good to be true

Real business or joint venture opportunities usually come from people you already have a relationship with. If you are going to email someone for the first time, therefore, avoiding using these terms, else you might be seen as a scammer.

6. Making it look like an automated message

If your subject like looks like an automated message from a website or online service, well, people will assume it indeed is. Just take a look at the automated messages you receive and avoid crafting your subject lines in the same fashion. One example is the “Invitation to…” subject line. Usually those come from social networks, and people tend to ignore them.

By now you might be asking yourself: “OK I understand the mistakes I need to avoid, but how should I craft a good subject line then?” For me a good email subject line should have two elements: a relevancy hook (i.e., a keyword that will assure the receiver that the email message is indeed for him, like his name or the name of his website) and a brief description of the content of the email (because even if the receiver knows your message is a legitimate one, he might not read it immediately or at all unless he knows what it is about).

Link Diversity

Link diversity can also impact your sites in other ways. More links from a variety of domains also mean increased visibility for your site. Think about the potential mix of traffic opportunities it can bring. By having many links from the same single domain may appear manipulative. And having a wide variety of links adds weight to the authenticity and relevancy of your site.

“Acquiring different types or diversity of links from a variety of sources is always better than multiple links from one source.” as what Eric Ward sees link diversity this way.

The emphasis is on the preference for a diverse link profile from multiple domains than a homogeneous one from a single domain.

Take note that acquiring a diverse profile of links is no easy thing.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Link Diversity from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Adobe Business Catalyst Development & SEO/SEM at WebXpress

WebXpress is the result of the evolution process in offshore outsourcing. It is the result of years of combined experience by outsourcing clients and providers. WebXpress is Quality Website Design, Development & Promotion, Speed to Market, Dedicated Teams & Quality Assurance and Project Management systems which guarantee we deliver as promised & on time.

WebXpress is also an SEO Company as well that offers Adwords Management services, Business Catalyst Development, GoodBarry Development and work on most other CMS systems available on the market today.

WebXpress is Offshore Outsourcing the way you want it!

Don't use YouTube for link building

I have recently read this for quite sometime. As an SEO I’m not fascinated with YouTube and do not recommend using it as a primary way to build links or as an integral part of my SEO program.

Why?

• While traffic from YouTube can be beneficial, you have to optimize the content on YouTube like any other in order for people to find it. This is time better spent elsewhere.

• Videos on YouTube are on YouTube so any optimization effort you implement helps YouTube and not your website/pages.

• YouTube contributes to the pinking of the ‘Net/Web (uses nofollow) so any link you insert to guide people back to your site passes no link popularity.
  
• Efforts to make a video go viral begin with the webmaster, not YouTube
  
• It’s doubtful you’ll build a brand following on YouTube unless the public is already aware of your brand.

• By-n-large people look for information on a search engine first, they don’t search on YT for a place to buy baseball cards. There is a reason Google has become a verb and YouTube a pastime.

But the number one reason?

• YouTube results bump web pages down in the general search results and web pages make sales , videos don’t!

Want to see what I mean? Look here, here, and here and notice how the videos are all ranking in the top five but the sites they represent - don’t. Yes the exposure is nice but where is there opportunity to make a sale?? Throw in local search results and images showing up and it can take a while to get to a static search result. If your goal is to make your website an authority in your industry or niche, you should house and promote the videos on your site, not in YouTube. This will help with algorithmic authority, branding and traffic.

So is using YouTube to build SEO links a wasted effort? Yes, pretty much which is why I don’t recommend using it to increase your link popularity but I wouldn’t totally discount using the number two search engine on the Net to build awareness.

Consider doing this:

• Make shorter versions of your video’s and insert on YouTube, longer vid stays on your site

• Create those shorter versions as teasers and as a lead-in to promotions/information on your site

• Be sure the start and ending frame of the vid include the URL to your website

• Optimize your YouTube listing with your keywords

• Be the first one to leave a comment/review under your vid, include the URL to your website and explain a longer more detailed version of the vid exists on your website

• Encourage everyone you know to drop a comment/review on the video (re/views help push your vid to the top for your keywords)

• Create a video area on your site just as you would a media room and promote it to the media, your customers, vendors etc.

• Make the vid’s on your website available through Creative Commons, make full descriptions embedded with kw rich links part of your attribution.

You need to decide what’s best for your site and if having YouTube video’s come up in the serps for your keywords is your goal, power to you. But if you’re in business to make a profit and plan to use video to attract links, know the links you point at YouTube will have little to no effect on your overall rankings.

Use YouTube or any image/audio hosting site wisely and they can be your greatest ally and not a ranking enemy.

Google doesn't recognize the Keyword Meta Tag

A keyword meta tag or a keyword tag is used to help search engines understand what is the page about. It is a group of related phrases which emphasizes the web page. Apparently Google mentioned that they are not using the website keyword meta tag.

Google will not consider a keyword tag for a search result as of September 2009. Google also doesn’t consider it as a factor in ranking websites. This video below Matt Cutts explains why Google will not consider Keyword Tag in searches:



Spamming is the number one reason. A couple of webmasters abuse or over stuff words on their meta tags. Some often give irrelevant keywords but take note that Google does support other meta tags specifically, Title Tags and Description Tags that is why google came up with this solution.

As an SEM I still habitually putting keyword meta tags to website pages because other search engines consider it on their search results, Yahoo in particular. And that i would hardly recommend SEO/SEM to put that meta tag in every site that they SEO.

visit business catalyst support.