The other day I had a little conversation about newsletters, it amazes me that some people just don't want to connect to their web audience. They think the days of making a good website and relying on search engine rankings will make them money especially if they are making money this way now.
Sure you can rank well and make money but you need to look at the long term results. In this day and age you need to connect to your niche audience in any way you can. If you can connect to them on their chosen platform that is a home run. My chosen method is newsletters and Twitter.
On all my sites I have it set up where there is a newsletter sign up usually on the top of every page. Once a user signs up they usually get a newsletter to welcome them and then a few newsletters with helpful tips spread out for the first two weeks. Not a lot just a few so I am a reminder in their inbox. I cannot tell you how many times I get emails thanking me for these tips. After that every time I have a new post it also goes out as a newsletter.
You may be thinking this is a lot of work but it really isn't. I use Aweber to set it all up and that's it. A few auto responders and then the live blog broadcast tool makes it all come together. The thing that makes this all come together is passion. I know what you are thinking “Vinny what does passion have to do with it?” If you have a passion and convey that passion to your audience they will want to follow you and come back to your site often.
On one of my sites I have an amazing newsletter open rate. Every time I send out a newsletter I get about 140% open rate. That is off the hook and it took me a while to figure out what was happening. Not only do most of the readers on the list open the email when I send it out they also go back a few days later and open it again. Both times they end up on my site.
This has been going on for a few years and people are still signing up for the newsletters where I control how they come back to my site. No search engines involved with them coming back to my site. Sure they may be finding me initially using search engines but after that I control my site visitors. It takes time to build up a newsletter but it builds up over time. Slow and steady wins the race.