If you’re running an online business, you should know that your reputation means everything.
So, what would you do if some AI tool mentions your brand in a negative light — be it through outdated information, inaccurate descriptions, or straight-up misrepresentation?
I can help.
In this post, I’ll share with you my exact process on how to audit AI brand mentions, identify their root cause, and fix your AI presence.
But first, a quick introduction.
What are AI Brand Mentions and Why Should You Care?
While AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are still far from overtaking traditional search engine results, recent trends point to a much bigger disruption in the near future.
Forecasts also project the AI search market to grow from $16.9 billion in 2025 to a whopping $41.6 billion by 2033. And while AI search tools can be more convenient and intuitive for users, they still have a tendency to generate incomplete or outdated statements as well as “hallucinations” — complete fabrications from pieced-together information from bad training data.
Examples of AI Model Errors About Brands
The worst-case scenario when it comes to AI hallucinations is when you or someone from your company is linked to a crime that didn’t happen. A famous example of this would be the case of Arve Hjalmar Holmen, a Norwegian person wrongly accused by ChatGPT of committing a serious crime.
Imagine if it were you.
Another famous AI misinformation incident is when Air Canada’s AI chatbot gave false information about their bereavement fare policies.
While the chatbot informed a customer that bereavement discounts can be claimed within 90 days of purchasing a ticket, the airline actually doesn’t allow bereavement claims after the ticket is sold. This resulted in the airline paying over $800 in damages and court fees.
On the plus side, developers are constantly working to iron out the creases and reduce AI’s tendency to hallucinate. In the meantime, the best you can do is check AI brand mentions of your company, look for misinformation, and address the underlying issues to prevent damaging your brand.
How to Monitor AI Brand Mentions with Semrush (and Fix Them)
Semrush is my all-time favorite platform for all things digital marketing.
It features two toolkits that can help you address wrongful mentions of your brand by AI: the AI SEO Toolkit and the SEO Toolkit.
First things first, you need to audit AI brand data using the AI SEO Toolkit.
1. Set Up AI-Powered Brand Mention Tracking
From the main dashboard, go to ‘AI SEO’ and select ‘Prompt Tracking’ under “Boost & Monitor.”
The next step is to create a project for your brand (if you haven’t already).
On the Position Tracking page, click ‘Create Project.’
In the project creation window, enter your website’s domain along with a designated project name (optional). Click ‘Create project’ to finalize your settings.
On the next page, you need to set your tracker’s targeting options.
To specifically track AI prompts, be sure to select an AI tool (i.e., ChatGPT and Google AI Mode). Enter your business name and click ‘Continue To Prompts’ to proceed.
In the “Prompts” form, enter all the AI prompts that you want to track with the Semrush AI SEO Toolkit.
Since we’re trying to stay ahead of inaccurate AI brand mentions, you can use prompts or keywords that are often used negatively. For example, if you’re in the tech or ecommerce industry, you may want to track keywords like “returns,” “scams,” “shady,” or “data breaches.”
After entering your target prompts, click ‘Add prompts to campaign.’
Lastly, click ‘Start Tracking’ to kickstart the data collection.
It may take some time for Semrush to scan for your AI brand mentions, depending on your overall presence. When done, you should be able to view an in-depth report of your positions or visibility in the specified prompts.
This includes useful metrics, like your average position, cannibalization health, new prompts, and more.
2. Find Negative AI Brand Mentions Right Away
With the help of Semrush’s AI Brand Performance reports, you can easily find AI brand mentions according to user sentiment (positive or negative).
Just click ‘Perception’ under the “Brand Performance” submenu to get started.
Next, enter your domain and click ‘Analyze.’
Before Semrush can rake in AI data about your brand, you need to specify your target location and language. Simply pick the right option in the drop-down menu and click ‘Get started.’
Just take note that selecting ‘Worldwide’ as your target location will technically work; it may take longer for the brand performance reports to gather information. That said, try to narrow down your target location (e.g., country, city, or municipality) as much as possible.
Once the results are in, go back to the perception report to reveal a wealth of useful insights that can power your optimization efforts, starting with the list of AI-generated recommendations. This highlights the negative perceptions around your brand, which you can address later.
What you need to look at, however, are the “Areas for Improvement” and “AI Strategic Opportunities” sections — both are found at the bottom of the report.
More importantly, these sections reveal negative perceptions surrounding your brand in AI tools.
These are the key sentiment drivers that influence how AI users perceive your brand, be it in terms of value for money, trustworthiness, and overall product quality.
Since these are sorted by priority, you should take note of the top items.
Even if they’re not AI misinformation, they still reflect the most prevalent issues that customers have with your brand. This makes them worth addressing if you want to massively improve your brand image.
3. Check for Full AI Responses with Your Brand
Using the Visibility Overview tool, you can quickly check for existing AI brand mentions.
From the AI SEO menu, go ahead and click ‘Visibility Overview.’
Just like with AI brand performance tools, the next step is to enter your brand’s domain and click ‘Analyze.’ This will initiate a complete scan of how ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews present your brand whenever it’s pulled in AI responses.
Within seconds, Semrush starts off with an overview of your brand’s visibility in Large Language Models (LLMs).
This includes essential insights, like the total number of mentions, an AI Visibility score (a rating of your brand’s likelihood to be mentioned in AI results), monthly mentions, and monthly audience.
What you need to look at would be the “Topics & Sources” section.
Here, you can start scanning the list for critical topics that may potentially lead to inaccurate AI mentions.
Consider starting with the topics that could have a detrimental effect on your brand image if there is indeed misinformation.
Let’s say you’re managing the AI optimization campaign of Newegg.
While “Newegg Customer Support Contacts” generates more volume, “Newegg Order Cancellation” has a higher likelihood of people or sources getting something wrong. Not to mention that the topic relates to users with transactional intent, making it more impactful in case of misinformation.
Tip: Click ‘Monitor’ to add the topic, along with related prompts, to your position tracker. This will help you stay on top of important AI conversations that may lead to wrong or inaccurate mentions.
To investigate conversations for outdated details or straight-up AI hallucinations, click ‘View full response.’
In some cases, it’s easy to spot outdated or inaccurate information that could mislead customers, such as snippets based on content from years ago.
On the right-hand side, you’ll find the information sources that AI uses in conversations for the selected topic. This may include content from your own website along with posts published elsewhere.
4. Investigate Negative Narrative Drivers
Another useful tool for finding wrong brand mentions by AI is the Narrative Drivers report.
The report starts off — as always — with AI-generated recommendations that will help improve the perception of your brand.
However, the important section here is under the “Dive Deeper” section, which reveals mentions that don’t necessarily paint a positive picture in the eyes of users. Just click on ‘Citations | Branded’ or ‘Citations | Non-branded’ if you’re looking for growth opportunities.
Next, switch to the ‘Cited Pages’ tab to find the exact pages where LLMs source information from.
The key here is to look at the “Favorable Sentiment” column to find conversations that include a negative brand mention. These are the pages that lead to potentially inaccurate or outdated information about you.
From here, start scanning the mentioned or linked pages in which your brand may be covered unfairly or inaccurately. Remember, it’s important to address unfavorable coverage to protect your brand image, regardless of whether the information is inaccurate or not.
How to Fix AI Misrepresentation
The AI SEO Toolkit does a great job at locating false or outdated AI brand information that can hurt your image.
Now, the ball is in your court.
Here are proven strategies for fixing AI model errors about brands:
Address negative sentiment drivers with content. First things first, make sure you have clear, detailed, and truthful content that directly addresses the misinformation being displayed in AI conversations. Use prompt keywords that typically lead to the faulty sources to make it visible to LLMs (it may take some time).
Make a marketing push to combat misinformation. In addition to publishing the correct information, make sure that it’s visible to search engine crawlers, influencers, and other publications. You can submit guest posts, promote your content on social media, launch ad campaigns, and pretty much unload your entire digital marketing arsenal to replace the outdated or incomplete information out there.
Reach out to the third-party information sources. In most cases, wrong information published on third-party websites isn’t intentional. As such, it’s always worth reaching out to the site’s owner and formally requesting a correction.
Update your own content. If, however, the wrong information is sourced from your own website, you need to update the content in question ASAP. Remember to use the Visibility Overview tool to identify the pages with outdated information.
Add more prompt keywords to your tracker as you go. As you scan Semrush’s AI SEO reports, don’t forget to add important prompts to your tracker. The more you use Visibility Overview and Brand Performance reports, the more you’ll discover prompts that must be monitored for potential AI misinformation in the future.
Check AI strategic opportunities. Finally, bear in mind that the AI-generated strategy recommendations are there for a reason. Whether or not they highlight wrong AI mentions, they always come with actionable suggestions that can improve your visibility and reputation in AI tools.
Reach out to customers. If you find wrong or inaccurate information in online message boards or Q&A sites, chances are they’re posted by a previous customer. In which case, reach out to them directly to clear any misconception that could potentially affect your brand image (and sentiment in your AI presence).
Final Words
Hopefully, you learned a lot about AI brand mentions, why they’re important, and how to address potential misinformation spread by AI tools.
While AI may not completely replace traditional search engines any time soon, it’s better to have a proactive stance and future-proof your brand before things go south. And with a tool like Semrush’s AI SEO Toolkit, you can easily set up a prompt tracker that spotlights problematic AI mentions before they harm your brand image.
Ready to take the next step?
Master Blogging readers can claim an exclusive 14-day trial of the Semrush SEO Toolkit to explore its powerful features. For complete AI-driven capabilities, the AI SEO Toolkit is a separate product. Make sure to check it out and see how it can transform your SEO strategy.
Using external links means creating hyperlinks that direct from one page to a different webpage of another site. They are not the same as internal links that connect to pages within the same site. Therefore, a proper linking strategy is a must for both Search Engine Optimization [SEO] and user experience. The role of outbound or external links is paramount in creating a strong link web that includes your entire site. The addition of these links in your text can let your site enjoy numerous benefits, even if many firms are still reluctant to redirect their customers to a different site.
Nevertheless, this is what Google prefers. The leader search engine wishes you to provide top-quality content and to share any possible info… even if it is on someone else’s server. In this post, we will explore the concept of external links, their merits, and the strategies of their effective incorporation into your site.
What is an external link?
Unlike internal linking, which consists of links leading users to another page in your domain, external links are links that you incorporate into the content of your site to guide users to additional resources related to the topic. They redirect to a completely different domain and carry your audience away from your site.
To illustrate, if you are curious to learn more about what external links are, read this article from Moz. The practice of incorporating external links into your content in the right places can turn out to be a powerful means of getting backlinks. Backlinks are links from other websites that return the users to your website. When you place external links on your website, you are making your content more credible, thus, other websites are more inclined to link to your website for a specific topic. The accumulation of backlinks results in the increase of your website’s authority. Let’s take a real-life example for better understanding.
Imagine you are the owner of a bookstore, and a customer enters asking for a particular book which you do not carry. You have two choices. One is to tell them that you don’t have the book, and the other is to give them the directions to another bookstore you are aware of that does have it. While guiding them to the other store means no sale for your store, you have still provided the customer with valuable information which makes them more likely to come back to your bookstore with any other book-related inquiries.
The same goes for your site. If a visitor accesses your site in search of information you don’t have, and you guide them correctly, it means they’ll be more inclined to remember you the next time they need information that’s relevant.
What are the benefits of external linking?
While some businesses hesitate to send customers away, external links offer significant advantages. For example, linking to reputable sources builds credibility and trust. It also improves SEO, as search engines favor sites that provide valuable resources and context, ultimately boosting visibility.
You add relevancy to your website
The primary advantage of incorporating outbound links is relevance. Although Google (and other search engines) primarily consider incoming backlinks to your site as an indicator of relevance, they also take into account the links leaving your site. For instance, if a lawyer had a page dedicated to divorce procedures and referenced a government page covering the same topic, the two would be connected by relevance.
Internal Linking vs External Linking
Internal links are basically links that connect web pages within the same domain. The main goal of internal links is to let both users and search engines navigate your site more easily. On the other hand, external links are outbound links that go from your site to another site, and they not only add value to your content by providing supporting information but also create a positive trust signal. External linking, like internal linking and backlinks, participates in your SEO link strategy. In this case, external links from your site and internal links among your pages can be seen as on-page SEO, while link building is considered off-page SEO.
Types of External Links
The main types of external links include:
Follow Links
Nofollow Links
The most common styles of external links are: Follow links Nofollow Links Follow and Nofollow links are essential parts in external links. Whereas follow links give a signal to Google to pass link juice to the linked site, a nofollow link on the outside prevents Google from sending ranking signals to the URL.
To put it in a more simple way, nofollow link means, hey Google, don’t count this link as a “vote” for my site, and I don’t fully trust it. It also means that the user experience of that external link is more important to you than the search engine or the site you’re linking to experiencing a lot of benefits. Just add a nofollow attribute [rel=”nofollow”]. Dofollow links, What are they?
Why is External Linking important?
External linking is good for SEO and user experience as it gives users hints of the context in which they are reading and it can also drive them to other sources, while you can also get some SEO juice by linking to strong pages.
However, there are 3 main advantages of using external links:
Offer Additional Information
Gain Credibility
Connect With Other Websites
Provide Related Information
External linking and internal linking are similar in one way, that both can be utilized to link out to more information within the content of your site. There are dozens of ways external links help users and search engines get more information. So, if a content is about ‘paint ideas for bedroom’, the page can link out externally to ‘types of paint’ to help a user make a decision, and also to help Google understand your content. External links are also frequently employed to back up statistics, and the results of surveys with the ‘source’ which conducted them. A third-party link to the source can increase your site’s credibility and may even encourage visitors to linger a little longer.
Develop Credibility
If you are linking your web page to high-quality external sites, it also makes your site more trustworthy. We have already discussed how links to external websites can help users find related information and content. In the same way, creating great content and then linking out to other great content, makes your own site more credible to both the user and the search engine. In terms of SEO, it’s the same as link equity that gets passed via internal linking, but here, the quality of the external link might actually help your site. Linked sites pass link equity, or “link juice,” from one to the other . Google’s PageRank algorithm assigns different weights to different sites, based on the presence of backlinks. Link equity is when that authority is propagated to other sites via external linking.
Build Connections with other Websites
As external link efforts on your part provide backlinks to other websites, links are fantastic for building connections with other sites and enhancing your reputation. You might be able to get some good backlinks for yourself in the process, which is a great source of link juice and can help increase your domain authority. While domain authority is not a ranking factor according to Google, it is a good measure of how well your site will be able to rank in the SERPs compared to your competitors. Generally, they like to link out to high domain authority sites, and gaining backlinks from them is vital for SEO success and bringing in traffic.
How to Use External Links for SEO
We’ve covered the benefits of external linking. Now consider using these best practices for your external link building strategy.
1. Link Relevant & Reputable Websites
Since sites use external links to offer related information or sources of information for their visitors, you want to make sure that any website links you include are relevant to your content and not just included for the sake of adding an external link. Ditto for search engines. Because Google looks at your external links to help it understand what your content is about, make sure you’re linking to high authority sites.
2. Use Descriptive Anchor Text
As the external links are mostly contextual or ‘in-text links’, ensure they also come with an optimized anchor text, and they should naturally fit in your content. This involves using text to explain what the link is for, rather than using non-descriptive text such as ‘click here’.Certainly, having “optimized” anchor text doesn’t mean it’s lengthy. Keep it short and sweet so you don’t end up looking like spam with massive hyperlinked sentences.
3. Avoid Linking to Competitors
When you want to link to websites from your industry, you can be tempted to link to your competitors’ sites, particularly when they have content that supports your own. Unless the link points to a well-established piece of research or study, you should treat this as a no-go. You are sending your target customers to the competing sites when you link to your competitors as they click on your external links. You can also lose traffic and leads in the process because you’re giving your customers options other than your own site. The best practice is to stick to sites from the industry, but not those who sell exactly what you sell. If you’re a paper store, for instance, rather than link to a direct competitor, link to related content from a printing company’s site.
4. Skip the Money Pages
Your money pages are the pages where you expect your conversions to come from. For an online store, this could be the product pages and categories. Since these are also typically the last step of a customer’s journey, you want to hold users on the page until they convert. Including external links here could risk your readers’ attention to other sites and potentially lead you to lose conversion rates. Instead, limit your external links to blog post and other content-heavy pages where the links can help – and won’t take revenue out of your sales coffers.
External Link Defined
An external link is a hyperlink that leads to a website other than the one the link is on. Leading SEO authorities agree that external links are the most important source of ranking power for a web page.
Unlike internal links, external links pass link equity, or ranking power, differently. These links are treated by search engines as third-party validation or votes that contribute to the ranking of the content they’re linking to.
It’s worthwhile noting that white hat SEO believers do NOT consider the “title” attribute in a link to have any real bearing on the rankings.
An example of what an external link looks like is as follows in HTML code:
Check out our recent post for all the latest SEO updates.
External links are essential in determining the quality and relevance of a web page for a search engine.
There are two primary reasons why external links are considered important:
Popularity: In contrast to the secretive nature of website traffic statistics, external links provide a more consistent and quantifiable measure of a web page’s popularity. Although traffic information is usually hidden in private server logs, external links are public and can be harvested. This allows external links to be used as a dependable measure of how popular a particular web page is. This popularity measure, which is similar in concept to the toolbar PageRank, is then combined with relevancy factors to improve the search engine results for a query.
Relevancy: External links are one of the signals that search engines rely on to determine how relevant a web page is. The anchor text within these links is normally written by humans who have a better understanding of the content of the Web Page than the computers. Often this anchor text is a brief summary of the title or content of the page to which it links, or it may even be a URL. In addition, the domains referenced in links also provide search engines with useful relevance information. Because links tend to link to similar things, they help search engines create knowledge hubs on the web, which in turn help search engines confirm how important a web document is.
SEO Best Practices
Target keywords– Accurately determining target keywords is a crucial part of writing your on-page content to be search engine friendly. What this means is that the end result of this on-page optimization process is to rank better for keywords that are very similar to what your page is all about, increasing your rankings in the search engines.
In order to do so, you have to perform an intense keyword research. It means researching and analyzing the words and phrases that people use to search the internet for the type of content you offer on your website. Knowing the vocabulary and the questions your audience uses will help you adapt your content to better match the needs of your users.
Keyword research also tells you about the popularity and competition of each of those terms. This is useful information to help you know which keywords you should focus on in your content strategy.
Link to Relevant Sources
Having some external links on your page is good for your content, but you want to add them with purpose rather than add them just to have them. Make sure any external links that you add are adding some value to your content and not just taking the reader away from your page for no good reason.
Good external links are links that take the user to supplementary content that supports your main points and provides more context for them. Visit their website Once you find worthy link destinations such as statistics, research studies, infographics, or videos to substantiate your points or provide more information, visit their site.
As Google aims to display the most relevant results for every query, it is even more important to link to websites in your niche. This not only helps Google understand what your content is because the user better understand what they are reading leading to a richer and more Australian Shine Page experience, but it also creates a better overall online experience.
Optimize the Title Tag
The title tag, which is shown prominently in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), is very important in communicating the topic of your page to Google and attracting users to visit your site. It is Wrapped in HTML tags with this format:
What Is a Title Tag and How to Optimize Your Title Tags for SEO
It was described that the title tag is one of the most significant aspects for on-page optimization that needs attention. You should also include your main keyword for the page, ideally towards the beginning This tells Google what the main search term is that you want to rank for.
Because you can also use secondary keywords, just be sure you don’t overdo it and engage in unnatural behaviour that is known as “keyword stuffing.” This is a result of too many keywords inserted, then the look like spam, which can be bad for SEO, and user experience. The best title tag optimization should be a tradeoff between readability, relevance and avoiding spam for a better SEO practice complexity.
Link to High Authority Websites
You cannot underestimate the importance of the external links you add to your content. How professional and authoritative are the websites you are linking to when it comes to the question of trust involved in the content of your page for both your readers and search engines, especially Google. So its best to linkout your content to websites which are established in terms of authority or trust.
Linking to clickbait websites or sites with inferior content can negatively affect your reputation and SEO. Your readers may question the legitimacy of your content, and your site may be penalized by search engines for linking to unreliable sources.
The perfect example of superior external linking is our State of Content Marketing report, where we link out to numerous trustworthy sources in the business. This not only adds to the trustworthiness of the content but also adds benefits to SEO.
If you have to link to sites that maybe the source of your own distrust, consider adding rel=nofollow. The tag tells search engines that this is a link for citation or reference, but the link should not be treated like an endorsement.
Optimize Anchor Text
Anchor text is the text to be clicked, which is a hyperlink and which is very important in terms of communicating the information pertaining to the external site or page that is linked. This not only helps the users understand the content they are browsing through but also helps the search engines including Google, in giving the background of the linked page.
The optimization of the anchor text provides you with an added benefit of improving user experience in addition to the ranking of the linked page. This gives you an idea of the importance of optimizing your anchor text strategically to optimize search engine (SEO) functions.
5. Open External Links in New Tab
If you want visitors to linger on your site, but also have them click on external links within your site, the best method is to have those external links open in a new window, not the same one. In this way, even if the user get to a different website, they still have your site opened as the first tab, and can go back to it without much hassle. Taking your users off your site may result in fewer conversions, and a new tab is one way to prevent that.
6. Limit Number of Links
The same is true with the number of outbound links in a page in seo, you need to have the right balance. Don’t feel compelled to bolus every other sentence on your page with an outbound link; limit it to ideas that really need one, or sources that really need to be quoted. When you start spamming your content with external links, you are not only causing some bad user experience, but you are also diluting the link equity that is passed to each link, and that impacts SEO. Rather than turning your pages into spam-fests, follow the best practice advice and limit each web page to a handful of quality links.
7. Steer Clear of Link Building Schemes
Link building is a delicate and sometimes murky art, and can fall victim to link schemes. Avoid Them When developing your SEO strategy, be sure to steer clear of those. They are artificially created attempts to boost your search rankings with links. Most link schemes violate Google’s spam policies and can lead to a penalty which drops your rankings and is terrible for SEO.These could include:
Buying and selling links
Exchanging too many links with a select few pages
Using automated tools to generate links for your site
Adding links from questionable and low quality directory sites
8. Audit External Links
If you already have external links on your site, consider running a site audit to analyze your current links. An audit can help you with the following:
Identify your external nofollow links that should be dofollow and your dofollow links that should be nofollow.
Detect non-descriptive anchor text, or missing anchor text and address these issues to help your SEO.
Check for any broken links and replace them, or remove them if you can’t find suitable ones.
You may check out site audit tools from both Ahrefs and SEMrush to perform a comprehensive external link check on your site.
Question
Answer
What does “external linking” mean?
External linking means adding hyperlinks from your site to another website. For example, linking to https://getsocialguide.com is an external link. It helps readers explore related topics and adds credibility to your content.
Why are external links important for SEO?
They show search engines that your content is well-researched and connected to trustworthy sources. Quality external links can improve your site’s reputation and boost SEO indirectly.
Should I only link to high-authority websites?
Yes, always link to reliable, reputable websites. Linking to low-quality or spammy sites can harm your credibility and SEO.
How many external links should I use in one post?
Use them naturally. There’s no strict limit — include links only when they add real value or support your points.
Do external links pass SEO value to other websites?
Yes, regular (dofollow) links pass SEO value, also called “link juice.” If you want to avoid that, use rel="nofollow" in your link tag.
What’s the difference between “dofollow” and “nofollow” links?
Dofollow: Passes SEO credit to the linked page. Nofollow: Doesn’t pass SEO value but can still drive referral traffic.
Should I open external links in a new tab?
Yes. It’s better for user experience. Add target="_blank" to open links in a new browser tab.
Can external links hurt my SEO?
They can, if they go to irrelevant, broken, or spammy sites. Always check your external links to ensure they’re useful and trustworthy.
Do I need permission to link to another website?
No, as long as the content is public and you’re not copying or misusing it. Linking is allowed and often encouraged.
How can I track clicks on external links?
Use tools like Google Analytics or Tag Manager to monitor how many people click your outbound links. This helps you understand audience behavior.
Summary
How to organize links internally and externally link out is a fundamental part of successful SEO. It on page SEOaling page not only for on page SEO, but is also necessary for user experience of the positive. For a clear it and quality external link strategy now, contact a professional seo agency and get the rankings and the traffic that the want. External linking is when one site links to another site. These are distinct from in-house links, which go to pages within the same website. A solid link strategy is a necessity, both for SEO and user experience.
External links, or outbound links, are key to a healthy link structure on your website. By sprinkling these in your content, it will help your website gain presence, but some companies just don’t love the idea of sending users to another domain. Nevertheless, Google it is. The Google search giant encourages you to create amazing content and tell users everything they need to know… even if they don’t find it on your site.
Have you found a way to drive traffic to your blog but struggle to convert that traffic into email subscribers?
Email marketing is essential for growing your blog audience. It’s more effective than social media as a promotional tool and is a much more effective way to capture leads and convert them into customers.
It can be even a more effective way to keep your social media audience in the loop.
The hard part is figuring out the most effective way to grow your email list as fast as possible.
In this post, I share dozens of actionable tips you can use to build an email list that drives growth and increases your revenue.
Let’s go.
Start your email list in 5 simple steps:
Choose/sign up for an email marketing service. I highly recommend MailerLite and Kit. I’ll share more details on those later in this post.
Set up an email address to send mail from. You can create domain-based email addresses and aliases with Google Workspace or Zoho Mail. “newsletter@yourdomain.com” will suffice, but you can also use your name if you operate a personal brand, such as “adam@yourdomain.com”.
Set up email authentication by adding SPF, DKIM and DMARC records in your domain’s DNS records.
Set up an address by purchasing a PO Box or subscribing to a virtual mailbox service. If you choose Kit as your email marketing provider, you can use their mail address.
Choose a recognizable sender name. I use “Adam @ Blogging Wizard”.
The two things every email list needs to succeed
Here’s what every email list needs to have in order to grow:
An incentive to subscribe.
An easy way to sign up.
First, website visitors need a reason to want to subscribe to your list. A simple blurb about “subscribing for updates” is not going to cut it.
Once you pique their interest, you need to make it easy for them to subscribe.
If your email form is too long or they need to click through too many screens to reach your form, you’re not going to see as many subscriptions as you’d like.
These two factors should be a priority as you work on optimizing your email marketing strategy.
The tips I share throughout this article are designed to help you achieve both.
Prime your email newsletter
1. Identify the goals you want to achieve with email marketing
Email marketing can help you achieve a lot. It can increase traffic to new blog posts, increase your conversion rate, drive sales for new products and more.
The best way to increase your return on investment (ROI) from email marketing is to first identify your goals.
Here are a few examples of goals you can set for yourself:
Increase subscribers
Increase sales
Increase sales for a specific product or product category
Drive blog traffic
Earn more affiliate revenue
Identifying your goals before you optimize your email list will help you know exactly which strategies you need to implement and exactly what you need to optimize.
2. Choose an email marketing service that suits your goals
The best way to ensure you achieve your goals is by choosing products that have features that are designed to help you meet those goals.
If you want to increase your subscribers, choose an email marketing service that allows you to create email customizable forms and send lead magnets.
If you want to increase product sales, choose a service that allows you to add products and other ecommerce promotions to your emails.
The reason I recommend MailerLite is because it’s easy to use, offers a fantastic free tier and affordable paid tiers for small creators, comes with email templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop email builder, includes a visual automation builder, and has heaps of ecommerce features.
Kit is another popular option and they do offer a lot of subscribers on their free plan but there are a lot more feature restrictions than with MailerLite’s free plan.
Note: I use both tools for different projects. You can’t really go wrong with either.
3. Segment your email list
Similar to identifying your goals, if you identify the subgroups that exist within your audience, you’ll have an easier time coming up with ideas for products and content.
Not only will this help you create more targeted content, it’ll encourage the subscribers you do receive to stay subscribed.
A great tactic to use here is to create a custom thank you page so you can genuinely thank your new subscriber for joining your email list.
Encourage them to stay subscribed by also letting them know what to expect next from you, specifically an email asking them to confirm their subscription. Include images so your subscribers know exactly what they need to do.
Consider explaining your onboarding process as well.
Use a simple design for this page. Make sure it doesn’t have unnecessary distractions, and make sure your subscriber can’t access your lead magnet from here.
5. Create onboarding email sequences for new subscribers
If you haven’t figured it out by now, growing your email list is as much about ensuring new subscribers stay subscribed as it is about attracting them in the first place.
One way you can do that is by creating email sequences to welcome new subscribers and make sure they’re up to date with everything you offer.
In MailerLite, you can use automation workflows to set up email sequences.
Consider setting up the following email sequences:
Welcome Sequence: Let subscribers know your publishing schedule, how to navigate your website, where you create content, what products you offer, and details about you and your team.
Segment Sequence (Interest): Share your best content in a series of emails based on the interest groups you identified within your audience.
Segment Sequence (Experience Level): Teach your audience how to do something that relates to their experience level in your niche.
Ecommerce Sequence: You can promote products in your welcome email sequence, but you can also dedicate an entire email sequence to a specific product or service.
6. Activate double opt-in (not optional)
Another way to ensure new subscribers stay subscribed is to have them subscribe in a way that requires them to confirm their subscriptions.
Unsubscribe rates rise and open rates plummet when marketers use sneaky opt-in tactics.
While these techniques might increase the number of subscribers you receive, they do nothing to fill your list with subscribers who actually want to engage with your content and purchase your products.
Use the double opt-in tactic to have new subscribers confirm their subscriptions so you don’t surprise them with your first few emails.
This is also important to comply with specific laws such as GDPR, etc.
Note: I’m not a lawyer so don’t consider anything I say as legal advice. But you must use double opt-in. Not just because your email list will get better results, you need it in order to comply with laws like GDPR.
7. Create a custom confirmation page
Just like you can redirect subscribers to a custom thank you page, you can also redirect them to a custom confirmation page.
It’s simple, but letting your subscriber know their subscription has been confirmed is good for communication. They won’t need to worry about whether or not they’ll receive your first email.
Along with a link to your freebie, you can use a confirmation page to let your subscriber know about your publishing schedule, which social media platforms you’re active on and more.
8. Verify your subscribers
Just because your subscribers confirm their subscriptions, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily legitimate.
The double opt-in tactic helps reduce the number of bots that are able to subscribe to your list, but it’s not foolproof.
Those bots skew your data and cost you money but it gets worse – they wreck your email deliverability rates.
You can either run your email list through Mailfloss every 3-6 months or you can set up a direct integration with your email provider so it runs in real-time.
Optimize your website for newsletter signups
9. Simplify opt-in forms
These are the only elements the majority of opt-in forms need:
Headline
Subtitle
Name field
Email field
Subscribe button
Adding an image will draw the reader’s attention to your form, but try not to add more than one.
Adding additional fields, especially fields that cause privacy concerns like last name, location and phone number, will cause fewer subscribes.
Here’s an example:
Other elements you may want to consider adding are a checkbox or disclosure that lets your new subscriber agree to your privacy policy (this makes your form GDPR compliant), a set of checkboxes your subscriber can use to self-segment themselves and a smaller subtitle that informs potential subscribers that they can unsubscribe anytime.
Your email marketing service will likely have a form builder you can use, but if you really want to drive growth, use a dedicated lead generation tool.
It offers multiple form types, a drag-and-drop form builder, numerous trigger options, and A/B split testing.
One thing I particularly like is how the form triggers work.
For example, I can set my popover to fire based on a combination of triggers. This includes exit intent, % scroll, inactivity on page, and more. I don’t just have to select one of these. I can select multiple.
10. Create a dedicated landing page for your newsletter
If you take a brief look at our main navigation menu, you’ll see a call to action (CTA) button labeled “Newsletter.”
We also have a Subscribe CTA in our homepage’s hero section and a Subscribe link in our footer menu.
All of these buttons/links lead to our Subscribe page, a dedicated page on our website visitors can use to subscribe to the Blogging Wizard newsletter.
This page is a simple landing page that contains two opt-in forms (one at the top and another at the bottom), the names of publications where our business or content has been featured, and testimonials from readers and industry leaders.
I highly recommend creating a similar page for your own website.
Note: Compared to a lead magnet offer, this is a fairly weak CTA. Your lead magnets will convert better. But it’s also true that some readers just want to know how to subscribe to get email updates. So, this page caters to those readers. Your most loyal readers.
11. Add email opt-in forms in key locations on your website
If you want more email subscribers, you need to make your opt-in forms more visible.
I could just rely on Blogging Wizard’s primary Newsletter CTA for lead generation, but this isn’t good enough.
So, as you browse the Blogging Wizard website, you’ll find opt-in forms as pop-ups that appear on every page, a form at the bottom of our About page, a form at the bottom of our Blog page and a form at the bottom of every blog post we publish.
Here are opt-in form ideas to use on your website:
Dedicated Subscribe landing page that features at least two opt-in forms. Be sure to link to it in your main navigation menu
Pop-up that appears on every page
Exit-intent pop-up that appears when visitors attempt to leave your website
Opt-in form on your homepage and every key page of your website (About, Blog, etc.)
Opt-in form in your sidebar
Opt-in form in your footer
Inline opt-in forms on blog post pages
Link-trigger pop-up form
Ribbon style form that features a simple opt-in form in a sticky header/footer bar
12. Create lead magnets
Lead magnets, also known as “opt-in incentives” are essential for lead generation. They give your visitors reasons to subscribe.
The way they work is simple: you promote a free offer to your visitor in exchange for their email address. They receive their free offer once they confirm their subscription.
The higher the perceived value and the more relevant to your audience, the better your lead magnet(s) will perform.
And there are generally two approaches that most creators will use.
You can either offer a library of resources or you can offer a single resource. The resource library approach offers extremely high perceived value. But after using this approach for over a decade, I can tell you that maintaining those resources can be extremely time consuming.
Offering a single resource allows you to focus on solving a very specific problem for your audience. Think about it: instead of trying to create multiple “good” resources, you can make one “great” resource.
Here are a few ideas:
PDF guide
Ebook
Checklist
Resource PDF or a cheatsheet
Free course
Workbook
Whitepaper
Case study
Entire resource library
Notion template
Wallpaper, icon set or other downloadable product subscribers can use
Pick one of these ideas, and create at least one irresistible lead magnet idea for it.
Travel blogger Nomadic Matt’s primary opt-in form promotes three free guides featuring a packing list, steps for planning a trip and savvy travel tips.
Note: Online courses typically have a higher perceived value than most types of lead magnets but they can be time consuming to create. PDF guides are the most common. You can increase the perceived value of those by incorporating templates & checklists directly into the PDF.
13. Create dedicated landing pages for primary lead magnets
Think of them as products you want your audience to purchase, only instead of making a purchase to receive them, they subscribe to your email list.
When you think of them in this way, it’s a lot easier to determine how to advertise them.
Along with promoting them in opt-in forms displayed in various sections of your website, you should also create dedicated landing pages for lead magnets.
These tools have templates you can use to get landing pages up and running in a few short minutes.
No matter how you design your landing page, I highly recommend including the following sections:
Hero section at the top that includes your opt-in form
Opt-in form at the bottom
A features/benefits section that explains the features your lead magnet offers and why each one would benefit your subscriber
Testimonials, if relevant. This conveys show social proof
Other benefits of subscribing to your email list
Use a simple design for this page, and make sure it uses the same styles as your website. This includes color and text.
14. Remove unnecessary distractions from your website
If you want more of your visitors to subscribe to your email list, you need to make it easier for them to access your opt-in forms.
This should be a problem with pop-up forms, but embedded forms and inline forms will be less visible if other elements capture your audience’s attention more.
This includes ads, cluttered sidebars and certain social media elements, such as a widget for your Instagram feed.
For ads, consider how much revenue they generate for you and whether or not they’re worth keeping.
For sidebars, either remove them entirely or simplify them. Only add widgets for an About Me blurb, your opt-in form, and maybe one element that promotes a product or affiliate link.
Note: Your blog should be the destination for your social media efforts. Don’t use your blog to build your audience on social. Instead, keep the focus on building your email list as much as possible.
15. Add an option to subscribe to contact forms
If you use a contact form on your website, consider giving senders a way to subscribe to your email list as they fill out your form.
This is something you can do with Kali Forms, a contact form plugin for WordPress.
A 404 page is a custom page you can create for the 404 server code that displays if a URL a visitor tries to view doesn’t exist or no longer exists.
A lot of 404 pages have a simple “page not found” message, but it’s best to get a little more creative than that.
A search bar is the most obvious element to insert on this page. It gives your visitor another way to find what they were looking for.
Something else you can add to your 404 page is an opt-in form, especially one that promotes a lead magnet.
While they may not be able to find what they were looking for, they can at least gain access to a free offer.
Note: If you use WordPress, this page is created by default with a search bar added. For those of us that aren’t developers, some themes do provide a way to modify 404 error pages but it’s typically a premium feature.
Optimize your content for newsletter signups
17. Create exclusive content for your newsletter
One of the most effective ways to increase newsletter signups is by turning your newsletter into more of a dedicated content channel and less of a promotional tool for your blog.
For decades, bloggers and marketers alike have been taught to use their email lists as distribution tools for new blog posts, products and offers.
But if you publish exclusive content to your email list that your audience can only access if they subscribe, you give them more of an incentive to subscribe. And stay subscribed.
Since company news stories and personal updates don’t really contribute to your blog’s success in terms of traffic and SEO, consider using your newsletter to share these tidbits with your audience.
You can also publish mini guides, tutorials and reviews as emails.
18. Offer content upgrades
Content upgrades take the lead magnet concept to the next level.
The lead magnets we suggested creating should be far reaching. They should cover primary concepts and problems within your niche.
Content upgrades are different. They’re lead magnets that relate to the post they’re promoted on.
When a reader subscribes to receive a content upgrade, they’re “upgrading” the content experience by gaining access to a free resource that’ll help them understand the topic a little better.
So, you could either provide a downloadable copy of the blog post with extra insights. Or you could provide a specific resource that follows on from the blog post.
The key is to make your content upgrade the “logical next step” for readers to take once they get to the end of the blog post.
Let’s use a guitar blog as an example again. This blog has a post on the importance of practicing scales and even includes a few scales readers can use to practice.
A few content upgrades this blog could offer for this article include additional scales to practice, an exclusive video demonstrating how to play certain scales and a workbook readers can use to help them master scales.
19. Write better content
If you’re having an engagement issue on your website, it could be the result of poorly written content.
Readers subscribe to email lists for two reasons: either they want access to a free resource being offered or they truly connected with the content they read and genuinely want to read more of it.
If lead magnets and content upgrades aren’t enough to encourage readers to subscribe, they may not be enough to compensate for weak content.
Try to write in a way that’s more engaging. Use a concise and clear tone, and simplify your sentences.
Consider if your content gets right to the point or if there’s an entire essay before your post actually answers the question.
In this day and age, you’re competing with AI-generated content and short-form videos that answer questions in under a minute.
Put more of a personality into your writing, and try to give your readers an answer as quickly as possible.
Try inserting quick summaries toward the top of each article, even ones that are meant to be complete guides on certain topics.
20. Make your content easy to scan
It’s the 2020s. The majority of your readers are going to read your content on mobile devices. Make sure your content is readable.
If you use long paragraphs, no images, few headings, and no bullet points or numbered lists, you may make it very difficult for readers to scan your content.
One look at a “wall of text” will have your readers going back to where they came from as fast as they can.
Take a look at your content on your own mobile device to get an idea of the state your website’s design is in terms of body text.
Simplifying your sentences and the way you explain concepts and ideas will allow you to use shorter paragraphs.
You should also determine how to break topics up into smaller sections.
Always outline posts before you write. Try to use H2 and H3 headings in your posts. Only use headings H4, H5 and H6 headings if it makes sense to. In most cases, it won’t.
Headings should always be hierographical. H1 headings are for post titles. H2 headings are for main sections while H3 headings are for subsections.
H3 headings should only exist under H2 headings, H4 headings should only exist under H3 headings, etc.
The best thing you can do is turn some of the facts and concepts in your post into infographics or have more things be depicted in images.
21. Offer exclusive content on your website
Premium content is a fantastic way to encourage more of your readers to subscribe to your email newsletter, but it doesn’t have to only exist in emails.
You can also create what’s known as “gated content,” content that’s blocked to users who aren’t logged into your website.
Most websites lock gated content behind paid subscriptions, but you can also simply require readers to register to your site for free in order to access gated content.
Automations allow you to add new website users as subscribers to your email list.
22. Run contests
Contests, whether you host them on your blog or promote them on social media, are an easy way to increase the number of subscribers you have.
This is because contest tools, such as SweepWidget, allow you to create entry requirements participants must meet in order to enter.
Subscribing to your email list is one of them as is following you on specific social media platforms and liking certain posts.
Now, in terms of direct ways to build your email list – this is one of the most effective.
23. Create engaging quizzes
Have you ever taken a quiz on a website only to be met with a message that tells you need to enter your email address to have your results emailed to you?
It’s annoying, for sure, but it’s an effective way to grow an email list.
You can do the same on your website. Create fun and engaging quizzes for your audience, but require them to enter their email addresses in order to receive their results.
I highly recommend using a quiz maker like Woorise to create quizzes for your website. It has the ability to create personality quizzes, assessments and scored quizzes.
It uses a drag-and-drop builder, integrates with numerous email marketing tools, and includes analytics.
Optimize your ecommerce strategy for newsletter signups
24. Use free offers as opt-in incentives
If you offer digital products, you can offer a free version of your product as an opt-in incentive for signing up to your email list.
All ecommerce businesses have the opportunity to offer discounts as opt-in incentives. It’s common to see pop-ups for 10 or 15% off discounts when you browse online stores for the first time (or after clearing your cache).
If you offer some sort of subscription, you can also offer a free trial as an opt-in incentive.
25. Collect email subscriptions upon payment
Again, as an ecommerce business, you need to be able to communicate with customers in order to send them receipts, order confirmations and shipping updates.
SMS exists, but the majority of these communications are done via email.
This entire process allows you to collect email subscriptions upon payment for products as your email marketing service should integrate with your ecommerce platform.
If you want to enhance your checkout experience and boost sales with a more robust sales funnel, use a solution like ThriveCart.
It’s especially designed for selling digital products and online courses.
26. Launch an affiliate program
There’s a reason why so many companies pay people to promote their products: it works!
By offering a creator a commission for every sale they generate for you, you encourage more creators to promote your products.
Not only will these affiliates become email subscribers, customers they refer will become subscribers as well.
There are numerous ways to launch affiliate programs, but if you do decide to sell products with ThriveCart, you can use their tool to launch an affiliate program pretty easily.
27. Add a wishlist functionality to your website
This one is specifically for those running an ecommerce store:
Some customers who visit your website won’t want to buy something right away. They’ll certainly be interested in your products, but for whatever reason, they won’t be quite ready to make a purchase.
In these instances, it really helps to at least have them create an account. That’s something a wishlist functionality can do.
Wishlists are useful tools shoppers can use to keep track of what they want to purchase from a store. In order to create and save a wishlist for your store, customers will need to create an account.
This gives you another opportunity to grow your email list. Each new user represents a new subscriber on your list.
28. Add a user-only section to your store
Another way to encourage visitors to create an account is by creating premium products only logged-in users can access.
This is similar to creating gated content on your website, only this involves gated products.
Again, each new user registration is another email subscriber for your list.
External list building tactics
Now, before we talk about monitoring and optimization, we need to talk about external tactics. What you can do outside of your website.
These are very straightforward so let’s raz through these. Consider this a checklist, if you will.
Tips #29-42:
Encourage your subscribers to forward your emails.
Add opt-in links to your email signature, link-in-bio page and YouTube video descriptions.
Repurpose your best blog posts into social media content.
Share newsletter teasers on social media.
Promote your email list on the end screens of your YouTube videos.
Promote gated content on social media.
Promote your email list (or your lead magnet landing pages) in Instagram stories using the Swipe Up feature.
Guest post to promote lead magnet landing pages.
Run ads on social media and Google for lead magnets.
Host webinars to draw attention to lead magnet landing pages.
Set up interviews with relevant podcasts, and promote premium content from your email list or your lead magnets.
Launch a co-marketing campaign with another business or creator.
Promote your email list at in-person events.
Add QR codes for your newsletter and/or lead magnets on physical products.
Ok, that’s it for the rapid fire “it does what it says on the tin” tactics.
Now, let’s take a look at how to monitor and optimize your email list building efforts.
Monitor & optimize
43. Set up email tracking
If you use an analytics tool like Google Analytics or Matomo Analytics, you can track email campaigns by adding special parameters to the URLs you promote in your emails.
Google Analytics calls these “UTM parameters” while Matomo Analytics simply calls them “campaign URLs.”
No matter which analytics tool you use, use it to set up and track campaigns in the following ways:
See how many of your email subscribers click your blog links in emails
See how many subscribers from a particular group click blog links
Split test different email designs
Find the right link placement or link style for blog links
44. Identify your best and worst lead generation pages
Your email service and email capture tool allow you to create numerous email forms. You can even name each one.
Use this nifty little feature to quickly see which pages generate the most and least number of subscribers for you.
For example, if you want to use the same email form on your homepage, About page and Blog page, create it, and add “Home” to its name. Then, duplicate it, and replace “Home” with “About”. Duplicate it again, and replace “About” with “Blog”.
It won’t tell you exactly why some pages perform better than others, but it’ll at least give you additional metrics to consider while you optimize your site.
45. Split test opt-in forms
Split testing, also known as “A/B split testing,” is a marketing technique in which you create two different versions of something, serve them to customers equally, and see which one performs better.
You should split test the following elements to see which ones perform the best:
Design, including colors, typography and images (or no image)
Types, including inline, pop-up, embedded or link trigger
Button text, headlines and subtitles
Form fields
When customers visit your website, they’ll see whichever form your opt-in tool serves them at random (Form A or Form B, hence the name “A/B split test”).
The final results of your split-test campaign will allow you to see which version(s) of your form performs better.
You can split test email campaigns as well, but this is an ongoing email marketing tactic rather than a lead generation strategy.
46. Split test lead magnets
While you split test opt-in form designs, you should also split test the lead magnets you offer.
You can either come up with two entirely different lead magnet ideas or create the same idea in two different ways.
The guitar blog I used as an example earlier could create two different lead magnets for their lesson on practicing scales: one as an ebook and one as a free course.
They’d use their opt-in tool’s split-test feature to offer the ebook on Form A and the free course on Form B.
Whichever form generates the most subscribers is the clear winner.
47. Split test landing page designs
If you create entire landing pages for your opt-in forms or lead magnets, you should definitely split test landing page designs as well.
It works in the same way as split testing opt-in forms does: you split test different colors, text and typography.
Because the design is obviously a lot larger, you can also split test its layout.
Try split testing a long landing page against a short landing page.
Both Swipe Pages and OptimizePress allow you to split test landing page designs. Again, I recommend Swipe Pages for all users and OptimizePress for WordPress users.
Why building an email list matters more than ever
Blogs and email marketing have always gone hand in hand. An email list has been the easiest way to keep your readers informed with everything you’ve got going on for decades.
With social media dominating online content and community building, you might be wondering if building an email list is even worth it in this day and age.
The truth is it’s never been more important.
Social media isn’t as intimate as email. When a viewer watches your content on TikTok or Instagram, they’re able to just scroll to the next video as quickly as they came across yours.
Short-form videos and TikTok’s scroll effect have taught social media users that if they don’t enjoy the content they’re watching, they can just scroll to whatever’s next.
And in some cases, social networks will completely hide your content from your subscribers/followers.
I’ve lost count of the people I follow on Instagram that get hidden from my feed. I mean, I chose to follow these people, so I should be able to see their content, right? Well, no. That’s not how most of these platforms work. Uggh 😳
Things are different with email.
No more third-party algo trying to hide the content you want and need to see.
You’re able to use a subject line to grab your reader’s attention, then combine captivating images with engaging text to truly connect with your reader on a more personal level.
Sure, in an inbox, you’re competing with receipts from online stores, promotions and personal emails, but it’s a lot better than competing with some of the biggest TikTok stars out there or whomever your reader has on their FYP.
If you operate an ecommerce business, your email list is your lifeline between your business and your customer base.
It’ll allow you to keep them informed about their orders, new product releases and any content you publish along the way.
If you aren’t seeing the results you want to see with email marketing, you need to take a step back, run a few tests, and see what’s going wrong.
Split test designs against one another, change the types of emails you send to your list, and don’t be afraid to consider the possibility that your content and/or products just aren’t compelling enough to generate engagement.
Use the tips I listed throughout this article to boost your growth once you figure out exactly what it is your audience wants.
Here are a few additional posts that might help you optimize your list:
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