Why “Click Here” Makes Sense In Your Newsletter

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

I wrote a post yesterday about a Copyblogger blog post and a WebProNews followup that drew a lot of response.

I might have been a little too harsh in my criticisms of Jason Lee Miller, but I still believe in the gravity of my message. What I didn’t realize at the time, because I didn’t follow Clark’s link to the original source, was that the discussion was related to newsletter links, not website links. Now, the obvious question: Why does that matter?

It matters because Clark had positioned his argument as “Click here” versus anchor text, which is a logical argument when dealing with websites. But few people start and manage newsletters because they want to improve their Google juice. Newsletters are for communicating with customers or potential customers, which makes the relationship between you and your prospects more important than any SEO points to be gained.

Of course, some people argue that’s the way it should be with your website as well. But I see legitimate reasons for focusing on SEO more than the customer-relationship benefits on certain types of websites. But newsletters are almost always about the relationship, hardly ever about the SEO.

Keeping that in mind, Marketing Sherpa’s study about wording in your call to action links makes a lot more sense. When you write your newsletter, you really want people to go back to your website, so anything you can do to improve click-throughs from the newsletter to your website is a good thing. I believe that newsletters are best used as lead generation tools and that websites are better closers. That’s why I use my newsletter to promote my website and it gives me the opportunity to communicate with my potential customers on a regular basis. If I can prove my trustworthiness, those “click heres” will have a lot more value.