- [Alex] I know you SEO guys love sending cold emails
but why are they so bad?
Every single time, every single SEO email I get
I cringe.
I'm dying.
So in today's video, I'm gonna go through
one of the worst cold emails I've ever received
and we can talk about how to make it better.
So, let's jump into the inbox and see
how to rebuild this SEO email.
Let's start with the email itself
and we'll just go piece by piece.
So here's what we're dealing with.
Subject line, 1st page ranking in Google, space, period.
Not lookin' good so far.
Oh, this email also ended up in spam by the way
so I had to dig deep to find this gold for you
on this channel.
Greetings! No name.
We are affiliated with a SEO company
based in India that has helped many businesses
to rank on the first page ranking in Google.
So I gotta give them props.
I really gotta give them props for this.
I don't know how long it took them
to find the perfect Google font,
then create all of the colors perfectly.
So I just wanna give, you know, big ups,
big ups to ya.
Following are the services we offer
at competitive rates.
Alright, the thing I hate the most
in cold emails is bullet points.
I hate bullet points because they're not natural.
You wouldn't write an email like this to somebody.
So, that's why this is ending up in spam
and a few other things like this email
just has me on Bcc, so I'm sure
this was sent to hundreds of people not using
a tool like Yesware.
Just, straight out of Gmail.
So, they offer the following services:
SEO, SEM, ORM, Google Maps optimization,
Google Adwords, content writing.
We provide all services at much affordable cost
than what it might be in-house.
If you're selling content writing
and you can't get one English sentence correct,
I'm not gonna say don't sell content writing,
just maybe don't sell content in English.
If this company is good at content writing,
then however wrote the content should write the emails,
or they should go through the same process
of proof-reading the emails
as they do the blog content.
Plus, India's a gigantic market.
You could compete there until you have
enough money to hire somebody
that speaks better English.
So, warm regards, Daniel, space, comma,
Online Marketing Executive, Delhi India.
Let's put this in to a Google Doc
and see what we can do here.
First is the subject line.
We talk about this a lot.
Just make it more generic and you're fine.
There's no need to get too fancy
with these subject lines.
So, subject first page ranking in Google,
I would say something like,
"Hi from Daniel,"
you could also try, "Quick question,"
although recently that subject line,
"Quick question," has been losing it's open rate
in our testing so it might not work for you.
That's why we test a lot of different subject lines.
And if you want more subject lines,
check out our subject line video,
which I'll link down in the box,
the description box
below.
I'm in a good mood today.
I'm sure you can tell.
Nothing I love more than waking up
to a bad cold email in my spam box.
Doing my good service.
So, "Greetings," I would just change that to, "Hi Alex."
"We are affiliated with a SEO company
based in India," so "We are,"
if you're starting an email with we,
that means you're talking about yourself.
It's better instead to talk about your prospect.
So, "Hi Alex. Love your Youtube content."
Custom sentence. Something like that.
"Hey Alex. Love your Youtube content.
"We are affiliated with a SEO company
based in India."
So I don't like the word affiliated
'cause it's like you're selling for them.
Instead, if you are affiliated with them, be them.
Act like them and you'll do well.
The other thing I wouldn't start with is
that you're based in India.
I wouldn't put that up the top.
So far, because of the way
that Americans treat Indian businesses
specifically in their creative
and SEO service space,
it's not an asset to be from the country of India.
Like to the point where I would hide
that in the email.
The other thing to talk about when it comes
to SEO and if you sell SEO you know this,
but talking about getting somebody
on the first page of Google is a huge red flag
that you are a black hat SEO firm
and anyone that knows even a little
about SEO or Googles,
"Red flags to look out for when hiring a firm,"
will avoid you and that's it.
So I wouldn't say anything like that.
That's gonna raise red flags.
Instead, if you are doing SEO
and you're sending cold emails for SEO,
I would do something like this.
I'm sure you get a ton of SEO cold emails,
so instead of sending a bunch of bullet points,
I'd love to send you two specific ideas
and these ideas are going to separate you
from the pack.
Use your SEO prowess, your skill in ranking websites
to number one to tell the customer two things
that they haven't seen anywhere else.
Is it your keyword strategy?
Is it your link building like
what is different about your company?
Your website still uses metatags.
These don't do anything for Google.
I'm literally riffing this
because I don't sell SEO.
And actually allow your competitors
easy access to the keywords you use.
So, I'm making a few assumptions with this email
and if he's selling to agencies
because this came to me and I run an agency.
Most of these guys that you're emailing,
I would say close to 100 percent know
what SEO is and have tuned it out
or arguing something about it.
One of those two things.
So, you're talking to an educated audience here
and that's why I'm writing this in the way that I am.
Let's give it a quick read.
Hi Alex. Love your Youtube content.
I'm sure you get a ton of SEO cold emails,
so instead of sending a bunch of bullet points,
I'd love to send two specific ideas.
One, I see you're using old school link building,
which a lot of cheap firms recommend,
but will kill your search engine rank in the long term.
The solution is targeted blog posts
with custom email outreach.
We've had clients go from page four
to page one on Google with three good emails.
Two, Your website still uses metatags.
Those don't do anything for Google
and actually allow your competitors easy access
to the keywords you use.
It's better instead to naturally put
keywords into your blog posts.
Would love to talk about improving
your search engine traffic,
like we've done for dozens of other digital agencies
including Fire Digital and Fueled.
Mind if I send over a few times for a quick call?
Thanks, Daniel.
Simple, to the point.
It breaks a few of the rules we talked about
but like we mentioned before,
if your customers are getting a lot of
these emails and in SEO, they are.
Especially if you're selling to other agencies.
This email will convert.
If you wanna see the exact cold email template
that we're talking about here,
that's down in the description below.
If you found this valuable
and you wanna share it with a friend or two,
that would be much appreciated.
Think of a friend, send them an email like,
"Hey, found a video you might like,"
and then just a link to this content.
That's enough easily
and I'd really appreciate it.
We're trying to hit 100,000 subs this year,
so every share counts.
Also if you need someone to do marketing
for your digital agency, maybe you want
somebody to send emails like this on your behalf,
check out experiment27.com.
I'm Alex Berman. Thanks.