Building a database of your customers is a great tool to use for your SEO activity. A database of qualified email leads is powerful because it gives you the means to continue your relationship with customers, encouraging them to engage with your website and social media, and to become loyal customers. This all adds to the natural traffic your urls are attracting, and it also helps to create back links and traffic between your site and their websites or social media pages. To build a database first you must make sure you understand the Data Protection requirements. You must give an individual the choice of not being included in your email listing. You must also make sure you will be storing and maintaining the database according to Data Protection regulations. This is extremely important. Ask for advice from a good SEO team, they will be able to help you. Always add your Data Protection policy to your website too, so that customers who wish to read it can easily do so. Once you have sorted out the legalities you can create an email subscribe from on your website. This allows customers to subscribe themselves. You can also add them at point of sale with a simple tick box. It is standard practice to request their email address when they make purchase so your e-commerce system can confirm the sale. This is the perfect opportunity to add them to your emailing list if they have granted you the permission to do so. A customer database can be as simple or detailed as you require for your business. For example, you may wish to create a fairly detailed database which indicates how long they have been customers and what they have purchased. Think carefully about what information you need and why you would need it. Always remember that the more complicated the database the harder it will be to maintain and run. Instead, many companies stick to simply contact details and the date a contact became a customer. This allows them to distinguish between existing customers and those who have not purchased as yet. Emails should be sent out around once per week. These can contain news, offers, sales news or special links to particular pages for products you are featuring. Look at creating email with your company branding on them and with embedded links and attractive images. Make them look as professional as possible but try to avoid making them to lengthy or complicated. Simplicity, honesty and interesting information is the most effective style of email to follow.