Why you shouldn’t abandon SEO for your business during COVID-19
The big picture
In the past month we’ve seen a drastic shift in online behaviour across a range of different industries. Everyone is being affected differently and some businesses are feeling the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak more than others. Across the board, many companies will be looking to save money wherever they can by reducing or cutting paid marketing activity. This is where search engine optimisation / search engine marketing (SEO / SEM) can become one of the most important strategies to help maintain or even increase your organic online traffic; allowing your business to survive through what’s set to be an incredibly difficult period. In short, SEO is essential for the long term.
Dropping all SEO activity will inevitably lead to a poorly maintained site and potentially reduced ranking positions. A loss in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) rankings can lead to reduced reach, impressions as well as reduced exposure to new leads and enquires thus resulting in decreased revenue and awareness. You may not have the time or the budget you want right now but maintaining any level of SEO activity will give you an advantage when the outbreak is over and life starts to return to normal. Consider your position now with those competitors who are choosing to sit tight and perhaps do nothing.
Our Tips
Here are just some of the things that can be done via SEO to help maintain an online presence in an economic downturn.
- Update your local Google Listings (Google My Business) to reflect any changes in business hours and important information
- Review search data and analytics to see what your customers are looking for and areas your site may be struggling
- Update your website with fresh (but relevant) content regularly. What are your clients searching for?
- Optimise your keywords, content and CTAs
- Gather customer data you can utilise for content and promotions later on (think polls and surveys)
- If you can, adapt to your customers’ needs given the current situation (this will continue to shift)
- Compile and review all previous content, identify if any evergreen content can be repurposed in the coming months
- Undertake competitor research (what are they doing during this time?
- Review site health and implement technical SEO best practices to ensure your site is up to speed, mobile-friendly, search engine friendly and most importantly, user friendly