Article

Umarah Hussain
Umarah Hussain 1 April 2020

How To Adapt Your SEO Strategy In Line With Coronavirus

Is the SEO of your business or your clients business affected by the current global pandemic? Here are a few ways you can keep your losses short and be ready for future organic success.

With regards to the current economic uncertainty, it has been found that consumers will now be spending less on products and services that aren’t seen to be ‘essential’. These non-essential products could include the likes of clothing, furniture and electronics.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has seen thousands of companies temporarily shut (online and offline), with many people losing their jobs. Businesses have been told to expect a huge shift in the usual consumer purchasing behaviour, as they are steering away from actively spending on products and services temporarily.

Although you may see short term losses for the next few months, it’s vital that you plan for the future so that you see the least amount of effect on your business.  Many businesses will panic and underestimate the fact that online businesses take time and must be worked upon regardless of an ongoing pandemic. 

In the SEO world, however, many clients have begun pulling contracts at other firms and shutting down their marketing ops for the foreseeable future, which is completely ineffective. If you go about it like this, you're setting up your business for long-term adversity, an uphill struggle in which you'll find it hard to recover.

There is one thing for certain though - we will recover from this. However, not doing anything whilst the pandemic is ongoing won't mitigate the damage. It is essential that you prioritise clients in any way possible. You must be invested in building on organic growth, meaning you should ensure clients obtain quality data with continually monitored measurement tools. Likewise, it is vital that you constantly build audiences and customer bases, with content that will be ranked on search engines.

Moreover, doing things like collating content into a Google sheet to maximise the ways in which we can help clients would be effective. This includes the likes of infographics, webpages, emails, blog posts and videos. You can then use these content ideas as opportunities to enhance client websites with fresh content, optimising CTAs, adding keywords with greater search volume and repromoting the client once the business begins to pick up again.

Sessions and impressions of your online site may drop, however, if your rankings are maintained, then the decline can be attributed to the impact of COVID-19 search volume. Businesses should be aware of the impact that COVID-19 has on their brand and fine-tune it around the virus. There is a multitude of ways you can change up your strategy to keep users on your site for longer:

  • Have a dedicated page about coronavirus - if your business could significantly be impacted by COVID-19, it may be useful to create a page to capture the traffic searching for coronavirus, which should link to key areas of your site. 

  • Ensure that you have an FAQ page and continue to update it - review your customer service and read over your FAQ pages to establish whether the language needs changing. If necessary or if your business is considered essential, add FAQs related to coronavirus.

  • Continually monitor the changes in SERPs and Google algorithms -  businesses that are essential could see a spike in changes in the SERPs and within organic results during this pandemic. Be mindful and monitor the changes and performance.

  • Update your Google My Business profile for local search - if you’re an essential business and you’re looking to retain your local customers, take special care to avoid the COVID-19 spread and update your hours and the description on your Google My Business profile so that if people are trying to reach you, they know what time to contact you. 

Always remember that you have a responsibility to your employees and customers as well as the larger public. Focus on the future of your company by following our tips and once the pandemic is over, the hardest peak you will have needed to climb will have already been tackled.

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