SEO Will Protect Your Business During COVID-19
By Nancy Rapp on March 23, 2020 in SEO
Now is the Time for Social Distancing, Not Forgetting About SEO
During this difficult time, preserving the health of your loved ones is, understandably, your number one priority. Social distancing may place much of normal life on pause, but that does NOT mean it’s also a time that you can let your SEO practices and attention to rankings slide. Below are the top reasons to not stop your SEO efforts while we wait for the threat of the Coronavirus to pass.
People are spending more time on the internet.
With thousands of people working from home and schools being closed, people are relying on the internet more than ever. The New York Times, for example, reported a 30% boost in Seattle’s internet use. Similarly, PPC trends indicate that clickthrough rate has also increased.
With more people online, now is a great time to do new keyword research to see how people’s search preferences are changing. Additionally, though long-term keywords may not always lead to clicks, this is an opportune time to increase site traffic and branding by editing or creating content to target these searches.
Your competitors have the time to bolster their SEO efforts.
Though some businesses, like PaperStreet, are still proceeding at a normal work flow, others may see a slump in sales, appointments, etc. With more time on their hands, savvy lawyers, doctors and other professionals are turning their attention to marketing efforts for branding, increasing traffic and trying to grab whatever customers still need your services. Now is a great time to write blogs, update core content, bolster a social media campaign, etc. Rather than let your competitors use their time to get ahead in Google rankings, you, too, should begin applying SEO techniques or improve the ones you already have in place.
This is a chance to experiment with your business practices.
Perhaps you’re a law firm and you’re considering have more client meetings via Skype or implementing more electronic documents. Maybe you’re a physician considering being a teledoctor. As a gym, you may need to offer online fitness classes in order to keep your client base. Whatever idea you considered, now is a great time to expand your services and offer a new way of doing things. In a time of uncertainty and quarantine, clients and customers are likely to be more receptive to changing the norms because the old practices simply can’t happen.
Though email newsletters and blogs posts can help your existing clients learn of your new services, SEO and the help of a marketing agency are the best ways to push your new services through. Creating new pages of content, updating SEO features like meta description and choosing the keywords the correlate with your new services are all critical to a successful launch.
As explained above, the PaperStreet team and many other marketing firms are used to working remotely. Whether you decide to fully sign up for SEO services at this time or simply would be open to a few hours of SEO consulting, you have the opportunity to make some big changes while we let the Coronavirus run its course.
Bonus tip: This is also a great time to revamp your website with a new design or launch a new site altogether!
COVID-19 will end.
As a reminder, China has already started closing some of their pop-up hospitals. Though the US may have a few weeks or months left to ride out before the Coronavirus Is no longer a threat, this will pass. Once life returns to normal, the need for law firms, doctors, restaurants and other businesses will fully resume. Future minded clients may even start booking appointments once the number of Coronavirus cases finally starts to decline.
We understand that investing in SEO could be an intimidating cost when business is slow. Nevertheless, by building a campaign now, you are more likely to have established successful rankings when social distancing comes to end. Thus, your return on investment will be larger by acting now.
If you wait, you’ll be competing with all the other businesses who decided to scrimp on spending until needs increased. Let them scramble when the worst is over, and have your website ready to shine on the front page of Google.
Keep your thoughts optimistic and maintain your search presence for when people are ready to start using your services in full force.
