10 Ways SEO Will Power Business Recovery After COVID-19

Before shelter-in-place orders end, it is vital to rethink your digital marketing to make it as strong as possible to aid your business recovery. The ending of the orders in your area will be critical because psychological research shows that it takes 66 days for consumers to develop new behavioral habits.

You must take some steps now to encourage consumers to go back to their habits that were working for you before the coronavirus pandemic began. If more than 66 days have passed, then you are going to need to encourage new digital behaviors that work in your company’s favor.

Consider How Your Website Will Aid in Business Recovery

According to BrightEdge Channel Share survey, 53% of traffic comes to a website from search engines. Of those searches, 83% comes from organic searches and 17% from paid searches. Before the economy opens back up, it is time to think about how paid, and organic searches work together to bring your target audience to your website.

According to a study conducted by Google, 34% of paid search clicks happen when a company has an organic listing appearing on the same page. If you operate different pay-per-click and website teams, it is time to get them to work together. Since many companies cut back on pay-per-click advertising when their businesses closed during the pandemic, some keywords are going at unbelievably low prices right now.

SEO is an Investment in Tomorrow

Even if you wonder if all the time you spend on SEO is paying rewards right now, you should not let up your efforts at all. You can look at SEO as a long-term investment account that continues to grow regularly. Even when Google and other search engines roll out the latest algorithm, if you have great content on your site, then you will still place well.

Spend those days when you want to escape from others in your home, making sure that your content shows your expertise in your field, proves that you have the authority to offer an expert opinion and that consumers can find reviews about your company across the internet. You should also spend time updating any posts that are out of date, creating new content that people will want to share with their friends, and improving on your linking scheme.

Improve User Experience

Now is the time to make sure that your site’s user experience is as strong as it can be. Start by looking for any missing tags, used Schema markup on every page, and that you have a site hierarchy that makes excellent sense. Check your links to make sure that they still point where you want them to because changes can occur over time.

Open your latest Google crawl report to see what errors it found and get them fixed.

If you do not have security certificates signed, take care of this now.

If you have moved content to new pages, make sure that you have working automatic redirects in place.

Since Google looks at mobile-first, if you have not already done so, create a responsive website that displays correctly across all devices. It may also be time to rethink your hosting solution to make sure that customers can get to your website as quickly as possible.

Conversion Rate Optimization

Regardless of your type of business, even if it is service orientated, you need to lead your customers through the sales funnel.

When a customer lands on your site, then they are at the widest part of the funnel, and it is your job to lead them to the bottom where they make a purchase or take the desired action.

While there are many different words used to describe the sales funnel, we are going to stick to a four-step funnel. Just like you may have impulse brought your favorite candy bar at the grocery store, you will find some customers are ready to buy as soon as they arrive on your site.

For most, however, you need to court them in the awareness step to convince them that your company and its products or services are something that they need to get to know better.

Then, you need to build interest in your potential customers that there is a solution to their pain point and that you are the right place to get that solution.

Once the customer is ready to decide, then your special offers and other promotions can convince them to act.

Finally, your website needs to make it easy for them to take the action you desire from them, which is usually to make a purchase or book an appointment.

How is your website CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)? Contact us here and request a CRO Audit.

Make Your Content Fresh

Most content that you publish on your site should be evergreen. This ensures that you do not have to redo it often, but as your business gets ready for recovery, take time to make sure that your content is still fresh. Things may have changed since you first published the content, especially in light of COVID-19, so make sure that your content is still evergreen.

If it has been a while since you promoted a product, then make sure that you are talking about the latest model and the benefits of it.

You will get extra kudos from Google and other search engines for updating your content. The chances are that you published your content just after writing it, so check for unclear words, grammar mistakes, and punctuation errors now that you have let some time has passed.

Calm Customer Fears

Since no one alive has ever coped with a pandemic before, people are feeling overwhelmed and bewildered. Be the still voice in the storm by providing stability for your customers. Bring them the latest scientific data affecting your industry as changes have occurred rapidly. Be careful that you do not show fear or lean too far one way or the other with your political beliefs on the internet.

While your children are completing their school assignments, spend some time interacting with your customer base on social media. Encourage everyone to give you their contact information and send out personalized emails about the most important news affecting your industry and your business.

Decide on Your Geographical Focus

The type of business that you run should dictate where you should place your geographical focus. As your business attempts to recover, however, you should focus on your specific geographical area.

If your company sells internationally, it is a great time to start or make websites stronger for different countries. You may even discover that you have an employee who has particular experience in a region and now has time to help build content that will better resonate with people living there.

If your focus is on your local market, make sure that viewers know that when they see your digital marketing. You might consider:

• Make sure your location is set correctly in Google Ads if you are running them.
• Run local awareness ads on social media
• Segment your audience so that you can provide them marketing that applies to their specific area.
• Optimize your Google My Business so that the changes will take effect as soon as Google starts processing those changes again.
• Create blog posts focusing on your local area.
• Make sure customers can see your address on every web page.
• Concentrate on optimizing your site for local keywords

Create Channel Synergy

Especially during these uncertain times when people around the world are debating about opening back up the economy, you need to be creating channel synergy. Your search engine optimization must lead the way in all your marketing efforts.

Since consumers are anxious, it is easier for many people to distrust a company than to trust them. Therefore, you need to be sure that they see your company as one of the company’s that they can trust. Look at your company’s policies, like your shipping policies, to be sure that they are still accurate. Make it easier to contact your customer support than ever before and empower them to act on behalf of your customer.

The money that they cost you now will be returned multiple times as you establish or re-establish customer trust. Be sure your hours and services are accurate.

Customers are in Buying Mode

Customers who have been stuck at home for a while now are in buying mode. Make sure that you are open and ready to take care of your customers as much as the law will allow.

Keep Current

Times have changed, and it may be forever. Make sure that you are using a reliable keyword finder tool that is keeping current with the ever-evolving landscape.

Find out what your customers are searching for now that they were not before and find ways to connect to those customers. It may mean that you need to change the way that your business is conducting business. For example, if you are a cosmetologist who still cannot cut hair inside a salon, then find out if you can cut it on the sidewalk. If so, be sure to let your customers know.

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We have survived the worse of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it is time to start your business plan to recover by following these tips. If you have your own ideas on how to support small businesses and your local community, share them with us in the comment below.

10 Ways SEO Will Power Business Recovery After COVID-19