Why Should Your Company Invest in SEO to Survive COVID-19?
There are many reasons why SEO strategy and implementation can be a valuable investment during COVID-19. Although some businesses may be facing hard times, SEO can be an important part of your marketing arsenal year-round. Regardless of the volatile economy, now is not the time to pause your business’ SEO efforts.
Especially in Toronto where the economy was booming prior to COVID, boosting your business’ SEO strategy can help drive traffic to your website and improve your bottom line. This can ultimately help your business to survive during the pandemic. Your first reaction may be to cut your marketing spend, but instead shift your focus to how you can give your business an edge over your competition during a period of uncertainty.
SEO implementations to tackle during COVID-19:
- Update content
- Update your Google My Business listing
- Get more online business reviews
- Build links
Don’t be tone deaf to the pandemic when publishing content on your website. Remember to be sensitive to the hardships and challenges people are experiencing as a result of the virus. Review your content calendar to ensure the types of content scheduled to be launched still make sense or if they should be delayed.
Instead, pivot and consider creating content to advise on how people can cope in your industry during this time. Helpful, relevant information will drive more traffic to your website and boost your SEO efforts. However, there are some content faux pas during this time – don't use the pandemic in a negative way to get more clicks to your ads or more traffic to your website.
This is also a good time to review previous content and do a mini content audit. Are there optimizations and improvements that your team can implement? If you team isn’t at maximum capacity, it can be all hands-on deck in making optimizations that you’ll be rewarded for in a few months.
1. SEO is more cost-effective
Coronavirus has many businesses reevaluating their budgets and marketing priorities. Traditional marketing and other forms of online marketing can be expensive. Contrary to popular belief, now is the time to allocate more of your budget into digital marketing to prepare your business and give it a competitive advantage for when the pandemic is over.
The budget required for SEO tends to be lower than PPC or traditional marketing. It can even help you to get leads without paying for each one unlike PPC. Research shows that companies are reducing their PPC budgets in favor of SEO during this time.
SEO implementations take time to be put into effect and see results. Therefore, it’s vital that you continuously optimize your website because you likely won’t reap the fruits of your labor for a few months. When the pandemic is over, you’ll be able to take advantage of your rankings and the traffic that has been driven to your website.
2. Online shopping is surging
Social distancing measures require many businesses to close their doors to ensure people follow public health guidelines. If you don’t own an essential service business, then your revenue may be close to non-existent without an online storefront. In response to limited foot traffic in stores, it’s important to bring your business online to sell products/services. Customers are looking for seamless online experiences and convenient delivery options.
SEO can skyrocket your organic traffic and covert more customers which equals higher sales and revenue. If you already have your business online, now may be the time to invest more in attracting organic traffic and creating a better user experience.
To pass the time during social isolation, the general public is staying indoors and are typically spending time online. Due to this increase in online activity, your business needs to be ready to drive web traffic to your website. More people are searching Google to find products and services to purchase during this downtime. People continue to need home services whether it’s furnace maintenance, lawn care, cleaning services. In the same vein, retailers that shoppers would traditionally visit in store, will now see traffic online instead. While the usual retailers they would check out in person will likely see traffic online instead.
3. Keep collecting leads
While people may not have as much financial power due to unemployment and reduced incomes, it doesn’t mean they aren’t still browsing online. Even if they cannot afford your products/services now, once the coronavirus pandemic is resolved, you can use these collected leads to reengage these potential customers.
PPC may be suffering but SEO continues to drive impressions and clicks on business websites. This organic traffic can help customers easily find you again in the near future when they are ready to make a purchase.
Continue focusing on your sales funnel and especially supporting SEO. This reach can be local or even global, so you may be able to open up additional streams of revenue.
It’s important now more than ever, to find ways to adapt to the coronavirus situation. As a business, your best chance at capturing the attention of your customers is by investing in SEO. This type of marketing helps you avoid the “hard-sell” during a time when many people are facing difficulties.
Get in touch with our team to discover how we can help your company increase traffic and boost your bottom line to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.
About the Author: Amanda Desouza
