Whether you’re a small or big business during this pandemic, you shouldn’t let the marketing operations close down even if your store physically closed.
Digital marketing strategies are crucial to keep your business alive and successful during and after COVID-19! But what can you do to stay relevant and visible to current and prospective clients during the pandemic? Follow these ten effective SEO strategies:
Stay Consistent
Even during this pandemic, you will need to stay consistent and regularly maintain your SEO. Do NOT ignore it during COVID-19, even if you can only do the bare minimum.
Keep posting relevant content related to your industry and what your target market still needs. Use the right keywords and continue interacting with your customers and potential clients. What you do or don’t do can make or break your business after it all.
Produce Long-Form Content
Studies show how organic search results ranking on Google’s first page contains an average of around 1,890 words. With this in mind, it’s time to start creating long-form content with a lot of relevant information for SEO and user experience.
Not only will people want to read more (as long as it’s useful), but it lessens bounce rates as people are inclined to stay longer to finish reading your content.
Target COVID-19 Related Keywords
One of your goals should be to boost website traffic, and using the right keywords can help you with that. Use long-tail and niche-specific keywords related to the coronavirus, which can have you rank higher.
For instance, if you have a bakery shop, you can use keywords such as “bake shops open now in ‘your area’” This can build your domain authority and connect you with prospect customers.
If you’re having a difficult time with keyword research, SEO Agency Sydney and other companies are still open for online consultation. There are also tools you can use to find what keywords work best for you and the business while still staying related to today’s issue.
Focus On Trending Themes
Besides keywords, think about what your content will be all about. Follow a popular theme that doesn’t need to be directly about the coronavirus. If ever the topics and keywords related to coronavirus are still too competitive for the business, look into a broader theme that is still applicable to your business.
For example, use themes and keywords that center around the words, “virtual,” “DIY,” “in-home,” indoors,” and more regarding being in quarantine.
Re-optimize and Update Past Content
No time to constantly post new content? No problesm! You can re-optimize older content and add newer and more relevant information.
Look into any pre-existing content you had that may be relevant to the audiences today during this pandemic. Edit it with accurate and newer information, then republish it to the top of your website to attract even more traffic.
You can also look into pre-existing content that’s already performing well to update. Since they are currently doing great, a few important updates can have it boost up and rank even higher!
Here are ways you can optimize your existing content:
- Add new information and quality outbound links
- Add keywords to your headings and alt text to photos
- Change title tags to become more compelling
- Update your images, videos, and screenshots
Create Evergreen Content
The pandemic is a very major and serious issue, but we can see it as a “trending” one that will subside in time. So while you might want to focus on the coronavirus and post-coronavirus content for better traffic, also think about your long-term goals.
Maintain evergreen content while pairing it with today’s relevant topics. Unlike trending issues, evergreen topics can still accumulate traffic as time passes, building SEO’s equity.
Update Your Google My Business
Google is now placing labels on business listings that don’t have any special hours or have marked themselves as closed temporarily.
So if customers are looking for businesses nearby during their lockdown, who will they go to first? Obviously, they’ll go to the ones listed as open with their hours over ones that they have to contact to check!
So be sure to update your hours and let people know that you are either open or temporarily closed. You may also want to update and cancel any events you had planned out prior to the pandemic.
Update Other Listings
Google My Business is very useful and important to update during these times. But this isn’t the only local SEO strategy to follow!
Look into other business listings as well, which are just as crucial as they are your website’s citations. Search engines will also look at your business listings’ accuracy, quality, and consistency, ensuring that all information matches what you have on your website.
Perform an audit of all your online business listings and follow these tips:
- Ensure that all business information is updated and identical in all websites, such as Trip Advisor, Yelp, and more free listing websites.
- Look for new business listings of yours that may have been user-generated or created automatically.
- Catch up on business reviews and respond to all of them, as prospect clients will look at your responses besides the reviews.
- Set up your Google Alerts to stay updated with auto-generated listings and reviews for you to monitor.
Check Off Attributes
A lot of businesses respond to the pandemic wisely, offering special services such as delivery or curbside pickup. Today, Google My Business shows their users such services on business profiles.
If you offer any of these attributes, check off the ones you can provide. Even if you’re closed, these small details are important once you open up to clients again. Be sure to update your Google My Business’ information in ALL aspects during and after the pandemic, from the attributes down to how they can reach you.
Use Local SEO Tactics
Local SEO is always a good thing to focus on if you have a small business wanting to compete with bigger brands and major sites on search engines.
And with most people now staying at home, the more they search for local business. This is where local SEO strategies become even more important than before. Start following various local SEO tips to become more visible with local searchers.
Wrapping It Up
Website traffic during these times may decline as many shift focus to other things. However, you can still get people to find and visit your website with the right SEO strategies!
With all these tips and methods in mind, start devoting your time for your website and continue marketing the business. This can help you gain followers and future clients after COVID-19. Good luck and stay safe!