10 Effective Ways SEO Can Help Lead Businesses Impacted by COVID-19 to Recovery

With the COVID-19 crisis impacting so many businesses across the globe, it is no surprise that many people are scrambling to establish a plan of action to help ensure their businesses survive the terrifying situation at hand. Many companies are seeking new ways to draw in customers and gain funding, leading to most exploring new ideas and ventures to hopefully bring in revenue and float the business through the duration of the pandemic’s impact. Digital marketing is perhaps one of the easiest ways to still bring in new clients while still reaching your trusted, loyal customers, with search engine optimized content being a fantastic method that makes things a lot easier. Let’s explore ten effective ways search engine optimization can help lead businesses impacted by COVID-19 to recovery and help them get back on their feet!

1. Global Reach

No matter where you are in the world, increasing your global reach and furthering the marketplace pull value of your business can bring in a lot of new clients and generate a ton of interest. Even small local businesses can benefit from the presence of a good outlying population. This is especially true if you are considering looking to online sales or service providing to perhaps increase your revenue and make a profit on a larger scale.

A lot of businesses that sell products directly have begun selling online and shipping where they can to help bring in money that otherwise could not be accessed. Now more than ever people are using social media and online resources for shopping so having your online storefront to remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic can help cover the costs that you are still responsible for despite the situation at hand pausing a lot of your regular operations and, by association, your revenue.

Search engine optimization helps to accomplish this by raising the status of your website within Google and other search engines, bringing it to the attention of more people across the world. Additionally, you could consider seeking out professionals to work on search engine optimizing your pieces for other languages to better raise your presence in other countries, as well. This can be especially helpful since so many countries speak multiple languages and could be served by your site better if it were directly translated and optimized.

2. Refresh and Renew

Let’s say your site already ranks highly on Google and other search engines. Perfect, right? Unfortunately, this is not how search engine optimization works. Typically, sites and articles must be refreshed to mesh well with algorithm updates and hot keywords to remain high ranking on search engines. This means that even though your site has been highly ranked for years, COVID-19 dominated topics may push it down and make your site in general harder to find.

If you want to prevent this, try refreshing your articles to suit the modern marketplace and consider adding one or two directly COVID-19 related pieces that fit with the products or services you provide. This will help raise your ranking again and broadcast you to a wider range of search queries, resulting in more people finding your site and the resources you provide and produce.

3. Provide Guidance and Help

The COVID-19 crisis is a time that is wholly unprecedented and relatively unheard of for most of us within our lifetime. Most people have never experienced anything like this before and hopefully never will again, so it is understandable that there are a lot of questions concerning where we are going from here and how we will get there. You, as a business owner, could benefit from this by increasing your presence on search engines through acting as an expert on your field and providing a resource for those looking for a little more information about what you do and the Coronavirus’s impact.

By creating articles involving the Coronavirus, you are automatically generating more interest and causing your articles to rank higher by default since topics surrounding the virus and the virus, in general, are very popular searches for obvious reasons. If you incorporate search engine optimization into this, you can count on your articles doing quite well in generating traffic and interest for your site, providing you with more opportunities to service customers and turn a profit.

4. Enhanced User Experience

When you use search engine optimization, your user experience and overall quality tend to go up as a result. This is because you are putting out information directly correlating to what your clients are looking for. This means that when someone finds your website through a Google search or other search engine inquiry, they will be able to get viable information from you and experience a positive interaction, incentivizing them to come back when they need more information or are hoping to purchase a service or product from you.

You can further this enhancement by looking over your site and checking for places that could use improvement. If you are hoping to be successful, you need to look at everything from the perspective of a visitor to the site and evaluate exactly what would best serve them. If a menu is tricky to navigate, consider reworking it. If part of the site reads poorly, try having it rewritten. There are a lot of things that can be done to assist in making your site the perfect expert hub for your field, from simple things like adding easier contact references to more complex actions like giving the entire page a facelift. Regardless of what needs to be done, refreshing your site and making it easier to use is a great way to ensure your clients and potential customers are satisfied with their experience and more prone to returning.

5. Long-term Enhancement

While you will notice a sharp uptake in traffic when you begin to search engine optimize your site, the long-term effects will be the most amazing facet of the transition. SEO is one of the easiest ways to create a lasting impact with your site, ensuring an overall positive change with little to no potential negative impact. This traffic increase will ideally carry on indefinitely, especially if you opt to have proper upkeep done on your posts and articles to keep yourself on good terms with Google’s algorithm and that of other popular search engines, especially those in other countries if you can offer your service or product globally.

6. Statistical Advantage

With more than half of most web traffic coming from organic search options, it is reasonable to think that amplifying your search engine optimization if a good route to get your brand’s name out there. Having your website score well within the search engine ranking is a good way to draw in a lot of people and ensure that your site remains at the forefront of your given field and industry. Take a look at statistics surrounding your industry and what customers are searching for and use this to your advantage to curate what you post and where you post it. This, when used in tandem with a search engine optimization specialist, can make a massive difference in your web traffic and general search engine appeal both short and long-term.

7. Recognize the Appeal

Search engine optimization is no new thing, even if it is new to you. Most large companies use it to ensure their products are front and center when you look for potential purchases. Even big names like Amazon work to ensure you see their products first, which is part of why they are so successful. Think about it: if you search for “litter boxes” and only see products from PetSmart, chances are you are going to buy a product from PetSmart. Recognizing this appeal early on and getting ahead of the industrial curve is a great way to help yourself recover by driving up interest in your company and reaching an entirely new base of potential customers and clients.

8. Chase Your Audience

Even if you are not getting a ton of purchases right now, it is important to recognize that with time and COVID-19 passing, it will come. Right now a lot of people are saving their money and carefully budgeting because, not unlike your own business, they are dealing with some financial issues due to the economic duress the virus has placed everything under. Once things clear up, you can expect a renewed interest in spending and that those who have visited your site over the last few months thanks to the search engine optimization efforts provided by your company and whatever resources you choose to take on will likely pull the trigger and make product or service purchases. It is just a waiting game as we all make our way through this pandemic.

9. Optimize Customer Interactions

Even if you are not getting sales right now, this is the perfect time to work on curating a personalized, customized experience for those who visit your site. This will work to help keep them interested and make them remember your company even if they visit competitors since it appeals directly to them and their interests and needs concerning the products and services you provide.

To do this, offer the option to sign up for an e-mail club that sends personalized updates and promotional data or direct links to your social media where they can stay up to date on all of the information and deals surrounding your brand and its products. Additionally, you can work on providing customer-centric client services and hone your company’s entire customer service and issue revision department by providing an effective Frequently Asked Questions page or other resource pages about your brand. Being clear about the quality and type of customer service conversations to be provided by your staff is a good idea, as well, since there will likely be an influx of new contacts once the search engine optimization is included in your site, too.

10. Use Your Search Data

The searches your customers make can cue you into some very important information surrounding what they are looking for and what products and services they are interested in buying. This, in turn, can be used to assist you in making business decisions and in introducing new products and services that are needed to fill gaps in your inventory or service selection. If they are looking for window tints and window replacement, for example, and you only offer replacements, consider looking into tint options you can offer, as well. This will help you to draw in even more customers since they can get everything they need all in one go. Plus it will work to earn a little more revenue, too, since they may be inclined to purchase additional services and interact with your business on an ongoing basis, as well.

To achieve this, try having a system in place to gather search data. This can be acquired manually or through a search engine optimization specialist and can be used to get a really clear view of what your clients are looking for and at what rates they interact with each part of your site. It also gives you an idea of why that specific item or service is needed and allows you to plan what you need to do next to better serve your clients or otherwise provide the best service and experience possible while meeting all of their needs. This adaptive behavior is a good way to help push your business through recovery and get yourself off to a new start.

Recover and Bounce Back

Recovery is something a lot of businesses will be going through following this crisis. While it is certainly going to be a bumpy ride, you can coast through with the help of modern advancements like digital marketing and search engine optimization. Utilize one of the biggest and best tools at your disposal, the internet, to extend your reach and interact with a larger client and customer base than ever before. Soon, you will be back to normal and perhaps even better than ever!