SEO After COVID-19: How to get a Jump on the Competition

We would be remiss not to mention what’s going on in the world and how it impacts our industry. Most of us are wondering what will happen once COVID-19 dies down and social distancing has come to an end. At this point, it seems like there is no end in sight, and you might be concerned for your business. This is no time to give up. In fact, we think it’s a great time for you to step up and get a jump on the competition.

First things first: plan. No one is sure when this quarantine will lift and the world will get back to “normal.” The best thing you can do is to begin planning your marketing efforts for months down the road. What will you be doing in the fall and winter? What promotions will you be running? What products will you be pushing? How will you have a unique edge over the competition? Take this time for several brainstorming sessions to flesh this all out. You’ll feel much more at ease if you have a plan in place.

You might feel like taking a step back on your SEO efforts, but now is as good a time as any to get to work. People are at home, and many of them are bored. Do you know what that means? They’re on Google, and they’re searching. Pay attention to Google Trends and what’s trending in your industry. If you can create content for it, you will stay relevant and act as a resource for people searching in your industry. Whether or not you’re generating more leads, you’re likely seeing additional traffic to your site because of the increased search traffic. This is a good time to pull up the data and take a look at which pages are getting the most interaction and how you can improve upon your site.

Chances are, you have the time now to build up content. So do it! Maybe you lost some business, it’s the slow season, or working from home has allotted you some extra time because you don’t have employees coming up to you demanding things. Get as much quality content written as you can. You don’t have to post it all at once, but you’ll build up a nice bank of content that you can pull from when you need to, whether it’s blogs, LinkedIn articles, or social media posts. One of the ways businesses have been letting their creativity shine during this time is by targeting customers via video. If you have the means, either brainstorm video concepts or start producing some. 

You should also complete some basic SEO work. How fast is your site loading? When’s the last time you uploaded new content? Have you had the same photo on the homepage for the last three years? Is your site full of broken links or content that is hard to find? You don’t have to give your site a total makeover, but some nice little changes will help out your SEO efforts.