Post COVID Recovery: Top 5 SEO Strategies to Focus on
The coronavirus pandemic has caused a massive slowdown in our lives and businesses. Businesses are getting shut and we're witnessing a global recession. However, if you keep up with your SEO strategies, you'll stay afloat in the pandemic. That said, here are the top 5 SEO strategies to focus on.
It's been more than 5 months; the coronavirus pandemic has turned our life upside down. From practicing physical distancing to wearing masks and washing hands for thirty seconds to sustain ourselves in multiple lockdowns, we've seen it all.
And this has not only impacted our lives psychologically but also slowed down the business operations. But the truth is, if you continue your SEO activities, it'll be beneficial for you both during and after the pandemic.
Let's see why you need an SEO plan to sail through the global economic slowdown coronavirus has caused.
Why Continue with SEO activities in COVID?
In the absence of trade shows and personal meetings, investing in SEO can be a deal-breaker. Since most people are searching and shopping online more than ever before, you've got a golden opportunity to garner as many eyeballs as you can.
With that said, let's see the top 5 strategies to use the post COVID era.
#1 Invest in Long-form Content
Long-form content is an innate part of a rock-solid content marketing strategy. It helps in attaining search rankings organically. Since the pace has slowed down for most customers, they would likely read articles that answer their questions.
The key here is to write content that alleviates their problems. This will increase the average time spent on the website and reduce the bounce rate, eventually giving you ample business opportunities.
Let see an example -
When I searched for "how to plan your travel post-pandemic," I got the following result.
Check any of the first three search engine results; you'll find a pretty well long-form content written with a lot of actionable value.
And, you too need to do the same. Write tons of long-form content, build a content calendar, and adhere to it for publishing your article in the coming months.
You can use a document management system like Greenbox to prepare and store all your content ideas and topics. This will help save time and make you more productive while you get into your writing shoes.
#2 Invest in Local SEO
Despite the economic slowdown, people still would need goods and services. People would go to a salon or a restaurant or a car repair service. Hence it would be pragmatic of you to boost your local SEO activities. Another good reason for investing in local SEO is that more and more people would be shopping online.
Create or update your "Google my business" profile by uploading your company's name, location, address, phone number, website, and other such results.
#3 Optimize for Mobile
Most people browse from their phones. They love to spend time on websites that's intuitive, easy to use and load fast. This means that you need to optimize everything that helps you load your site faster. Some of the critical elements for fast loading speed on mobile pages could be:
- Compressing images
- Removing unnecessary elements in the CSS and so on
- Remove unnecessary Javascript
We also know that Google favors mobile-friendly websites. It began in July 2019 and is considering mobile responsive websites for gauging SEO value. Hence, when the world would be recovering from an economic slowdown, optimizing your site for mobile users can be your best bet to grow.
#4 Stay Consistent on Social Media
In the post COVID era, when people would slowly be recovering from the massive economic slowdown, and the customer mindset would have shifted to online shopping, promoting your brand consistently on social media will definitely help you.
To do so, create a strategy keeping in mind your consumer's sentiments. For example, if you own a hair salon, you can come up with a series of posts showing the type of haircuts people can take while coming out of the pandemic.
Similarly, if you are a yoga teacher, you can create 'do at home' tutorials for your audience and posts about the benefits of doing yoga and exercising. Besides, you can also do live videos and webinars to promote your products and services on social media.
But remember, you ought to remain consistent to build a successful brand on social media.
#5 Focus on Getting Good Reviews
No matter how much we promote ourselves virtually, one thing that would always stay relevant is people buy from people. Hence, focus on generating good reviews about your brand.
You can ask people to write reviews on your local profiles. Alternatively, you can ask your customers to share feedback about your products and services and run surveys. You can then post these reviews on your social media. This helps you in two ways:
- It generates social proof about your brand.
- It helps in instilling a sense of reliability in your potential customers, which, in turn, gives you more business.
Take Your Business to New Heights in Post-COVID Era with SEO
When everything seems uncertain, the only way to stay competitive in the market is to spur your SEO strategy. Eventually, things will come back to track, sooner or later, just like it happens after every epidemic or pandemic. And SEO is going to be the most effective technique to reach your potential customers.