The Coronavirus pandemic waged war on the global economy by forcing entire countries into lockdown, and disrupting multiple supply chains. During that time, many businesses were thrown into a state of limbo where the business week came to a grinding halt, forcing them to rely on government aid packages to pay employees and maintain cash flow. Some businesses managed to weather the storm and develop new methods of serving their customers, which helped offset the damage, but many more were incapable of operating at all.
Whatever side of the spectrum your company fell on, there’s no denying the importance of a strong strategy for jump-starting your business as we begin returning to normal operations. One of the most important (yet overlooked) facets of this strategy is SEO, or search engine optimization. Neglecting this can have a dramatic impact on your company’s bottom line, especially as we begin making headway against the Covid-19 pandemic.
Most companies tend to think of SEO as the search rankings on popular engines such as Google, DuckDuckGo or Bing, but that’s a generic take on the formula. The true premise behind SEO lies in organic traffic that moves as naturally as possible through the search engine formula, and is tied directly to your company’s website. These search engines take an analytical snapshot of your website, and the content within it, such as videos, images and text to determine if the information is relevant to the audience. These methods are becoming more sophisticated by the day, especially as companies like Google continue to fine-tune their search algorithms. For example, this blog article was typed on Google Docs, and within this single paragraph, Google was able to accurately predict what my phrasing would be.
For this reason, it’s important to understand that these search engines are difficult to fool. This is good for the consumer, as companies are continually forced to refine their website content, and keep abreast of modern design standards. Failure to abide by these ever-changing guidelines can result in your company ranking lower in search results, or being stuck on that dreaded second page!
Years ago, SEO was considered the wild west of the digital marketing sphere. Rules were scarce and rarely supported, which led to an emergence of “Black Hat” SEO techniques that were designed to artificially boost a company’s search rankings in order to achieve the top spot. Those days are largely over. Google and other search engines can now determine if disreputable digital marketing companies are using these techniques, and can punish them outright through a variety of methods which can have disastrous consequences for your business. Fear not – this is a good thing. It has caused most digital marketing companies to maintain impeccable standards, while weeding out the bad ones entirely.
SEO is so important, especially on the heels of a unique disaster such as the Covid-19 pandemic. There’s still plenty of time to optimize your company’s SEO in preparation for a full re-opening of the economy, but those days are coming to a close. Even the threat of a possible second wave won’t be enough to force countries to adopt the exact same lockdown procedures as before, which means your company needs to be ready for an influx of business. Working with the right digital marketing agency will allow your company to not only optimize its SEO rankings, but beef up your website’s impact at the same time. Many companies don’t realize that the aforementioned website content plays such a huge role in overall SEO rankings, which means it pays to have the right digital marketing firm taking a long, hard look at your site.
Keep in mind that some companies have taken the Covid-19 lockdowns as a sign that the business world was put on PAUSE. This is actually the wrong way to view the situation, as these companies will have a much harder time regaining the traction they might have had, before Covid-19 hit. Proactive companies have maintained their SEO rankings through a combination of organic content, website optimization and a strong social media presence, all of which tie together. If your company failed to take these steps over the last 3 months, don’t fret! There’s still time to reverse the situation, and the results can be seen in as little as 1-2 months, if you act now.
The early bird gets the worm, as the old saying goes. This goes double for prepping your company to emerge as an industry leader in comparison to your competition. Covid-19 will soon be a thing of the past, especially with multiple vaccines already in development. Though we will feel the economic effects for at least another 2 years, things will largely return to normal. A year out from today, we’ll be back to normal operations. Waiting for that time period is a mistake, however. There’s plenty of opportunity to take advantage of the missed opportunities left open by your competitors, and rise to the top. Make sure your customers know you’re there, and you mean business! A strong SEO strategy is paramount in achieving this goal.
For more information on how Operatio Marketing can help you optimize your SEO rankings and prepare you for a post-Coronavirus recovery phase, please contact us today. Let’s work together for the betterment of your goals.
