March 05, 2021
How can marketers adapt their search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies during the coronavirus pandemic? The AGY47 search team pulled together our top 20 tactics brands should be thinking about when it comes to SEO during the current climate.
Use Google Search Console, combined with internal search data, to find what information your customers want regarding your brand.
You may find some new areas of growth in unexpected places, which can form part of a longer-term strategy. Areas you were focusing on previously may not seem as valuable now. Take a step back to understand how each of these elements applies to your core search strategy post-Coronavirus.
Use Google Trends and your own industry/business insight to optimise content in advance. If you find that one of your services increases in interest in August, put measures in place now to ensure your brand is capitalising on this interest.
Ensure there is prominence of delivery and stock level messaging across your site. Customers want to know this key information given the current situation. You can help to make this more prominent in search results by using relevant schema E.g. Product.
Update your Google My Business listings to reflect store changes, and make a statement to ensure your customers are up to date with your brand’s current situation. Google has released new COVID-19 related schema (specific to certain industries), which can help to keep your customers informed.
Optimise content such as your blog posts. With more and more time being spent online, now is a great opportunity to get this content in front of more people. Where possible, look at tailoring this to any changes in user behaviour from the past few weeks.
People will remember this once this is over, and journalists are crying out for positive news stories to cover.
A lot of journalists are sharing information and insights on Twitter. In the main, they are looking for positive stories, useful tips while in lockdown, humour and quirky content, boredom-busters (quizzes, puzzles), and escapism stories. Brand stories aren’t cutting through unless it’s positive or charitable.
This is an unprecedented time and securing coverage is going to be harder than ever. Creativity with your campaigns could be the difference between campaign success and failure.
You may have campaigns you were planning out or about to launch. Adapt these to suit the current situation or pause them all together.
If you can’t see a way through the coronavirus news cycle, use the time to plan your next campaign. Things will start to get back to some sort of normality. By planning ahead, you will be ready for the next cycle.
What content are your competitors offering that your brand isn’t? Use the time when your business is quieter to conduct a competitor analysis to see which search terms your competitors are ranking for that your brand isn’t.
People have more time than they’ve ever had now, and they’re actively consuming content online. Now is the perfect time to create inspirational (e.g. must-see travel destinations) or informative (e.g. how to bake sourdough bread) content that is relevant to your audience. You’ll also benefit from evergreen content in the long run.
Run A/B tests on titles, descriptions, or body copy on similar pages that you never got around to updating. With CPC being low, there is ample opportunity to work with your PPC team.
Take the free SEO courses on Moz using the code ‘wegotthis’, there are a multitude of useful courses for content and wider SEO.
Due to the volume of products usually on ecommerce sites, product copy can often be side-lined. Start reviewing your product descriptions; do they accurately sell the item? Is there any information missing that your audience would need to know before making a purchase?
Try not to be too distracted from your main SEO strategy. This pandemic will pass and once it does, you don’t want to be months behind your internal targets.
Make a note of reactive steps you are taking now, and create an SEO contingency plan so that you can be proactive if faced with future downward trends.
With more people at home, make sure that your website is loading for consumers as quickly as possible and that you have additional server capacity if needed. You can check your website speed with Google’s Pagespeed Insights.
Many short-term trends we see right now will sustain long into the future, so be prepared for fundamental changes.
Looking for more information on how you can adapt your strategy, optimise your website and grow your brand awareness? Get in touch with the NORTH team.