4 Tips for Building a Solid SEO Strategy During Uncertainty

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Not with SEO in 2020 just a clear head and a clear strategy while will see you through.  Working alongside an SEO company or SEO specialists is a worthwhile endeavour, together you can position your brand to take advantage of higher usage of the internet than ever before in 2021. 

Consumer sentiment is being influenced heavily by COVID-19 and consumer confidence is low.

Here are some tips for building a solid SEO strategy during uncertain times:

#1. Build Trust Through your Content

Consumer sentiment is a concern, whereby companies are unable to follow through on promises being made.

For any new campaign now is a good time to collaborate with an SEO Company or SEO specialists. 

Many potential customers are experiencing many emotions, from scepticism to powerlessness, so counter these with positive engagement and special offers, to get people looking ahead positively. 

This is a time to educate your audience, recent trends have suggested that brands that have educational content on their site are interpreted as more reliable than brands that don’t.

It is common knowledge to an SEO company or SEO specialists that customers are more likely to buy the brand if there is educational content, people today are more eager to learn as they are more informed than the previous generations. 

Brand affinity and trust are garnered with early-stage, educational content, so be sure to be working closely together on engagement and information that will gain their trust.

By putting yourself in the shoes of your buyer, this will help you form your strategy. With a lot of uncertainty consumers are looking for answers to questions, so easy to find relevant informative answers from your brand will lead to trust. 

A case in point is what happened in London when Time Out Magazine released a free digital copy of its magazine

Mailchimp made a move to offer free accounts for public health organisations to share information regarding COVID-19

If you have podcasts or webinars, look to invite your potential customers to listen in live on topics that are relevant and informative or provide them with links to recordings if they were unable to attend, be helpful, it all counts. 

Consumers are saying ‘we want information and transparency.’ The new norm means they want to trust the brand and the people behind it, in this marketplace, customers are going to be earned not simply acquired.

Informative and engaging content will get you there.

 #2. Managing your Web Presence

In July of 2018 Google updated their algorithm to include E-A-T "Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness."

What we have been talking about is ‘Trustworthiness’ so the more trust built through your content increases your chance of the SERP’s in your content getting clicks.

Working side-by-side with SEO specialists will help in managing your online brand awareness as it is crucial at this time, any inaccurate or old information you have can damage you right now, this is not the time to mislead information-hungry users.

How to manage your reputation online amid COVID-19?

E-commerce – Update your Schema

Help Google to show accurate information about you, your brand(s) products and offers. 

In this fast-changing marketplace ensure the user sees your product availability by providing real-time information. 

For special announcements and events, you can add event status schema to keep your customers fully informed of what’s new.

My Business Page on Google – Constantly Update

Keep customers fully informed of any changes to your business operations, whether it be payment gateways online or opening hours, work closely with your web developer. 

Constantly Monitor Google Console

Organic web traffic is incredibly important in indicating where potential demand for your products and services are if they have recently shifted. Following trends such as spikes and declines can give you and the SEO company what information has become more and less relevant through COVID-19. This will enable to you shape accurate responses.

#3. Upcoming Campaign? – Be Sure to Audit it

Assuming you already have your content pipeline built, it’s a pertinent time to audit any upcoming campaigns for Q3 and Q4.

Companies have received unexpected backlash from consumers on social media so you have to be careful with your campaign strategy.

Prime examples:

• Corona’s ‘Coming Ashore Soon’ received negative feedback.
• However, some global brands pulled back and it was seen as a positive move, such as:
• KFC’s ‘Finger-Lickin' Good’ Campaign was suspended.
• Coors put a stop to it being the ‘Official Beer of Working Remotely’ Campaign in North America. 

An SEO company will be well aware of consumer sensitivities, they will help to give valuable insights and share the information with different teams in the company to help achieve the overall strategy.

SEO becomes more than SEO at this stage it acts as the voice of the customer. To build the brand up long-term, a focus on short-term adaptation is what is needed.

#4. SECURITY – Add to it

On the subject of trust, I cannot stress enough how important it is at this moment.

The internet has been subject to increased malware with things such things as:

• Coronavirus discount codes
• Corona Virus special offers

Usually offering the latest tech gadgets such as MacBook Air or iPhones or Samsung’s for small prices like AU$399 or AU$99 was set-up to simply gather sensitive information from the consumer.

Another issue for well-known brands that cybercriminals use regularly is Phishing attacks. Even the WHO were targeted and exploited this year by hackers looking to establish credibility to gather personal information and passwords. 

Campaigns relating to the virus have been plentiful in the last quarter. 

Here are some simple guidelines to follow with security for your site:

Log Files – Crawl Errors

SEO specialists will know all about log file analysis.  This assists them to identify where Search engine crawlers are looking to gain entry to your site, the analysis will also find any spambots who are trying to accomplish the same.

SSO (Single Sign-On) Use It

This works by ensuring users have separate login credentials for each application, such as name and password. It simply heightens security.

SSL Certificate for your Site

For e-commerce this is a must in 2020, this was implemented by Google as long ago as 2014 to push website owners to ensure an extra level of protection through HTTPS for consumer’s credit card details and more.

Update All Plugins

Old Plugins are a hacker's best friend, so update them and also any old tools, these are easily accessible vulnerabilities. If you update your plugins regularly you make yourself a moving target, not a sitting duck.

HTTPS is the tip of the iceberg for cybersecurity today, working on preventative medicine now is better than a chemist full of cure further down the line. Ensure your digital access is watertight as hackers can leave you with permanent damage even experts cannot fix. 

Conclusion

At this time the dynamics are changing and it can create anxiety but don’t tackle this alone unless you are an expert, now is the time to hire experts in the digital marketing and SEO fields, there will be great deals out there to align yourself to gather the best data to build your brand to be ahead of the competition due to them cutting back on marketing. 

If you have the drive and the finance, now is the time to spend on local SEO specialists and digital marketing experts to get ahead of the curve and embrace ‘The NEW NORM’ in 2021.