With a majority of businesses being ordered to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic, your business has probably been affected by this new rule. The situation is undoubtedly overwhelming, but keeping your customers and employees informed during this time is essential.
Many businesses, small and corporate alike, have sent out a PR statement to customers about a change in operations amid the pandemic. While this may seem like a good strategic move, we urge you to take more proactive steps to stay in touch with your stakeholders. Since so many businesses have sent this statement, many customers now tend to glaze over these emails, ultimately sending them to the trash folder.
What’s the point of sending out an email if nobody reads it?
This guide will discuss 5 unique ways to close the communication gap and keep your business presence strong during the lockdown.
First things first, update your Google My Business profile stat. This is the first snippet a user sees in search engine results pages and more importantly the first place they look to see if you’re open. Updating your business hours will save your customers a lot of frustration.
But changing your hours isn’t the only thing you can do with GMB. Kill some time by managing your reviews and answering customer questions, both of these actions will help strengthen your online presence. You could also try reaching out to long-time patrons and ask them to leave a review. Did you know reviews have a direct impact on search engine rankings? Use this time to be productive and get those five stars!
Don’t have your GMB profile claimed yet? Learn how to claim your profile.
Adding an alert banner to your website about changes to your service is easy and useful. It also has a better chance of being seen by customers as compared to the standard COVID-19 email statement most businesses are putting out.
Why? Because you aren’t competing for attention in people’s inboxes. When a user lands on your website, you know they are already interested or want to learn more about your business. This is the perfect time to have a convenient notification about changes to your business due to COVID-19.
Have you been neglecting your social media accounts? Now is a great time to ramp up your efforts. With more people staying home, this means people will be turning their attention to social media. Start by posting daily updates to keep employees and customers in the loop, or offer a promotion (if you can swing it) to encourage people to patronize your business.
FYI: you don’t have to be going through a global pandemic to start getting serious about social. Did you know 66 percent of consumers follow a brand they like on Facebook and 90 percent follow a business on instagram?
If you’ve got nothing but time, use it wisely and improve your search engine rankings. Adding keywords to title tags, headings, and creating metadata descriptions are all proactive steps to improve your site’s visibility.
If you have a lot of content pages, start using internal links. Internal links are links to pages on the same website. They can be very useful for SEO because they help search engines crawl your site and can increase a web page’s value. The more links that go to a web page will increase the chances of it ranking higher. But don’t over do it. You should only link to another page if it’s relevant to your content and will provide value to the reader.
Another great way to improve your site’s visibility? Publishing blog articles. Regularly creating these articles sends a signal to search engines that your website has relevant and fresh content that may be useful to users. Blogging also helps your SEO efforts by giving you the opportunity to use internal linking and long-tail keywords more. Another good tip, articles with at least 300 words can encourage people to stay on your site longer, and who doesn’t want that?
Aside from SEO, blogging can help position you as a thought leader. Sharing insights, weighing in on current events in your industry, and providing helpful advice are all ways to bolster your online reputation and presence.
The world may be shut down, but your website and digital marketing efforts don’t have to! Think of this time as an opportunity to improve your business instead of a dismal disadvantage. Let's get to work!