One of the most relevant news is still information about the spread of the coronavirus pandemic – including foci of the disease, the number of cases, deaths and recovered.
But the crisis caused by COVID-19 has noticeably affected the popularity of the Internet too.
Therefore, both large and small companies and even private entrepreneurs still have to pay special attention to the promotion of their products and services online. This means SEO, influencer marketing, and more modern ways to attract customers’ attention.
Not everyone is as fortunate in the pandemic as mask makers, food delivery companies and Zoom. The offline business had to decide: either quickly move all work online, or put on a hard stop.
But just moving to the Internet is not enough: you need to understand what you are doing, and marketing is changing rapidly under the influence of the coronavirus.
How coronavirus affects global traffic
Internet traffic has changed markedly since the beginning of the year. After all, if earlier sites selling medicines and food were not in great demand, now they have become almost the most visited resources. And the popularity of online retail outlets with electronics has hardly increased even in such an environment.
Among the most popular resources in the second quarter are:
1. websites and applications of pharmacies and health centres – the latter have become relevant due to the switching of most doctors to fight the virus;
2. websites of publishers – in conditions of isolation, people began to write more and are interested in the possibilities of publishing books;
3. web pages with recipes – many people want to spend time doing something useful, including learning new ways of cooking;
4. pages of travel companies – despite the fact that not everyone will be able to go on vacation in the near future, many are already starting to plan their pastime after the end of quarantine.
Another category of resources in high demand is the pages of those cafés and restaurants that offer food delivery. For people in self-isolation, this helps save time on cooking, and for the restaurant business to survive.
Advertising greatly decreases, due to this, advertising competition also decreases. The click becomes cheaper and you can get cheaper traffic. And if you are ready to work with this long conversion, ready to receive leads that you need to work with – now you can get them cheaper than before.
The impact of COVID-19 on SEO
Like we already said, in most cases, organic traffic drops. Moreover, in terms of positions, the site may be doing well, but traffic drops dramatically. There is less demand for SEO, but again, it depends on the topic. In some niches, demand increased – someone who was selling masks and antiseptics, had no demand, and now it appeared. And there is, for example, tire fitting – there the demand has not changed in any way, because people still need to change the car’s shoes.
If the company does not work with content, now is the time to start looking in this direction. This is a shareware tool – even if you don’t write yourself, you can hire a copywriter, conventionally it’s not so expensive. Content can help a lot for SEO, and it is much cheaper than buying links and working with technical optimisation.
If the site has never been promoted, there was no audit and there are a lot of errors in the code, then no links will help. The solution will be to hire a good quality web development agency. Trust us, it will pay off in no time.
If you have already worked with the site before and now you just need to reduce budgets, then you can buy links or look for cheaper sources.
Pay more attention to content – by publishing new articles, you cover more keywords, more search queries. For example, if you sell laptops, write “how to clean a laptop”, “how to choose a laptop for games” and so on. A person is looking for information – he gets into an article, reads advice, can subscribe to a newsletter, social networks, and become your regular customer. In this way, you can significantly reduce your SEO budget.
In any business, you can find partners who are willing to share their audience. Many sites host offers of partners – this is also a source of obtaining links and customers.
We are used to thinking with standard tools – for example, email, SEO, SMM, PPC. But in reality, marketing is much broader, there is a lot of space for creativity. We need to go beyond these tools, look for alternative ways. Right now, when the budget is tight, it’s time to figure out how to get clients for free or at a minimum budget.
How to prepare to overcome the crisis?
During the quarantine period, many companies realised that they needed to enter the online market. And if now they mostly go for services that give quick results (targeted advertising, price aggregators), then after quarantine these companies should invest in SEO as the most promising channel for obtaining leads.
What changes are visible in messengers in different areas?
Finding themselves in a situation of forced closure, some businesses could not afford to keep their marketing budget at the same level. Accordingly, some have suspended work with messengers, as well as with any other lead generation channels. The reason is not even that the companies have no money left. But also the fact that there is nothing and no one to sell to because of the closure for the period of quarantine if the business is associated with offline services.
Marketing and the coronavirus. Business tips
Here are three final tips on how to survive the coronavirus crisis:
- Complete everything that you could not do before
If there are few clients and a lot of time, finally unearth all the unfinished business. Organise your CRM, sort documents, read the list of books, watch deferred webinars. The crisis will end, and you can return to work with a fresh mind at a good pace.
- Set up end-to-end analytics and a back-to-back funnel
It’s time to optimise your sales funnel. If the flow of leads has decreased, then you can’t afford to lose them. Analyse all the points where leads “fall off” on the road to purchase, and be sure to set up a return funnel – it is much cheaper to sell to existing customers than to spend on attracting new ones.
- Look for clients who are growing
The crisis has played into the hands of some: the delivery of goods, pharmaceuticals, online education are growing. If you can, switch to companies from these areas. Or try to negotiate cooperation with those who plan to resume work after quarantine.
Conclusion
You and your clients are in the same boat, if they go broke, you won’t have anyone to work with. Relax during a crisis. Design package services with a minimum of required work – for example, website and analytics setup, SEO marketing training, content specifications. Something that will help clients to stay at the lowest cost.
Do not panic, try to think systematically and plan a way out of the crisis.
