Understanding the Algorithm
During tough times of lower business and financial duress, many business owners are looking for ways to cut costs and keep themselves afloat until things turn around. For many, this means getting rid of services and other things that are not necessary for daily operations.
For many, this also means cutting down on marketing costs, as the lowered income and customer interaction can give the signs that things like SEO are not important. However, this cannot be further from the truth. Now more than ever, marketing, and SEO are extremely important for business longevity, and ensuring that websites are still placing high in search.
In order to do this, that means keeping up with search optimization, and even introducing new things as changes to search algorithms adjust and shift over time.
Doing so can ensure that your company’s relevance is not lost, and that in the long term, you’ll be better positioned to capitalize on your good practices.
Keeping up with the Times
In order to ensure that you are making the best use of your website’s content, and your position in SERP, you have to make sure that you are armed with the knowledge of what is going on in the world of search engines. It is not uncommon for search engine algorithms to change multiple times a year, and sometimes these changes bring with them dramatic shifts in how SEO works.
There are a few things to consider when ensuring that you are still utilizing best practices when continuing to update your website.
Addressing Current Issues
One of the big things that can help during trying times is talking about what is going on with your business during them. Taking the time to show that you are aware of the situation and have been making considerations in your business based around it can form a connection between you and your audience.
By doing so, you let them know you are aware, and that you share the concerns. Alongside that it gives you an opportunity to spread a message of hope and perseverance that may be sorely needed! Especially in times of extended troubles, people look for optimism where they can find it.
That said, talking about the current issues need not be the only thing you do. There are still opportunities to continue regular content and keep up with your website’s main topics and habits so that you don’t lose focus trying to chase something that in time, will pass.
It is also important to keep a genuine tone when discussing these things and ensure that you aren’t just writing about them to take advantage of people’s worry. Whether you run a storefront or offer a service, make sure that what you have to say aligns with what it is you and your business do.
Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment
Even though there should be a focus on keeping to best practices, and delivering a relatable message to your audience and customers, you mustn’t be afraid to take risks with your content. SEO has never been an exact science. Though there are things to do that are confirmed to work, and certain trends to follow that any SEO technician will swear by, there are things that happen that sometimes people cannot rightly explain.
How you utilize this is going to determine on your content but trying new things can unlock new avenues for your search engine optimization that can give you and your content a surge in the rankings.
It is wise to exercise caution though, as deviating too far from your content loop and making drastic changes to the things that are working for your website can do a lot of harm to your search metadata. Practice caution when instituting these new methods and means and consider doing so slowly so you can properly monitor their impact on your performance.
Keeping Content Updates Consistent
During times of trials and tribulation, it might seem silly or unneeded to keep content updates coming. As we’ve talked about though, doing so can keep you relevant and provide additional optimization data in the long term.
Generating your usual content should be kept up, even if it does happen at a reduced schedule. By doing so, and providing content, you are adding keywords, keyphrases, and other metadata, to your website. This can allow you to keep visitors to your website engaged and ensure that you don’t lag behind competitors who may also be doing the same.
These sorts of updates should form the backbone of your efforts, as creating evergreen content will ensure that after the situation passes, your content will still be useful to people searching in the long term.
Assess Your Engagement
Taking a moment to look at your engagement is something worth doing in all times, but doubly so during times of duress or struggle.
Engaging with your audience is an important part of any business, especially small to medium sized ones, who often rely on word of mouth and returning customers to keep business strong. If you slack off on that engagement during times of trouble, there is a chance that it could cost you in the long term.
If your audience doesn’t feel valued, or that they can rely on you to provide the service and content they expect, they may turn elsewhere. It is important then, even in times where your organization’s doors may be closed temporarily, that you are keeping some level of engagement to allow your customers to feel that you and they are together in this.
Once things return to normal (or as normal as they can) then you can rest assured knowing that you have been as engaged and attentive and have built a stronger relationship with your website’s visitors.
Cleanup Bad Content
If you’re looking for something to do during these periods, or just find that you have a lot of free time in general, taking a look at your website as a whole might be worth doing. Going through older content to find spots of bad or unhelpful SEO can help to reset some of the foundation for your website.
This doesn’t need to be something you do for your entire website, but identifying problematic pages and touching them up to be more in line with modern optimization practices can help shave off some bad metadata that may be affecting your website. It is important to remember though, that your current content should always take precedence and that you don’t miss the forest for the trees.
Trust Your SEO Professionals
This one should be a given, but many businesses shed their SEO professionals during times of crisis as they don’t think that they will need them during that strenuous period.
Speaking honestly, this is a mistake. While you may learn a lot from marketing blogs, and the things you pick up from your search engine optimizers, there are innumerable nuances, details, and other factors that can impact a website’s metadata and SEO. Their skills and training are invaluable to a website’s health and they can help you avoid any pitfalls or mistakes that could have long-lasting consequences on your website.
If things are in a situation where you cannot retain their services, talk with your search engine marketing team and see what you can arrange to continue to retain their services, without putting yourself in financial strain.
In Conclusion
Keeping on top of website SEO is something that can have great benefits for your organization in the long term. By keeping up with your website’s efforts, you can make sure that your content is primed to keep utilizing search engines to your advantage and push our content to the masses.
In troubling times, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by things you cannot control. However, in those times, it is important to focus on what you can control. In this instance, it is your website, its content, and your SEO.
Taking care of these things can keep you focused, and when things clear up, you can rest assured that your site is still performing well.
