SEO Improvements – Make The Best Use Of COVID Downtime

Last updated on June 23rd, 2022 at 04:29 am

Much has changed for the world since the advent of 2020 and it seems that the world is literally upside down. From social isolation to business closures, job losses, and pay cuts, the worst fears are real now. The impact on businesses is immense- while selling online is fast becoming a norm for even the traditional brick-and-mortar brands, being visible on the internet is a challenge. Search algorithms are changing and ranking in online searches is tougher than ever. Moreover, organizations are being forced to cut down on their marketing budgets. 

Still, it makes sense to continue with your SEO for eCommerce website plan if you want to be visible and rank high even during the crisis. If you are not convinced about doing so, consider the downtime as a window of opportunity for improvement. You cannot expect the searches to be the same right now, so a realignment of your strategy at this stage can go a long way in setting you apart from the competition in the future. Here are the SEO improvements you can focus on during COVID downtime. 

Refresh the on-page copy 

The prospective customers would always want to find out more about your brand and offerings before they actually buy from you. And your website is probably where they would start their research. Anyone who accesses the site, therefore, should be greeted with impressive content that demonstrates your offering well enough. Apart from the value and information that the content offers, the design and navigation can also make a difference to the user experience. Optimizing the content with the relevant keywords is also important. Right now, you should consider a complete refresh for the on-page copy as well as the look and the feel of the page. 

Clear the backlog of technical fixes 

If you have been postponing important technical fixes just because they are not business-critical, now is the best time to clear the backlog. Typically, web marketers and developers keep pushing such fixes down the development queue or prioritize more tangible changes first. Right now, the website traffic and orders might be coming in a trickle, so it makes sense to handle the little niggles as there is hardly any threat even if you have the site in maintenance mode for some time. And you the get opportunity to take your website closer to perfection with these fixes in place.

Detox your backlink profile 

Backlinks have always been the cornerstone of SEO success and it will continue to be the same ahead. It is, therefore, significant to manage your backlinks right from the start and this post from SEO Jet can help you with it. While you need to go the extra mile with backlink building and management, periodic review of the ones built over time is vital. This is a good time to revisit your current backlink profile and purge the links that are depleting its value rather than adding to it. Find the ones that you want to disavow and go ahead with the same. Also, you can consider reclaiming the good ones you have lost. 

Look for opportunities to improve

Another idea you can pursue during the SEO downtime is looking for the opportunities to improve and springing into action to actually implement the improvements. An in-depth SEO audit of the website makes sense so that you can identify issues and plan on resolving them. The issues could range from suboptimal site structure to hindrances to effective crawling and indexing, poor page load speeds, and other accessibility and usability issues that lower the quality of user experience.

Assess the use of structured data

One of the overlooked SEO tasks is the implementation of structured data. You may end up doing so because it is often hard to visualize the improvement that extra annotations can drive for your organic search potential. Needless to say, the list of “Rich result” enhancements you can explore in this context is ever-growing. You can expect to achieve a lot by formatting the information correctly and marking it up. Right now, it is a great idea to go ahead and try working with structured data to get a tangible improvement in search results in the future.

Start strengthening your content assets 

Needless to say, great content is the foundation of successful SEO but creating it requires a lot of time and effort. If this is something you have been struggling with, now is the time to get onto action and create a strong base with quality content assets. What you really need is great ideas and descriptive, in-depth pieces that serve true value to the audience. You can utilize the next few months to create an amazing repository and launch it once things are back to normal.

Revamp your current content strategy 

Apart from creating a rich content treasure for the future, revamping your current content strategy is a great idea. Focus on creating content pieces that are positive, heartwarming, and entertaining because that’s what the world needs in such critical times. At the same time, make sure that you offer genuine and useful information to the audience. You can also provide expert opinions and advice in your posts, covering issues that really matter. It could be anything; ranging from personal safety measures to strategies you can implement to fortify your business through the coronavirus crisis. Apart from informative articles, you can leverage video content with useful, interesting, and easily digestible videos to engage the audience. Finally, make sure that your content does not play on fears and apprehensions that are prevailing so widely at this time.

Currently, it is hard to stay motivated and keep investing in your marketing initiatives but perseverance can help you survive through tough times. And believe it or not, keeping your efforts on can actually give your business a competitive advantage once things are back on track. Surely, it makes sense to improve the existing rather than take the hit and trial approach with something new. So just keep going and you will surely be able to steer your business in the right direction.