4 Strategies that SEO expert follow to build a robust Brand reputation During COVID-19

4 Strategies that SEO expert follow to build a robust Brand reputation During COVID-19
4 Strategies that SEO expert follow to build a robust Brand reputation During COVID-19

“You can’t just ‘SEO’ your website and be done. It’s a forever moving goal post.” — Stoney deGeyter

Enough said! Right? Stoney deGeyter has brilliantly explained the importance and preciseness of SEO. Many SEO experts say that it is not rocket science. Probably, this is the reason why SEO is a dynamic and ever-transforming strategy for any business. One should never give up on the SEO efforts, no matter how overwhelming the process may become. 

There are many ways consumer behavior and intents have shaped up during the prevalence of COVID 19 worldwide. The online search has seen a dramatic impact on consumer mobility, budgets, supply chains, and consumption habits of a consumer.

In the changed scenario, there is a need for the businesses to strategize marketing campaigns following the transformed patterns of the end-users.

With the onset of a global pandemic at the beginning of this year, the changing online search trends have resulted in globally organic search-driven online activity. 

Experts estimate that roughly half the online searches made, post- COVID 19, have been organic. Therefore, content marketers and SEO professionals’ opportunity is ripe for adapting to the changing trends and enhancing conversion rates for long-term gains.

More and more businesses have since adapted to the post-COVID-19 scenario and now adopting SEO techniques for being visible in online organic search. It is a viable business option, more prominent than ever before, to invest in an SEO program. The traditional ad-campaigns had their drawback of seasonal occurrences that withered away with time. But SEO is continuously on the job of creating interest and being visible online for more extended periods.

Few tips are suggested here for building a strong SEO program during COVID-19 to optimize business possibilities.

Create Trust-building Content

It is essential to understand that after the outbreak of COVID-19, the consumers are skeptical about the brands’ trustworthiness. There is a need to reassure the customers and win their confidence, as they are already vulnerable. The new campaigns now need to be reassuring and extend a message of comfort and hope.

There is a need to deliver content that is educational to win the trust of the consumers. The consumers presently are on the lookout for relevant answers to their trusted brands’ queries, endowing an opportunity for the brands to develop consumer-friendly content to satisfy their questions.

Various organizations are now focusing away from their products, directly, and offering health and health status-related information related to COVID-19. Moreover, they are also conducting studies to find out the online preferred keyword searches made to understand better and share insights and best practices for supporting the consumers.

The consumers can be earned by being transparent and supportive of their needs, which can only be acquired by meaningful content. The current scenario calls for quality content because of the following reasons:

  • Clear and crisp: It’s easy to comprehend. It is pertinent. It is written for humans but is compatible with machines as well. 
  • Enhances brand reputation: When everything else fails, rely on the content. It has the potential to change the dynamics of your website and, resultantly, your business. 
  • Proactive Web Presence

Trustworthiness in the brand is now the most important prerogative of the consumer that needs to be taken care of for optimized SEO of a brand in SERPs.

A few steps that may be adopted ensure proactive web presence are:

  • Schema Update

The product and service-related schema need to be regularly updated for a better consumer experience and earn trustworthiness. The regular update shall likewise benefit by ensuring the accuracy of the information shown by Google. In an e-commerce company, the consumers shall enrich their experience by getting the latest and real-time data, including those relating to changes made.

  • Google My Business page Updation

Google My Business page needs to be regularly updated to acquaint the consumers about a business’s operations, such as updates about operating hours and other related changes. Google also advises the companies affected by COVID-19 about using the GMB.

It advises informing consumers if the business operations are affected by COVID-19 and tells about the additional precautions being adopted by the concerned business. Local SEO experts also use Google posts for updating the consumers about the latest activities about a product or service. It also needs to be ensured that the contact details are correct and updated. Google already provided these tools, but find particular importance in the current situation.

  • Watching Google Search Console

Google Search console assists you in locating the index and crawl errors on the website. Once it crawls the website, it will display the errors your website has, and you can then work on the mistakes. It helps to solve a lot of issues that can affect the visitors on the website.

  • 3. Future Campaign Audits

It is something that most businesses do during these challenging times, and they have prepared content strategies for months. It is the time when audits and analysis become crucial for every marketer. It is imperative because most of the enterprises might have become inappropriate to users now. If businesses prepared content about “7 outfits to wear in summers”, it is irrelevant. People can’t move out, and they now want to read about content like “7 outfits for work from home meetings”, that will make more sense.

It is something that all businesses need to do. Putting out irrelevant content will annoy the audience. The main aim of SEO is expanding the online presence of the brand and preparedness for the future. It is also imperative to follow the latest modules, algorithms, and trends, but more than that, it is essential to become futuristic. Being prepared will assist in standing out from the competitors. In such scenarios posting less but relevant would help you in gaining audience engagement. The key benefits of future campaign audits are:

  • Enhances the site’s overall performance and visibility

Performing an SEO audit will raise any website issues, like increased bounce rate, low-speed, or matters associated with site-maps. It can also flag up security issues your website may be experiencing. You can quickly fix some of these issues; however, some problems take more time than expected. Don’t lose hope if you’ve made changes and seen no instant improvement — in some situations, and it can take Google days or weeks to recognize modifications. Experts suggest performing an SEO audit regularly. External changes can affect the performance of the website. Thus regular maintenance is needed.

  • Keywords analyses 

It often comes as a disclosure to the respective clients when you share which keywords are beneficial for their business. An SEO audit provides invaluable information into the organic presence of your brand in the search engines. Content optimization becomes more comfortable when you recognize the suitable keywords for your website. Perform an SEO audit to understand the rankings and variations that your target audience is using. You can then connect this skill in your SEO strategy by developing and optimizing content to fill in the gaps.

  • Constant Scrutiny

Regardless of the shape and size, every business has learned a lot from this COVID-19 led the lockdown situation. The ones who have understood the need for an hour will prepare their enterprise or business after normalizing this situation. One crucial aspect to consider is to make an approach that keeps your audience engaged until the companies meet their ‘new normal’ strategies. Feed your audience the content they want to read and also provide the products and services smartly.

It is a perfect time and situation to dive deep and understand what people will wish to most during this pandemic and how their shopping habits or behavior change. Proper and detailed SEO analyses will improve the overall visibility and performance of your website and business. Some of the other prominent benefits of constant scrutiny are:

  • Scrutinize keyword-driven content to understand and observe how it has impacted your traffic.
  • Emphasize on written content to ascertain its effect on the dedicated keyword rankings.
  • Closely analyzing the website’s load speed.
  • Perform the critical work of examining conversion rate optimization (CRO).
  • Examine the backlinks and how they are assisting your website’s page authorities.

While you may be performing analytics to look at the superior numbers for yourself, an SEO expert will pick those numbers and understand them to assist you in developing an effective SEO strategy.

Final Takeaways

It is accurate, and the right time to observe and analyze the target audience again because people are going digital faster than ever; thus, locating them has become more comfortable. There is research that supports that people during COVID-19 led lockdown prefer online services and like to respond to the online advertisements. Only one thing is considerable, quality. With high-quality, proper research, planning, and creativity, enterprises can do wonders.

There are circumstances when low-quality content can also do wonders in the presence of accurate planning and creativity, but we call it luck and consider it as bad marketing. It is crucial to gain and win the trust of the people who come across the product or brands. The audience’s confidence and faith usually translate into interest, and then it keeps on going and growing.