The Five-Step Guide to Reopening Your Local Business During Covid-19

As lockdown measures begin to ease, many businesses across the US and globally are being allowed to reopen. While this is welcome news for business owners, the world has changed. Companies will be reopening to a climate where strict health measures are in place, and most transactions are taking place online.

The upcoming reopening period will be unlike anything we’ve seen since the Spanish Flu. According to a report by PwC, 54% of business owners reported that the pandemic has negatively impacted their business:

Covid-19 impact on local businesses

Source: Facility Executive

Similarly, BrightLocal’s study on how local marketers are dealing with the business consequences of Covid-19 showed that 35% of marketers were losing customers and 27% were temporarily closing.

How local businesses are handling covid-19

This is hardly surprising when you consider the sharp rise in unemployment rates, meaning services are less in demand than ever.

Luck and hard work alone will not be enough to keep your business afloat in the new normal. You’ll need to be smart and strategic about reopening. Here are five steps to consider as you set about reopening your company for business. 

1. Track your position vs search volume 

While businesses are beginning to reopen, people are still encouraged to stay at home as much as possible. Therefore, your online presence will be more critical than ever.

Since the start of the global outbreak, search results have seen huge fluctuations. Some industries have seen a huge dip in traffic. Travel is an obvious example, but it’s not the only industry by any means. This decrease in search traffic most often correlates with a significant loss of revenue.

Search volume results

For businesses impacted by this sudden loss of revenue, it’s clearly been a challenge. 

However, from an SEO perspective, a drop in traffic isn’t always caused by a drop in demand from consumers. For example, a Google update, like we saw in May, can have a massive impact on how SERPs are decided. 

To determine whether you have an SEO issue or a demand issue, you need to compare your traffic figures with search volume trends. If the trends are similar, the problem is a lack of demand for your product or service. If not, the problem is with your SEO strategy.

Google Analytics traffic

As you prepare your business for the “new normal,†it’s important to track any upswing in traffic against search rankings. An uplift will be indicative of interest in your field from potential customers increasing.

A careful analysis of these search trends is one of two things you need to be tracking. However, this is only the beginning of the story.

2. Plan your marketing budget according to conversion rates

If you’re one of the millions of business owners who have lost money due to the pandemic, you’ll need to budget strategically to survive. Marketing is critical, but you must be wise about how you spend..



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