If you do anything now, DON’T stop SEO

It’s always bothered me that one of the first things to get cut during any kind of financial or worldwide crisis is marketing.

Of all the budgets you need to maintain - and, if anything, invest more in - when things get rough, marketing should be top of the list.

Why? Because now, more than ever, you need to make your voice heard. You need to demonstrate to existing customers that you care about their welfare. You need to continue promoting the value you can offer potential customers without being opportunistic. You need to ensure your brand’s voice develops considerately and in line with the market’s rapidly evolving expectations.

You can’t do any of that without great marketing.

The same goes for search engine optimisation. In fact, I’m going to put my head above the parapet now and suggest that you should continue to spend on SEO during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here’s why.

SEO will continue to produce leads

It really will - even when things are so uncertain and completely otherworldly.

Your business needs to carry on building its pipeline during this crisis, and that means it needs to generate demand.

If you’ve been investing wisely in SEO and have leaned on the services of those more experienced in that field than yourself, you’re already onto a good thing - trust me.

Search engine optimisation at its best will keep topping up your lead funnel, even if those leads aren’t currently ready to commit. Turn that tap off, and you’ll be left high and dry when we emerge from the other side of this episode.

People may still need you

It’s easy to assume that your market is currently on hold while we battle against the coronavirus, but the opposite could be true.

Check out car rental firm Thrifty, for instance, who realised that the pandemic presented a unique business opportunity that would also assist another industry - namely, rental cars for food delivery drivers.

Who knows what new business opportunities your company might discover right now? Tweaking the search terms and keywords you’re using and exploring new avenues for business is what SEO is all about.

Everyone is online

What are people doing while on lockdown and furlough? They’re hitting the internet - big time.

This is benefitting some industries massively. For instance, online gaming service provider, Steam, has already recorded the largest number of users ever on its platform during the pandemic.

Your would-be customers are probably online now. What SEO efforts are you currently undertaking to capture their attention?

Your goods or services may soon be hard to find

Scarcity forces people to search Google. If someone wants something but they know that it’s in short supply, they’ll likely spend more time digging into the world’s most important search engine than normal.

Ask yourself this: is your product or service something that’s likely to be scarce after the pandemic? If so, you can start working now to capitalise on search terms that will probably be in high demand in the not too distant future.

Search engine optimisation is a long-term strategy. That means you need to start to work well in advance if you want to experience the benefits. And what better time than to do that now, when things are quiet?

If you can anticipate future demand based on scarcity, you’ll avoid missing the opportunity to grab it - if you start the SEO work required today.

Final thought: the good times really will return

This has become a bit of a cliché now, but it’s true; things really will get back to normal at some point.

Granted, it’s going to take some time, and ‘normal’ might be very different on the other side of COVID-19. But return it will, and SEO is one of the key marketing elements that’ll ensure you emerge ready to pick up where you left off.

So… hands up if you’re still going to cut the marketing budget?