SEO strategy can be substantially affected by local and/or world events. Depending on the details and the ways in which your company adapts to circumstances, these effects can last for a few weeks or for the life of your business.
The coronavirus pandemic has had a tremendous impact on many businesses throughout the country and the world. Among those that are still operating amidst social distancing, many have been forced to shift the focus of their marketing. And any such realignment is sure to necessitate a new SEO strategy.
As one obvious example, restaurants that ordinarily emphasize fine dining and atmosphere will not be able to benefit from related keywords for the foreseeable future. Their new SEO strategy may attempt to capture take-out or delivery-related keywords, instead. But of course this will be difficult on such short notice, unless they’re offering a variety of take-out that can’t already be found in their local market.
This just highlights an issue of SEO strategy that will remain relevant long after the pandemic subsides and life returns to normal. For any given shift in marketing, part of the challenge is finding search terms that familiar enough to attract a large audience but still unique enough to let your business stand out.
Additionally, the current situation reminds us that no matter how carefully you’ve chosen your SEO strategy, certain keywords could lose their effectiveness with little warning. Therefore, it’s essential to diversify your optimization to whatever extent is feasible. This goes for your overall digital marketing strategy as well. It’s dangerous to make your business entirely dependent on one feature that could be weakened by factors outside of your control.
This is well-illustrated by the above example of a fine dining establishment. No matter how much your target audience might be attracted to the idea of an upscale atmosphere, you’re wasting a lot of marketing potential if that’s your sole focus.
It should go without saying that the quality of the food, the professionalism or the staff, and the restaurant’s role in the local community are all important selling points. Some potential customers will respond better to these, and will be more likely to find the company’s website via an alternative SEO strategy. And the prior effectiveness of that strategy will help to buttress the site’s traffic at a time when in-house dining has stopped but the business is still operating.
This particular example might seem unique to the coronavirus pandemic. And with any luck, we’ll never see another set of circumstances quite like it. But there are general lessons to be taken from such examples, and it might be wise for you to look on the current situation as an opportunity to test the resiliency of your digital marketing and SEO strategy.
