No one is enjoying this period of social isolation — and some people are having a truly terrible time. The extreme economic uncertainty plus the crippling fear of unknown disease has left many people both frightened and irate, and many people are turning to the web to stay informed, to see a social connection and to escape from their current realities.
It is becoming ever clearer that the businesses that will emerge on top after the pandemic are those that are able to dominate search results and social media. If your business’s SEO is continuing to give your business life, you might consider using its power for good. Here are some ways you can do good with your SEO, especially in this time of crisis.
Make Content Your Audience Needs Now
Consumers are feeling all sorts of emotions, from panicked to bored, and undoubtedly, your audience could use some content from you right now. As you likely already know, content and SEO are closely linked; typically, the better your content marketing, the more effective your SEO. Thus, if your SEO game is beating the competition, your content likely has a high degree of influence — meaning you can do good by altering what kind of content your business produces.
It might be worthwhile to invest in some basic market research to determine how your buyers are reacting to the crisis and generate the precise kind of content that will help them cope. For instance, some businesses might benefit more by producing journalism-style reports on some aspects of the crisis affecting their audience, like the spread of the disease, the availability of supplies and resources, economic activity or something else. Then again, other businesses might go more lighthearted in their content, focusing on entertaining or distracting their audience from ongoing struggles and stresses.
However, almost regardless of your audience, your content should be the following for the duration of the crisis:
Be truthful. The World Health Organization says that the world is suffering from an “infodemic,” where there is far too much information about the virus available online, and far too much of it is downright false. You shouldn’t publish anything on your website or connected to your business if you aren’t certain of its truthfulness — and you absolutely should not strive to intentionally mislead your audience in any way. Honesty is important, but you should pair it with diligence in research to ensure that your content is not only authentic but also accurate.
Be empathetic. Empathy is the ability to recognize and understand emotion in another person. You need to ensure your content is appropriately empathetic to your buyers’ current plight, or else you could lose a great swath of your audience thanks to avoidable mistakes like callousness or selfishness. In particular, you should avoid aggressive sales tactics and harsh deadlines; language like “buy right now or you’ll miss out forever!” puts additional stress on consumers, who will likely lose interest in supporting your business.
If you are struggling to understand how to modify your content strategy to address the immediate needs of your audience, it might be worthwhile to acquire experienced content marketing services. Experts will help you research your audience during this trying time and develop a content strategy that suits your current SEO and other digital marketing campaigns.
Make Content Your Audience Needs in the Future
While making COVID-related content can keep your company appropriately aware of your audience’s current circumstances, this crisis won’t last forever. Because content remains online for a long time, you want to be sure that some of the content you produce during this time will continue to be valuable to your audience even after the world returns to normal.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict with precision when the threat of coronavirus will begin to fade, let alone what your audience will demand from businesses when the pandemic has passed. Thus, you should strive to produce some evergreen content — or content that remains useful regardless of current events, seasonal issues and the like. Again, you should consider working with content marketers, who can provide examples of evergreen content that apply to your industry and audience. Ideally, you won’t produce content for the sake of producing content; rather, your evergreen content will endure as a practical resource for years to come.
Whether or not your business is struggling, it is all but guaranteed that your business’s audience is having a tough time in isolation. You can help them in one way or another by being truthful, empathetic and helpful in the content you create — and by ensuring they see that content with superior SEO skills.
