Posted by COVID-19 has hit businesses hard, especially as the quarantine or sheltering in place has extended from days into months for cities, towns and states across the nation. And many businesses are currently in crisis mode, reducing costs and trying to manage and minimize their financial risk as much as possible. In managing their risk, many companies have chosen to slash their PPC budgets completely. Luckily, many companies have actually chosen to invest even more in SEO, knowing that it can help them grow their businesses right now during this economic crisis.
Companies know that it can take months or even years to see real results of their investments in SEO and content marketing, but it is crucial to invest now, so that you can see the results of your investment after the world starts getting back to normal again after COVID-19. Use the extra time you have now in quarantine or while sheltering in place to create some awesome SEO-friendly content in order to prepare for the post-COVID world.
During this guide, we will outline seven SEO quick wins or tactics that you take now during COVID-19 in order to reap real financial benefits in a post-COVID world.
SEO and Content Marketing Tactics to Take Now
While you might not be able to spend money on PPC right now, you can focus the extra time that you have to build your SEO and content marketing efforts. You can actually achieve some results quickly by focusing on improving your existing content that is already being read by existing and potential customers. Make sure to target your high traffic content in order to reap some real results fast.
Keyword research
Take a look at some of your top-performing content pieces and articles and see which keyword queries they are currently ranking for. Use data from sites like Google Trends, Google Search Console, SEMrush, Moz, Ahrefs, AlsoAsked, Scout Suggest, AnswerThePublic and QuestionDB. Collect any and all of your relevant keyword queries, see how you are currently performing in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and make sure to divide your keyword queries into queries with page one rankings, queries with page two rankings and queries that rank below page two.
Improve existing content
Focus first on your keyword queries with page one rankings. If you just make a few minor changes to your content, add the keyword queries here and there to your content, you will likely be able to move up a few spots in the rankings and possibly win a featured snippet. It is usually a little more difficult to move up in the rankings for keyword queries with page two rankings. With queries on the second page, you might need to add some additional sections to your existing content or even link to a separate page with new content. If you target these page two queries with specific content, you might be able to score a featured snippet. It also helps to add some frequently asked questions (FAQs) to your existing content.
Consolidate existing content
It might also help to analyze those keyword queries that you rank for that fall below the second page in the search engine results pages (SERPs), because the chances are that you could find some related or similar content. Consider consolidating all of the content in these related or similar pages into one long page to give your content a better chance of showing up on the first two pages of the search engine results pages (SERPs). As we all know, the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts, and this is definitely the case with SEO, especially when it comes to keyword queries in the SERPs below page two.
Write new short-form content for long-tail queries
If you found any long-tail question-like keyword queries during your keyword research with lower search volume, now is the time to write new content with these long-tail keyword queries. Even though these long-tail queries have lower search volumes, it is important to pursue them, especially if they also have pretty low competition. Write new short-form content pieces like brief blog posts and incorporate these long-tail queries in order to rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for these queries.
Implement FAQPage schema markup.
Now is the right time to get a little more creative and mark up your existing content with the schema type FAQPage, which allows you to significantly extend your snippet with the FAQ box. Google typically picks up on the implementation of the FAQPage schema markup fairly quickly, so this will affect your search engine results pages (SERPs) almost immediately. While implementing this schema markup is not too difficult, you can easily use an online tool to generate it for you if you would prefer to avoid writing the JSON-LD code on your own.
Create tools for your target audience
Consider creating tools for your target audience. For example, if you want to add the COVID-19 SpecialAnnouncement markup to your website, then you can use a schema markup generator.
Create new content that is highly relevant right now.
Create new content that is super relevant to both your target audience and the world in order to get picked up by Google and drive new traffic to your website quickly.
Invest in content that your target audience wants in a post-COVID world
If you really want to invest in your company over the long term, you need to think ahead and create content that your target audience will really want to see and read once the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis is over and things are back to a new normal. While this content might not garner you new visitors immediately, it will pay off in the long term and you will usually see some consistent growth in traffic and visitors to your website if you create and maintain the content. You will definitely see a return on investment in a year or two if you start creating this content now. Content like resource pages, tools, statistics, eBooks and glossaries usually work well in this context.
There are certainly a number of ways to make good use of the extra time that you have during the COVID-19 crisis, but make sure to first focus on the lowest hanging fruit in order to see some real results upfront, then invest in the type of long term content that your target audience will want to read in the next year or two after the pandemic is over. If you spend time and resources on this long term content, your business will definitely see success for years to come!
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