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Coronavirus has not only left individuals and families worried about their financial futures and employment statuses; small and large businesses are feeling the money pinch at the moment as well, with many of them cutting running expenses wherever possible – including their digital marketing budget.

While it may be necessary for businesses to cut or even eliminate some expenses during this challenging time, this doesn’t mean that your marketing efforts need to be halted. In fact, now is the time for you to ramp up your online marketing as much as possible and the 10 tips below will help ensure that your business remains visible online during these challenging times.

Make it Easy for Clients to Find you Online

The days of searching through the Yellow Pages to find contact details for a business are long gone, with more individuals than ever before searching online for the products and services they require. As such, this is the time to ensure that it is as easy as possible for potential clients to connect with you.

If your business has little to no online presence, now is the time to rectify that by having a professional website set up and establishing the relevant social media profiles.

2. Engage and Connect with Clients via Social Media

Many business owners think that simply having social media profiles set up will be enough to help their marketing efforts. However, social media has become more popular than ever because of families living under lockdown – in many cases, this is the only source of news and information that some individuals have.

As such, it’s crucial for businesses to interact with their followers on social media. Creating polls or even just sharing an inspirational post can be highly effective – especially when people have more free time on their hands.

3. Keep Ahead of Competitors

While so many businesses remain closed, many owners and managers tend to forget about their digital marketing. However, this is in fact the ideal time to ensure that your company’s website is not only up to date with the latest security features; it’s crucial to check that product and service offerings, as well as contact details are correct. Doing this will put your business ahead of several competitors.

4. Local SEO is More Important than Ever

With more individuals than ever before shopping as close to home as possible, ensuring that local SEO is active on your website is crucial. After all, you’d like to do everything possible to attract clients in your geo region.

Although Google My Business (GMB) is not currently publishing online reviews, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t still try and submit any. In fact, submitting reviews at this time could enable them to be published as soon as GMB returns to normal operation.

5. Improve your Online Presence

Even if your business already has an online presence, there is virtually always room for improvement in this regard. For instance, if you sell a wide range of essential and luxury items, now will be the time to market more of the essentials and fewer luxuries. Many consumers will only be purchasing essential at the moment due to cash constraints, so making these items as easy as possible to find on your website will help boost sales.

6. Start a Blog

Incorporating a blog into your existing company website can help drive additional traffic. However, it’s no longer good enough to simply slap up a few posts that have been stuffed with relevant keywords. Website visitors expect to learn something new when visiting your company blog, so ensure that you hire experienced and competent writers.

7. Don’t Underestimate Video Marketing

More than 75% of internet traffic consists of video content these days, meaning that your business could be losing out on valuable online exposure if you haven’t incorporated videos into your online marketing strategy yet.

Even a few short videos explaining your product and service offerings will go a long way to boost your company’s online presence. Over time, it may even be possible to monetize your videos on YouTube.

8. Respond to Online Reviews

These days, online reviews play a huge part in marketing your business because several individuals rely on them to obtain information before making purchases. By actively responding to online reviews that have been left for your business, you’ll show new and existing clients that you care. Keep in mind that any responses to negative reviews should be kept strictly professional.

9. Use Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

While more people aren’t working because of lockdown restrictions, it provides business owners with an ideal opportunity to use PPC advertising.

Although you will have to make a small investment to use PPC advertising, you’ll still be able to control your marketing budget and get the word out about your business while many others have temporarily ceased their marketing efforts.

10. Finish your Digital To-do List

If you’re not commuting to and from the office at the moment, chances are that you may have a little more free time on your hands than normal. Instead of wasting it by zoning out in front of the TV, use this time to see if any potential marketing opportunities have perhaps fallen by the wayside during the busier times.

For example, your website may be in desperate need of a makeover, but you might have been hesitant to have it offline while this takes place. However, now will be the ideal time to have this service performed so that your site can be ready to serve your clients as soon as you reopen.

Another option here is to have a conversion rate optimization audit performed on your website. This will help ensure that calls to action (CTAs) are doing their job of converting site visitors to paying clients.

Although trying to incorporate all of the abovementioned strategies into your company’s website and marketing strategies may seem overwhelming, this need not be the case. If you’d like to give your company website the online edge during this time, contact our experts today.