How To SEO-urvive In Times Of Crisis

Every one of us has heard the word crisis a million times a day in the past couple of years. But where does this term come from, and what does it mean?

The word crisis comes from the ancient greek: krine in (decide), krisis (decision), and it meant to make a decision. In late Middle English, the term crisis was primarily used in the medical field to express the act of making a decision during the “decisive point” of a disease when it could have made a real difference for the patient, and that would have decree life or death.

So it’s true that in times of crisis you should be prepared and act on your business, especially when it comes to digital marketing. In times of cutbacks, you might think to tighten the knot in digital communications, but that could not be more wrong. Below we explain why NOT you should cut SEO, among the various activities in your digital marketing mix.

Stay Visible

Search engines are not affected by economic downturns. Therefore, especially in times of recessions and crises, it is important to maintain visibility.  

Investing time and resources in SEO now will create an advantage for your website that will prove successful in the long term: once search engines start to like your content, you’ll be ready to creep up and get noticed today and tomorrow.

You can leverage simple tasks to optimize your website:

• Content Optimization: run an organic traffic analysis on your website to check on your pillar themes and see which pages rank for your audience’s queries. Make sure you’re correctly interpreting today’s audience needs and implement a content revamp strategy on the content of your website.
• Performance Optimization: analyze the performance of your website and fix every issue preventing your website from being super fast and reliable. Resolving technical issues will prepare your website for when things will return to normal.
• Online Reputation Optimization: make sure everything you’re adding or revamping to your website is coherent with your business. Create your business’s digital identity by curating all the channels you’re acting on: paid search, social media, Google Business Profile…Ensure your message is perfectly understandable by your audience.

Feed Your Niche

In times of uncertainty, people tend to disbelieve, with so many ads and promotions going on…But people will always turn to search engines for answers, despite any crisis.

Your SEO strategy helps you stay consistent, as you want to appeal to the right users and be endorsed by your specific niche. 

It’s essential to analyze what your niche is searching for, intercept and answer to the user intents (like long tail keywords or People Also Ask) that are specific about your business, and hand out the most meaningful and context-rich information. We want to avoid drowning users in a sea of messages, but providing the direct answer to their questions will loyalize your audience.

Search Engines are not influenced by crisis, so the big G will always endorse good, relevant content for each search. 

Embrace Change

During economic downturns and recessions, it’s essential to adapt and be flexible. And so does your content!
SEO is flexible to your digital marketing needs and time contingencies. You might perform different SEO tasks at various stages; each will empower your brand online differently.

The best way to tackle change in your editorial strategy is to ensure your content adapts to your users’ new needs. Make sure to periodically check on the freshness and accuracy of your content by optimizing existing content and pulling content revamp activities on specific pages and articles that are the most important for your business.

• Start by analyzing the SERP for your strategic keywords.
• Perform an organic traffic analysis to assess what your users are searching for, then check whether or not you are answering their specific questions on your website.
• Check if your competitors are responding to these questions and how.
• Realize an editorial calendar for your content revamp strategy and periodically update your content.

In this way, you’ll keep your content fresh and attractive to new users willing to know more about your brand and solutions.

Take time to rewrite, and revise your pillar content to become more attractive to users and increase your rankings while preparing yourself for the new normal.

Be Authentic

SEO results take time, no change will happen overnight, and you need to use different activities to make everything work, as we have seen.

That’s why building your online authenticity and topical authority is crucial. Stay true to your brand and your users by providing contextual and complete information and good content. You can start working on your E-A-T (Expertise – Authority-Trustworthiness) to attract the attention of search engines.

The time you invest in your SEO strategy will pay off. Gaining the trust of the search engines will allow you to climb to the top of the SERP, and no other digital marketing strategy can secure your website the same relevance as when Big G decides your place is on the first page of results.

Save Money

SEO guarantees a more significant ROI in the long run compared to Paid search campaigns, not to mention a lower lead acquisition price.

If you have to cut back on your digital marketing strategy, remember that investing in SEO does not mean spending money to appear to random people who may not be interested in what you have to offer. On the contrary, you are working to get noticed by users who are already searching for your products or services. It’s free traffic, and you do not pay for any additional services to get on the first results page.

SEO is a strategic source of organic traffic from users who need your products. Content is king. Optimizing content for your user will lead to higher engagement and conversions, especially compared to your competitors, who need to invest in SEO.

Dance With The Robots

SEO can benefit from Artificial Intelligence. If you are a mid to big-sized business running an extensive website, you can leverage AI to scale your SEO strategy and achieve your business goals faster.

You can use different AI tools to:

• Analyze data
• Generate and optimize content
• Build a better user experience
• Tailor content around your audience

Understand the future of search and learn how you can build a successful Conversational AI by incorporating SEO from the start, read our article.

Conclusion

SEO activities can be absolute lifesavers for your business.

SEO has a longer-term impact on your website and provides a positive effect on your technical performance and content.

Make sure you stay visible as you prepare for the “new normal”.

Here is the presentation of Beatrice Gamba at the event “SEO e INNOVAZIONE” in Rome, where she explained why it is important to invest in SEO during an economic downturn.