Houston voices
Houston expert: How the pandemic has changed SEO
If you're stranded on an island, it's probably not smart to go into hiding and just hope someone finds you. You're better off dedicating your time to making a fire, spelling HELP with logs, or sharpening your hunting skills. During this pandemic, it would best serve your company's future to dedicate your time honing your SEO skills and tracking SEO changes.
"Nobody is going to come and save your business during the national crisis. You're going to have to do it yourself. And focusing on strengthening something as vital as SEO is one big way to keep your company alive while we await a return to normalcy that may never come," says Omi Sido, SEO manager for Canon Canada. Canon is the famous camera company.
Key words are key
During the pandemic and various state shutdowns, many companies have opted to cut their SEO budgets in order to save money. While cutting costs during a national emergency is smart, maybe SEO cost cutting isn't the way to go. Investing in keyword research is vital to the success of any company in 2020.
"Keyword research helps you stay abreast of the ever-changing search habits of people in your space. These habits might change during a crisis and you need to be aware of just how they've changed," Sido says.
"If things go back to normal, you don't want any surprises as to how different your customer base is. You want to have anticipated it."
Behavioral changes
As mentioned above, people change their dispositions and behavior during crises.
"Customer spend differently than they used to. They eat differently. The even browse differently. Some things are less important to them and some things are more important to them. That makes sense. After this pandemic runs its course, investing in emergency kits, face masks, generators, etc. will prove more important than it was a year ago," explains Brian Wood, the former SEO manager for Wayfair.
With SEO research, you can see the changes in real time. You can see how webpages on your site are visited more or less frequently. Which products are people showing more or less interest in. According to Wood, you should certainly take note of which pages people are visiting more and which they're visiting less. This will help you anticipate which changes to expect when things reopen more.
Track algorithmic changes
Search engines like Google will most certainly change the way they crawl the web during the pandemic and after. That's a given. If people change their habits, spending patterns and value certain things differently during a crisis, then it only makes sense search engines will want to keep up with those changes. So these search engines will change accordingly. It's up to you to track those changes and keep your website up to date with the latest algorithmic tune-ups.
The pandemic has surely impacted small businesses like an asteroid. Just remember that "the same tenacity and perseverance that got you to where you are today as an entrepreneur, that's the same fountain you'll have to drink from to get your company through this national crisis," Wood says.
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This article originally appeared on the University of Houston's The Big Idea. Rene Cantu, the author of this piece, is the writer and editor at UH Division of Research.