The ongoing situation surrounding the Coronavirus has meant that many business owners have had a little more time on their hands than they’d usually expect at this time of the year. No matter what industry you’re working in, or whether you’re able to continue your business operations through this period, there are still a number of actions you can be taking online.  Acting now will ultimately mean that your digital presence is stronger and healthier – ready for any upturn in trade when it comes.

We know that this is a difficult time for many of the great businesses that surround us here in the South West, so we’re trying our best to point you in the right direction with some free digital tips and guide you on your way.

Here are four things you can do which will stand you in good stead for months to come…

Start adding content to your website

The more content you have, the more key phrases your website will rank for.  Whilst that’s probably an over-simplification, the essence of that statement does stand true.  If you think of your website going through an imaginary Google mangle – just like clothes used to before washing machines – the more pages that are in your site, the more key phrases Google is able to eek out of it.

So what you ideally need to be doing is adding to your blog / news section on a regular basis. Each time you do this you need to think of two things:

1. Is this going to be interesting to someone visiting my site? If the answer to this is no, then re-think your subject!
2. What is that person going to be searching for in order to find it?

Once we have these two things we write our blog. When we’re writing we forget about Google for a moment – this is for the person that is going to read it. Keep it nice and snappy, not too long – think at every stage, ‘does this paragraph add anything’.

Once you’re done we’re going to fill the ‘SEO Title’ box in with what you think they’re going to search for (if you use WordPress there should be a field labelled ‘SEO Title’ in your admin – any other CMS it is usually called this or ‘Meta Title’!).

An example of doing this

It’s easy to tell you – but is it easy to do? A year or so ago we decided we’d show how easy this really is. With that in mind we wrote an article on ‘dog friendly walks in rural Devon’.

If we have a Google of this phrase we are ranked one:

This brings 1,000 visitors a year to our website. Not necessarily our target market, but a good example of this working!

Clear out your email database with disengaged emails

GDPR! Remember that? It doesn’t seem long ago that email inboxes were all about data compliance does it! One positive that did come from this is that the majority of businesses cut down their email databases. Why do I think that’s a positive? Because the average open rate on emails is around 30% at best. This means that you pay 100% to engage with 30%.

Put it this way – if I told you that anyone that hasn’t engaged with an email for a 18 months is highly unlikely to going forward, would you believe me? If you don’t, the the statistics back me up – those that don’t engage with 5 or more emails in a row very rarely engage with any in the future. They are dormant.

This means that they make up part of the 70% you pay for every time you spend.  So what I suggest is that you take some time to have a look at who hasn’t opened one of your emails in the past year (depending on the frequency which which you send).

Take that list and then stop sending to them.

You’ll save money and you’ll increase your engagement figures at the same time.

While you’re in there – add a menu and link your images

Whilst I’m on the subject of emails, it might be time to update your template! If you receive our email newsletters, you’ll notice that they include a menu at the top and that all of the images are linked to an article. Coincidence? Absolutely not – these two things usually make up in the region of 40% of the clicks in our e-shots.

So if you don’t have either, how does a lot more clicks the next time you send sound?

Sounds pretty good to us too! Add them in and see!

Increase engagement on Facebook

The initial reaction to social media at a time like this is to cut it back or stop it all together. This is going one of two ways for businesses; the ones that are actively driving their social media are expanding their presence, reach and effectiveness – they’re getting stronger for the come-back. Those that have paused all together aren’t standing still, they’re actually going backwards in logical comparison.

So the first thing to say is that you should still have some social presence – if you’re not sure on tone of voice or content then feel free to ask me.

The second thing, and you’ll have definitely have heard me say this if you’ve been to an event I’ve spoken at is, add more than five images to your Facebook posts. On every single account we’ve ever managed, this does significantly increase the amount of engagement a post gets. The reason for this is that more than five photos turns your post into a gallery.  We’re all human and we all like clicking things – call it curiosity if you like!

So if you’re not already, start adding more photos to your Facebook post. It not only works from a clickable standpoint, it also works from the angle that different people like different images, so you’re also catering for everybody!

Winner, winner!

That’s it for now – stay happy, healthy and positive! We’ll get there!

Mark