We’re all about to go through one of the most trying periods of our lives. Living in the UK, we’ve generally been shielded from most things in the big bad world, but now that relative safety seems to be slipping. I’m not saying the world is going to come to an end, or England will become an apocalyptic wasteland… it wont. But it’s going to be a difficult few months for everybody, from every race, religion, gender and nationality. We need to stick together and work towards keeping everything as close to normal as we possibly can.
Obviously the Coronavirus itself is terrifying, but equally as terrifying is how it will have an impact on the world economy, and our day to day lives, and that includes our businesses. Over the coming days, weeks and months we will need to adapt to survive the harsh business environment. So whether you’re a service-based business, a freelancer, a shop owner, a restaurant owner, a takeaway, a bar or a theatre, you will need to adapt in order to keep that money flowing in.
Now this article isn’t supposed to be all doom and gloom, but it is a very real situation that we must all face together. So in light of recent events, and future events we must all be prepared. Here’s what you can do to help your business stay afloat, or even thrive in what is going to be one of the harshest business environments of a generation.
Get that website online
If you own a business and don’t have a website, now is the time to get one. Get yourself online and push harder than you’ve ever pushed before. Your website will be your storefront, your face, your personality and it will be the second strongest driver of business, after you of course.
A website doesn’t have to be all singing, all dancing, but it should have at least a home page, about us page, at least one service or product page, and a contact page. We’re offering discounted websites in this time of trouble, get in touch to find out more.
If you’re a high street store, get yourself an e-commerce store
Arguably high street stores will be hit hardest. Footfall will reduce, and in the event of a complete lockdown and quarantine you may need to go through an extended period without your doors open at all. Now’s the time to get yourself online. An e-commerce store can be hugely valuable, allowing you to showcase your products online, as well as earn money whilst your physical store is close.
We will be offering monthly payment schemes for all e-commerce websites, to help spread the cost and get you and your business online as soon as possible!
If you’re a restaurant, offer home deliveries, take orders online
Although eat-in restaurants and takeaways are completely different eating experiences, restaurants will no doubt be one of the biggest victims in these coming months. So get ahead of the curve and set up a website with it’s own takeaway style ordering system, and offer deliveries. This may reduce your profit margin, but it’s going to keep people eating your food whilst they weather the storm, and that is more valuable than anything.
If you already have a website, and offer a service
If you already have a website and offer a service, you need to ensure you’re doing everything possible to be seen. Increase your social media output, increase online marketing (within reason, don’t blow your entire budget on Adwords within the first month), and do some SEO. If you get it right, you could be looking at a stronger, more profitable business once this all passes.
Some SEO tips!
SEO could be your biggest ally in the coming months. Being seen online could mean the difference between a client and nothing. So make sure you get it right.
- Ensure your website is not being blocked by robots.txt
- Add local schema data to your website to help google geo-locate your business
- Improve your onsite content! Add FAQs to service pages using Google Search data
- Get blogging! Get on that blog and post as often as you can
- Ensure you have SSL installed (having an SSL certificate can help improve rankings, and shows users you’re serious about security)
- Tag your content. Make sure all your meta tags are unique and well writer, add image alt and title tags to all images, improve your overall technical SEO
- Compress your images! Make sure all of your images are as light as possible so people can load the page as fast as possible without interruption.
That’s everything for now. For those that stuck with me, I will be updating this blog on a regular basis with more tips and advice to keep you running!
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at ryan@laikadigital.co.uk, or by contacting me via my Linkedin Page.
