Why do CMOs love SEO today?

Unlike past times, CMO’s have a unique challenge on their hand today. They must ensure their business responds well to a crisis like COVID-19, as it can have a long-lasting impact on its brand image. And suddenly, the favorite marketing channels of CMOs are not producing the desired results while the supporting marketing channels have turned out to be the superheroes.

“Make the most of today and plan for tomorrow” is what every CMO would want to do always, but currently in this #stayathome and #flattenthecurve world, a lot of CMO’s are looking at SEO Services with pleasing eyes.

As every business is working to remain relevant for its target customers through this pandemic, maintaining a strong digital presence through SEO & content marketing has turned out to be the most critical step. As customers are increasingly shifting their buying activities towards online options, brands must be present for these consumers.

Online searches on Google is keep growing since Jan’20 i.e. after COVID 19

Role of SEO

SEO enables you to stay visible! It is a tested branding tool, and in times of a pandemic, the trick is to know how to generate maximum ROI through your marketing efforts.

Source: Search Engine Journal

People may currently have no use for your product or services as they are worried about their jobs, survival, and trying to keep themselves healthy. But, that does not mean they are offline!

They are quarantined in their house and are searching for different things related to COVID-19 and product & services that can make their life easy during this pandemic. In this scenario, you can tweak your content so that your brand continues to appear in the search result.

Whether you are heading marketing for an industry that is booming today like food & beverages, healthcare, you may already be on top of the mind for many people. However, SEO will still help you get that edge over your competitors. Even if you are marketing for a company is not so strong vertical, SEO can still help you to maintain top of the mind awareness that will become an asset once the storm blows over.

Remember, out of sight, results in being out of mind! So, if people do not see you in search results, they’ll forget about you. Thus, this risk can be mitigated by using SEO.

SEO & Flourishing Verticals

• Fast and Interactive Website: During lockdown time, the online search in Google surge. User searches for the products/services, and it is crucial that your website not only rank but also respond to the user quickly with the correct information.

According to research, if your website is opening within 3 sec, it means you are 50% faster than your competitors.

CMO must ensure its website should load quickly and respond to the user per the request. Read more about how to increase the page load speed.

• Be Omni-Present: AdWords no longer is the only channel that a CMO can depend on. Being present in the top positions for the most important business keywords is the key to get the highest ROI. Local SEO is the best and most economical digital channel for local businesses like Movers and Packers, Dental Clinic, Lawyers, etc. As per the research, 46% of Google searches are looking for local information. There are some other interesting local SEO facts that you should know.

• Competitive advantage: The competition is likely to take their foot off the pedal. Since people are locked up in their homes, it might make the competitors believe that they have no good reason to push their SEO strategies. However, Google does not stop working; people are still searching, and Google is ranking. So, this is the best time for CMOs to focus on their SEO strategies and get a better ranking. Since competition to be noticed is reduced, in some niches, you may even find you are the only one still active. There are few excellent tools such as Moz, Similar Website, Ahrefs that you can use to track your competitor’s performance.

SEO & Non-Flourishing Verticals

• SEO done now is a seed for the future! -SEO is characteristically a long term strategy. What you do today will bear fruits much later in the future. Since this pandemic has no expiry date, it makes sense to focus more on the long term strategy so that once this situation is over, you are ready to serve your customers.

• Advantage of Local SEO – The fact is, not everyone is strapped for cash, most people have money but would instead not go out to spend it. So, here local SEO will help them to find businesses that can serve their needs within their local area. So, if you ignore SEO, you won’t be able to find these people, which will be revenue missed.

• Content takes time! – A full-fledged end to end content audit can be time-consuming. You can surely have a mini-review done wherein you can go through the content online and use SEO analytics to see how specific content is performing. This is the best time to evaluate each piece of content and analyse its performance in terms of visitor traction and conversion rate. Thus, you can get them rewritten and updated with the latest facts and information.

Ending Note

The world economy is affected by this pandemic, but it is a temporary phase. So, being prepared today can be helpful in pushing the situation forward at the right time. And SEO strategies can help you to take advantage of the market in this new normal and prepare for a better future!