The arrival of the global pandemic COVID-19 causes a majority of companies to stagger, requiring them to provide both logical and creative solutions just to survive. Fortunately, this is also the ideal time for you to focus on your website, online presence, and improve search engine rankings.

Why?

Internet usage has increased by up to 50 – 70 percent since lockdown began.

Meaning, your brand will be visible to more people and allows you to stay relevant amidst this crisis, as long as you employ the right SEO strategy.

And when you aced in improving your SEO during the pandemic, your business will be in the strongest possible position when the world returns to the new normal.

Sounds good?

Ways To Improve Search Engine Rankings During Pandemic

1. Reassessing Keyword Strategy

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a major shift in what people are searching for.

Most sectors have already taken a hit in their search engine rankings, while others have flourished.

Thus, you must be aware of what areas in your business have already declined and what can still generate interest.

Your keyword strategy should be refocused and reengage. This is to account for the relevant search terms that your audience is now searching for.

2. Include New Keywords

While you should be looking at COVID-19 related keywords now, you also need to consider what the digital landscape could look like a few months down this crisis. It is important to maintain an increased content scheduling that does not necessarily address the COVID-19 issues.

You can add some new keywords that help contribute to a stronger recovery once things return to normal.

So, get started now on targeting the new keywords with fresh content that should pay off as part of your long-term strategy to improve search engine rankings.

3. Publishing FAQs

The best way to answer questions while you improve search engine rankings?

Publishing a FAQ page on your website.

You can add these questions to your top-ranking pages to address the most common questions that your audience is asking.

You need to implement a FAQ structured data for your FAQs page to show up in search results. This makes your page more enticing to click on, and are eligible for voice search.

To create an on-page FAQ section on your site. You first need to learn Google’s guidelines to make sure that you follow the correct structure.

Then, you can use two methods to add a FAQs page:

1. By utilizing Google Tag Manager
2. By setting up JSON-LD codes

Choose the method that works best for you in terms of efficiency and skillset.

4. Optimize Voice Search

Speaking of voice search, did you know that it has grown rapidly in recent years?

A Voicebot.ai report shows that 58 percent of online adults have used voice search. Thirty-three percent of which uses voice search every month in early 2019, jumping from 25% in 2018.  

Thus, it is vital to optimizing how people ask questions when speaking into devices, in contrast to just typing out their searches.

This means that your audience will be using more long-tail keywords when doing voice searches. So, the SEO of your content should fit the more conversational tone of someone speaking.  You will want to account the traditional questions starters including what, who, why, how, where, and when.

5. Build Backlinks and Relationships

Although social distancing is one of the main keywords in this current global situation, you should not give up on networking, not with the long hours you now have in your hands.

If you are expanding your network online, do not forget about backlinking opportunities like this here. These are signals to Google that your online content is reputable and trustworthy. You can take more time to write PR or guest posts with one or more links to your site. Ask your existing or new business partners to add your site’s link to their page. This contributes to online authority and link-building.

6. Implementing a Schema

Adding a schema to your website boosts the amount of information that Google can pick up on without making it visible to the users.

In short, you can communicate more with search engines, thereby, increasing the relevance of your page in the search results.

A more recent update was the inclusion of the new schema for the COVID-related critical events and announcements for government and health agency sites. With almost a thousand types of Schema to add to your pages, this presents a huge competitive advantage.

A Milestone case study revealed that they were able to get a dramatic increase in traffic from 40 schema types as well as 130 properties and attributes.

7. Optimize For Mobile

A 2018 study by Stone Temple found that the shift to mobile is occurring faster than expected. Mobile visits to sites grew from 2016’s 57 percent to 63 percent in 2017.

Now, data from a global survey conducted in March 2020, shows that 70 percent of responding internet users were using mobile phones or smartphones more as a direct result of the COVID outbreak.

Thus, you might want to optimize your site for mobile. This makes you more appealing to users and to search engines as well.

8. Update Google My Business Listing

Recently, Google has included a few name sections in their Google My Business listing. This helps you communicate with your local clients about your company status.

So, make sure to treat your GMB profile as your site and provide as much information as possible. This extra effort will greatly complement your local SEO strategy.

The info you provide in your GMB profile gives search engines new details to include your site in both unbranded and branded searches. AS a temporary solution, Google is now allowing businesses to show their status during the pandemic.

So, if your operation hours have changed or currently offering deliveries, for instance, then you need to make adjustments on your GMB profile.

9. Publish More Video Contents

COVID-related keyword searches have also increased on YouTube. So, if you are not set on creating new blog content, then you might want to publish video-based content. You can use SEO data to find these keywords and inform your video topic.

Then, you can create the top of the funnel videos to target questions that users are looking for and leading them to your website. And you don’t need to be a professional video editor to do so. You can create informational and attractive videos using PowerPoint. To cut on costs, you can source for free PowerPoint templates as backgrounds.

10. Fix Technical Issues

Use this current downtime to improve underlying technical issues on your site. This way, you can beat out your competitors once the world sees the new normal.  

This includes improving your website’s loading time, simplifying navigation, updated content, and user experience.

Any suggestions on how to improve search engine rankings during the pandemic? Feel free to voice it out in the comment section below!