The past few weeks have been quite tough for the whole world. A vast majority of the world today is working from home. A lot have also been practicing social distancing with their family, friends, roommates and other loved ones, and have also been working on many solutions for their business.
A lot of people have made many drastic decisions recently. They have been feeling stressed, uneasy and even lost. Governments around the world have announced closures of non-essential businesses for the time being until the outbreak is fixed.
For many business owners, this is heartbreaking regardless of the obvious necessary measures needed to tackle the pandemic from a public health perspective. A lot of businesses closed earlier in March to prevent the virus from spreading and to protect both employees & customers.
digital marketing agency Toronto + productivity planner
As of now, everyone is not only familiar but has also been exhausted by the consequences of this global pandemic. We should not dwell on the pain, sacrifice and uncertainty caused by the pandemic. But rather let us dive into how we can use this time to transform the business and find opportunity ahead.
As professionals working at a renown digital marketing agency Toronto, let us discuss what exactly we all can do to take our operations online, using essential tools (productivity planner among them) and offer many others advice on being sane and keeping the business afloat.
Keeping Ecommerce afloat
For those who sold items physically out of a store, they should have an eCommerce setup. Among the best options present are Shopify or WooCommerce (in case the business has a WordPress website), or they can ser up a marketplace like Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji or even Etsy.
If people can have a bit more time on their hands, then that can be helpful through writing good product descriptions or product photography. With everyone present at home, online shopping is seeing a monumental increase.
Providing services in person can help, like yoga classes at a studio, running online classes through Zoom or even doing things on Instagram Live. Promoting these activities on social media can help gain visibility. Artists in fact can include online masterclasses or webinars.
For other small businesses, many can provide consulting and can even share their expertise virtually online. It should be kept in mind that some people might be struggling financially so if online classes are being provided, a donation-based practice is a good idea.
Those who are using PayPal, Venmo or other money transfer applications need to be sure that they read any fine print to see what percentage of their income is being charged and taken.
The Website
Speaking of websites, when people go online to find one, how does the website hold up? How user friendly is the website? Does the website work on mobile? Mobile browsing is going to spike upwards as a lot of people are at home and are spending more time on their phones.
Websites should have intuitive pages that are easy to navigate with information that is easy to find. Other things worth considering are testing the contact page forms to ensure the funnel works smoothly. When the business receives requests for information, it must be ensured that there is sufficient content on all pages to provide users necessary information.
It is also necessary to double check a website’s responsiveness and friendliness on mobile in order to convince users and convert them. Testing is a must and businesses should often do this from the perspective of users. Where will the user click? This is what they need to determine in order to keep the website running.
What information does the business need? This should be determined by the business as well. The businesses need to have extra time in order to write additional content supplementing each page and even expanding the portfolio collection of product and service photographs.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Speaking of user experience and testing, SEO should be properly set for the website and its eCommerce side. This is a good time to go through the Google Search Console and Google Analytics to se what customers search for when they find the website and how it is performing.
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