We’re living through some uncertain times

Businesses, individuals, and communities have taken preventive measures to slow the spread of infection. There’s almost no industry that this pandemic hasn’t touched, which has left many people wondering what steps to take and what the business landscape will look like after COVID-19.

We’ve noticed that the “digital shift” is widespread. More of us are working, ordering food, doing our banking, and looking for products, services, and information online. Many of our clients have had to change their day-to-day operations by working remotely with their teams and finding new ways to stay connected to their customers.

Don’t let your customers forget about you during a crisis

Although we can all see customers tightening their wallets, people still need products and services. Even if there’s a “pull back” in the economy, it’s still important to stay relevant online; your customers need to know that you’re there for them during this crisis (they’ll be much more likely to come to you when the crisis is over).

Thinking long term pays off

While there’s a temptation to pull back everywhere, we would like to encourage our clients to take a long-term view of their advertising efforts. What does that mean?

• Think about brand loyalty/brand awareness while others are pulling back. Taking the right steps with your online advertising will help your business gain market share during this crisis. We came across a few case studies of companies who advertised during a crisis in the past and saw a significant increase in market share for years to come.

Here are a few examples of companies that increased their market share by advertising during a crisis:

• During the 1990-91 recession, McDonald's decided to drop their advertising and promotion budget. Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell continued to roll out their ads and, as a result, increased their sales by 61% and 40% respectively. Meanwhile, McDonald's saw a 28% drop in sales during the same period.
• During the 2009 “great recession” Amazon continued its advertising efforts. This led to a 28% growth in their sales during that time and it helped them increase market share.
• During the Great Depression, multinational cereal company Kellogg's doubled its advertising budget, while its rival, Post, cut theirs entirely. Kellogg's profits grew by 30% during this time, and they became the leader in the dry cereal category. Kellogg’s has since maintained its position as the leader in their category for decades.

• Engage long-term advertising strategies (working on your business, not in it).
• Pave the way to long-term digital success with SEO.
  • Since great SEO results don’t happen overnight, understanding the different keyword groups you’re targeting (and the way your key landing pages are structured) is very important. As a business owner, you may see new opportunities on the horizon. During the shift towards digital, your SEO provider needs to see that vision and help you pivot your SEO strategy to accomplish those goals.
• Getting key landing pages written, designed, and programmed (while you have some time on your hands).
• When the economy is booming, many business owners simply don’t have time to take a step back and think about their key landing pages and the messaging they want to put in front of their customers. Businesses that engage with their agency regularly (whether through monthly phone calls or by reviewing and responding to SEO reports) will come out on top. Companies that pull back and wait for things to get back to normal will more than likely fall behind.
• Many believe that the economy will kick in quite quickly after restrictions start to loosen, so make time to adapt your business to the digital shift before you get too busy again.
• Think about your long term investments (has your business brought better returns than the stock market?) Yes, we were in a great economy; but, chances are if you’ve been successful at generating revenue with your business, you’ve also learned to “roll with the punches” and change with the industry.
• One thing is for sure: digital is here to stay! Businesses that adapt will succeed; those that choose to scale back drastically, and hope that soon it will be "business as usual,” will fail.
  • Think of ways to help your business adapt to this new environment.
  • What will Canada look like after COVID-19?
    • We think people will continue to be more aware of hygiene as well as personal distance, and we will see a shift towards working from home in industries that can accommodate.
    • Being in touch with your clients and innovatively approaching business will be essential to gaining market share.

The Web3 Framework is a key SEO component for many of our clients

Some of our clients have reported that they get (almost daily) emails from companies saying they can improve their online presence and SEO - most businesses get solicitation calls (local and international) on a fairly regular basis. Yes, making drastic changes during a crisis is tempting but in many cases, the grass is not greener on the other side. With the Web3 Framework, we have built a backend configuration that is superior to the vast majority of WordPress configurations out there (and is purpose-built for SEO). The latest version of our framework loads in 500-900 milliseconds and has many shortcodes and SEO features built right in. Because we built our framework from the ground up, we have kept server requests extremely low (meaning we’re not using plugins all over the place, which add lots of server requests and ultimately slow down the website). Most of the websites built on our framework run under 70 requests and many run under 50 (compared to WordPress themes that often have over 200 requests).

Hosting on the Web3 Framework has its perks!

Websites that run on the Web3 Framework consistently perform better on search engines. Although we’re proud of the results that our Framework has helped deliver, we are also constantly working to improve and expand it. Since we’ve built a pretty extensive codebase over the years, we are able to help clients expand their websites quickly and efficiently (with clean code for SEO). Naturally, since the Web3 Framework places a big emphasis on SEO, all of the additional puzzle pieces that we add to our clients’ websites run just as fast as the rest of the Framework. WordPress gives our clients flexibility, but the Web3 Framework gives them the edge in a world consistently moving towards digital.