How to take advantage of a spike or increase in website traffic during the pandemic

Have you heard? There’s a global pandemic going on 😷

We’re now several weeks in and the initial shock over COVID-19 has passed… but now we’re faced with this “new normal” situation and everyone’s doing their best to figure out how to ride it out… and even make the most of it. Some even find themselves in the unexpected position to thrive!

Day to day life as we knew it is on hold and this pandemic has changed EVERYTHING for who knows how long. It’s an upheaval for everyone’s personal life but it also has direct implications on business, work, and finances too.

Everyone is at home, mostly indoors, and social distancing is in full swing. All I can say is thank goodness that spring is in the air and the flowers are starting to pop!

We’ve also seen a complete disruption of digital behaviour and the craziest thing is that it pretty much happened over night back in mid-March 2020! We’re all spending an insane amount of time online, basically glued to our screens, phones, laptops and TVs …. but not always in the ways that you might expect.

This situation means different things for different people, brands and businesses - and yes, that means your website and it’s traffic are going to look different from what you’re used to.

News flash: the pandemic has brought about a massive change in consumer habits and purchasing priorities, and that is seen especially clearly with people’s internet habits and what’s going on online.

For some industries and niches, the pandemic has brought a significant drop in website traffic and business. They’re taking a beating and every day is a struggle to stay afloat and figure out the best way to keep the lights on without going under. A drop in website traffic isn’t just a blow to the ego - it has a real impact on a business’s bottom line which affects real people and their families.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom for everyone!

This global pandemic has been a blessing and business for many industries and they’ve actually found that business is booming and better than ever!

You might have unexpectedly found yourself in this joyous situation and maybe you’re like, wow ok website traffic has spiked or majorly increase and business is thriving as a results! If you have, that’s awesome and I hope that you are able to make the most of this truly insane situation! I’m here to help you out as best as I can and share my tips and recommendations for fully taking advantage of this positive change in website traffic - for however long it lasts.

In this blog post, we’re going to go over what to do if your website’s traffic has spiked or increased because of COVID-19.

Whether you’re an independent content creator/blogger, a small business or brand, or a bigger company, I want you to take a step back and look at this increase in traffic & business with clear eyes and your head on straight. Now is your time to shine and truly hit the ground running so that you can make the most of this boom.

After you’ve read this post, I want you to feel like you have a plan and actionable steps that you can follow to max out your situation, and hopefully keep riding that higher website traffic and set your business up for future success.

Updating your website during the COVID-19 pandemic

Let’s cut right to the chase: we’re several weeks into the COVID-19 global pandemic and sh*t’s getting real.

These are absolutely wild and crazy times and I often catch myself thinking, what in the actual heck is going on right now?!?!?!?!?

We’ve never experienced anything like this - the whole Corona virus situation and it’s impact on the world is truly unprecedented.

Personally, I feel like I’m stuck on an emotional rollercoaster and I don’t know when it’ll end. Some days are great, I feel high vibe and excited about work…. whereas other days are a struggle because I get so caught up in the hardships and challenges we’re facing collectively.

That being said, now more than ever I want to SHOW UP and YOU in any way that I can! Whether that’s my audience of casual blog readers, my amazing newsletter community or my beloved clients & customers, I am here to help you as best as I can.

My area of expertise is obviously Squarespace web design/development and Squarespace SEO, so that’s what I’m going to go over here today.

My inbox has BLOWN UP over the past few weeks with panicked questions from people who need help with their websites now. Many businesses are moving online (no easy task), and everyone is looking for help updating website content, collecting orders, setting up email newsletters to communicate with clients & customers, ramping up SEO... it’s a lot!

In this blog post, I’m going to share actionable updates you can make TODAY to your website to make sure that you’re totally covered during the COVID-19 pandemic. I will use lots of Squarespace-specific tips/recommendations but even if your website runs on another platform, I know you will still find these instructions helpful!

Does changing a Squarespace blog post's publication date affect SEO?

“If you update an old blog post, should you change the ‘published date’? Are there any SEO benefits for doing this?”

This is a question that came up recently during a Squarespace SEO Audit & Consulting client meeting and I figured since this topic has come up before, it’s worth creating a blog post about it to help out the rest of my audience - that would be YOU, my lovely little website & SEO nerds :)

When it comes to SEO and ranking high for your desired keywords/key terms, we can all agree that Google (and other search engines) favour both new AND refreshed/updated content. This is pretty much true across the board.

If we think back to the very basics of SEO and how Google decides what content to return in search results, it always comes back to the best and highest quality content on the internet.

Whether we’re talking about a web page, a blog post, a product description - whatever, really - the principle remains the same.

If you want your website to rank well for your desired keywords, then it’s a good idea to regularly publish new content on your website/blog. But at the same time, you also want to go back & revisit old blog posts to update them and make sure that the content is as valuable, current and up to date as possible.

This is something I’ve been focusing on recently, here on my own website and blog. Personally, I’ve been going back and updating & improving old posts on my blog and wow, there’s no denying that I’ve already seen major SEO benefits! We’re talking an increase in website traffic, better opt-in rates for my newsletter and freebies, content that ranks higher for my desired keywords, etc. It’s a lot of work but I can already see the impact it’s having so I’m going to stick with it!

But today we’re focusing specifically on BLOGGING - the relationship between blog post publication dates on Squarespace websites and SEO.

And this is perfect because the topic is timely for my own website’s SEO efforts, and it was also a client question during a consulting meeting! Hopefully this post will help out anyone who might be wondering the same thing.

I’m answering this question with a lot of detail here in this post but we’re going to look at two things:

Whether or not there’s any SEO impact/benefits that comes from changing a blog post’s publication date
Instructions on how to actually change the blog post’s publication date.

So let’s take a look, shall we?

Here's why every services based business needs an SEO strategy

Websites aren’t a “one size fits all” type of thing. Depending on what type of website you have, your needs and priorities are going to be totally different. Think about a lifestyle blog vs an e-commerce company vs a services based business… they all have websites but each one is going to look and feel unique.

Most of my clients are services-based business owners. I’d say about half of them run their businesses entirely online and rarely work with in-person clients, whereas the other half serve local clients and rely on their website to serve as their “online home”.

In both cases, these services-based business use their websites as a way to connect with their (potential, current and past) clients and customers, and promote their offerings online.

Services based businesses serve a whole variety of industries - we’re talking law firms, accountants, engineers, plumbers, florists, personal trainers, coaches, photographers, consultants, PR pros, social media managers, graphic designers, gardeners, dog walkers, psychics, bakeries, physiotherapists - you name it, the list goes on.

Some of these services must be performed in person (e.g., dog walkers, massage therapists, gardeners, etc.) but others can be done either in-person OR online/remotely (e.g., consultants, personal trainers, graphic designers, etc.).

Services based businesses can be one-off projects or ongoing, recurring services…. really, the sky’s the limit and there’s a huge amount of flexibility in services-based business models!

Almost all services based businesses, however, have a website. At this point, it’s pretty much a requirement because hardly anyone (except your granny) is going old school and looking up businesses in a physical phone book. Yes, we still rely on word of mouth and recommendations from our friends and family, but the trend is increasingly to connect with businesses online. More often than not, we check out a business’ website and then get in touch if we want to work with them.

But having a website doesn’t guarantee that potential clients and customers will find out about your business- far from it, in fact. All websites are not created equally!

That’s where SEO comes it - SEO can act as the perfect bridge between a website (think: business) and an online audience (think: future clients/customers).

I truly believe that every services based business needs an SEO strategy. Not only can SEO help grow your website, it also connects you to a much wider online audience who can potentially become paying clients and customers. Which, if you’re running a services based business, is the ultimate goal!

Today we’re going to cover the most important reasons why every services based business needs an SEO strategy, whether that website is on Squarespace or another platform.

squarespace seo checklist

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squarespace seo checklist

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