Indeed, we are living in unprecedented times with the development of the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to affect a considerable number of the world’s population. Our lives have been interrupted, and a lot of tradespeople have decided to pause operations until it’s safe to go back out there again.
Instead of not doing anything, maintaining your trade’s online presence can help it survive despite the pandemic. Here’s why you should do it:
Allows for Continuous Interaction
Even if your trade operations are on-hold due to the pandemic, maintaining an online presence is essential for your brand, especially if you plan to resume in the future. You need to stay in people’s minds, and an online presence will help you achieve that by having a well-maintained website and social media presence.
When these online platforms remain active, you have the opportunity to interact with customers. That way, you increase your chances of staying top-of-mind when they need a product or service that you offer.
Lets You Provide Updates More Efficiently
Similar to interacting with your customers face-to-face, an online presence is a great way to send updates to your customers to keep them informed. You can provide them with valuable information, such as why you have halted operations for the meantime and your plans for the future. By doing so, it allows customers to stay in the loop and be on the same page as you.
Having open channels of communication to keep your clients informed on any changes they may need to know about is crucial. As we learn new information every day, it’s vital that you continuously update your customer base.
Search Engines Are Still Watching
Search engines crawl your site regularly, and if you’ve built your website for years, suddenly turning it off could bring all your hard work crashing down. You wouldn’t want all those years of labouring to make your site stand out turn out to be all for nothing.
Besides, if you take your website offline and decide to turn it back on later, it will take some time for search engines to re-index it. You may need to do the same things you did before to get your site back on search engine results, and you might not rank so favourably this time around.
Cultivate and Nurture Leads
Use this time to cultivate and nurture leads while your trade operations are on-hold. By the time your services resume, you have more people to reach out to, which could get the ball rolling and pick up the pace that will lead to growth in a short period.
You might want to consider adding extra functionality features to your site that will help produce online quotes for the time being.
Conclusion
Maintaining an online presence during this time despite pausing operations can provide you with higher chances of surviving and recovering once you find it’s safe to open your trade again. Use this time to connect to your customer base through your online platforms, such as your website and social media accounts.
As you interact with customers, you get to identify the level of interest your brand generates during the COVID-19 crisis, which will allow you to determine the right time to re-open your brand for business. It may also help you explore other avenues to carry out your operations.
We’ll help you maintain your online presence during these trying times. Here at Shake and Speare, we specialise in websites for tradesmen. Contact us today.
