With everyone staying at home to work, it can be hard to stay productive, especially when your business has seen a lull in sales and traffic. But there are still plenty of things you can do to help your business while you practice social distancing and do your part to control the spread of the virus. While most of them won’t have an immediate impact on your business, they are a great way to utilize your time, keep you on track, and make your business appear more professional.
Work on Your Message
When I work with clients to redo their websites, often the biggest issues they have are with their content. What was once the best way to phrase something may now be irrelevant.
People no longer want to read paragraphs of fluff content, but rather be directed to the exact information they are looking for. Look at larger companies. Their content is often short, relying on intrigue to make the viewer seek the rest of the message.
Providing every detail right away often results in the viewer not becoming engaged at all since the larger amount of text seems inconvenient to read. While working on your content may seem like a daunting task, this is the perfect time to tackle it. Plus, social distancing measures have resulted in people spending much more time on computers or their phones. This is a great way to reach them.
Adapt to the Digital World
While moving your entire business to e-commerce can be a massive undertaking, there are still numerous ways to evolve your business to function better in the digital age. We just incorporated a live chat feature into our site to allow for easier communication while we aren’t in the office.
This may seem like a small step to some, but simply allowing for easier communication can make your clients feel more satisfied with their experience. I’ve also seen many local stores posting their inventory in photos or videos on Facebook, or doing mail order or drive-by pickup, to make shopping with them as convenient as possible. These practices aren’t just a great idea for people to enact while “social distancing”, but would be very beneficial to continue afterwards as well.
Browse Free Stock Photo Sites
There are plenty of resources,such as Unsplash or Pexels, that offer stock photography completely free of charge. To me, photography is usually one of the areas where small businesses come up short. While it is incredibly simple to take a photo of something, taking a great quality photo is much more of a challenge.
While many people would simply take a photo of their subject and make sure it’s in focus, there are many other things that influence how people perceive photography. The lighting style, depth of field, composition, and more all have a direct impact on the aesthetic of the photograph. Keep in mind that there are countless stock photos out there, and the pickier you are with finding the right image, the better the results. Find a photo that works for exactly what you need.
Write Some Blog Posts
Having an active blog is a great way to improve your SEO and increase traffic to your page. No one asked me to write this, but here I am, and if you’re reading this then apparently it worked. Whether your blog is a way to keep your customers updated on any current news, or if it’s just a way to share things of interest, it has the power to be a very useful tool. However, you have to make sure you update your blog regularly, or it could have some adverse effects. Look for more on this topic in a future post here.
So, while it may seem awful to be cooped up inside for the next two weeks, it has created the perfect opportunity to tackle all of the projects and tasks that we never seem to be able to make time for otherwise. Stay productive, stay inside, and help flatten the curve!
