In this week’s episode, we talk about what you should do if your business is affected by the new round of COVID lockdowns. As the virus is surging in many areas across the country, many areas are increasing restrictions and returning to strict lockdowns. We’re heading into the holiday season, so it’s more important than ever to maintain your visibility online, so we share a few quick tips to ensure your business will be visible and attract customers.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to another episode of Local Search Tuesdays… We’re heading into winter, and COVID is exploding again, so this week, we’re going to talk about what you should be doing on your website and GMB if you’re in an area that’s shutting down again.

So it’s November now, and we’d usually be talking about holiday shopping and prepping for winter… but instead, we’re looking at the return of lockdowns because of surging COVID outbreaks across the country.

And hey, today’s election day, and we’re all stressed out – so I’m going to keep this one short and sweet.

Yeah, more lockdowns are a beatdown, but we made it this far, so we can use what we learned in the spring to help make it a bit easier to get through this new round of lockdowns.

Most importantly – unless your business is completely closed, you don’t want to cut any digital marketing dollars. COVID has changed consumer behavior at a fundamental level, and now more than ever before, every sale starts with an online search.

You have to be visible when customers are searching or you’re going to be in an even worse situation.

It’s also critical that you use your Google My Business listing to keep your potential customers updated. If you’re operating at different hours, use the “special hours” area to enter your new restricted hours. If you offer delivery or curbside pickup or senior hours, make sure you enter the available hours in the new “more hours” section under the standard hours area on your info page.

Load common questions into your Questions and Answers section and answer them – so customers can get their questions answered before calling.

Use Google Posts to let people know you’re open, or what restricted services you’re offering, or even to offer specials and discounts.

Make sure you’ve updated your website as well – you need important COVID updates displayed prominently on your home page.

If you’re running Google Ads, make sure you update your targeting and ad copy to reflect any changes in your business.

And that’s all the time we’ve got left for today’s episode – Please, if you haven’t already, get out there and vote.
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Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week for another episode of Local Search Tuesdays.

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