Is SEO your best bet to withstand the 2023 recession?
There’s no doubt about it, a recession is typically bad for business. Consumers are much more money conscious than in normal economic conditions and as a result, sales tend to decrease. It’s around about this time that businesses are on the lookout for a cost-effective and reliable acquisition channel with long lasting effects. Enter your SEO strategy.
Why you shouldn’t cut your marketing budget
With poor or reduced cash flow, arts, culture and entertainment businesses are less likely to invest in their marketing. This is a common response in a recession but continuing to invest can be worthwhile, particularly when we look at the recovery of arts, culture and entertainment organisations from COVID-19.
When we look at businesses who came out of the pandemic, there’s a clear correlation between those that continued to invest in their marketing efforts and success. The same can be said for the 2008 recession.
Those who continued to invest to stay top of mind, recovered more quickly or in some cases, came out of the economic downturn in a stable position.
Something to consider if you’re thinking about ceasing your marketing spend during a recession is the impact on your audience. Stopping your marketing output altogether—or significantly curbing it—could mean that you’ll need to ‘buy back’ audiences further down the line and more often than not, at a higher cost.
How to use SEO to recession-proof your business
How do you continue to engage your audience at a lower cost? Well, SEO for the most part can be affected by your in-house marketing team without the need for a third-party.
Content is king when it comes to organic search and Google LOVES new content, rewarding websites that regularly sate its thirst for content. The best content answers consumer questions relevant to your niche; to identify these hot topics, tools like AlsoAsked will allow you to explore topics around a set of keywords such as ‘best theatre shows’. You’ll then be provided with popular search terms to guide your content plan.
If you’re struggling to come up with a list of keywords which have significant or very niche search volume, you can use the Moz Keyword Explorer for free.
How to optimise your content
In terms of optimising your content, you should use one or two long-tail keywords per blog post. ‘Long-tail keywords are question based keyword queries, such as ‘best theatres in London’. The main body of content on any web page you want indexed and searchable is one of the most important places to optimise your use of keywords.
It’s also important to note that poor keyword application can also have a negative impact on SEO. For example, ‘keyword stuffing’ is a common error marketers make when optimising their content. This is when you over use keywords, making the content unreadable to users.
Use your primary keyword within the first few sentences (200 character) and within the last paragraph
Only use 1 - 2 keywords per blog. Too many keywords can dilute content and make it unreadable to users and search engines alike.
Use the primary keyword and variations (including secondary keywords) throughout your content for the best results
It’s best practice to use latent semantic indexing keywords rather than the exact keyword every time
Write for humans first, then for search engines. There is no point in having excellent SEO if the content is unusable to your end user, so it is important to bear this in mind throughout the rewriting process.
There are other considerations when optimising your web content which have been listed below;
URLs
URLS should be descriptive enough to give both visitors and search engines an idea of the page content. This means using keywords within the URL.
They should be kept short and sweet, using no more than two relevant keywords and no more than the recommended 75 characters.
Page Titles
Page titles describe the main subject matter and show in the first line of search results letting both search engines and searchers know exactly what your page is about.
It’s best practice to include relevant keywords or keyword phrases at the beginning of your page title. This ensures that search engines see your page as more relevant to searches and ensures that your keywords display on mobile SERPs which cater to smaller screens.
Subheadings
Subheadings help to make your content scannable - in other words it gives readers’ eyes somewhere to pause before they digest the next section of your content. This also allows visitors and search engines to decide which sections of content are relevant to their needs/ search query.
It is best practice to use keywords in at least some of your subheadings, it is rarely possible to use keywords in every subheading.
Images
Search engines not only index the text on your website, they also index images which creates another avenue for people to find your content.
Ensure that any images you use are relevant to your content
Give each image a file name that reflects its relevance to the content, including keywords or LSI keywords (where possible)
Use keywords in all of your image titles. This is a little piece of text which pops up when your mouse hovers over an image
Lastly, use keywords within alt text to add page authority. This helps with accessibility. The best practice for using alt text with images is to make it descriptive; don’t just use the keyword.
Link Anchor Text
Links are the top three SEO ranking factors - inbound links, outbound links and internal links - Google uses inbound links to find your site and determine how authorative and relevant your content is.
Link anchor text is the clickable text that is highlighted as a link within the main body of content.
It is important to vary your anchor text, for example rather than lining the words ‘click here’ or repeating ‘find out more’, you should link to keywords such as ‘specifically named form’ instead as it features within the page content already and is a natural link opportunity.
Search engines place more weight on linked text than unlinked text, so it’s a great idea to include keywords in or next to links (where possible). The same rules apply whether you are linking internally or externally.
Meta Descriptions
It’s important not to overlook updating your meta descriptions with relevant keywords as well as the main body of text on your web pages. Although this is no longer a ranking factor, it does help Google determine how relevant your content is to the search and is crucial in encouraging user actions (click-throughs). It is important to note that anyone sharing your webpage on social media will pull through your meta description.
Each page should have a meta description that includes keywords and compelling text encouraging searchers to click. The optimal length is 55 - 300 characters.
Why SEO is your best bet
SEO is an essential part of your marketing mix whether we’re in a recession or a boom. It’s an underappreciated strand of digital marketing that can deliver massive rewards over time. When SEO is properly implemented and built upon you’re guaranteed to see organic revenue grow significantly.
For a business to survive difficult economic times you need to achieve sales for the lowest cost per acquisition. Investing in SEO during a recession allows you to boost visibility when some of your competitors will be pulling back on their marketing activities. The long term benefits of SEO investment make organic search one of most cost effective acquisition channels and offers a high ROAS for your efforts.
Organic search is also super measurable, (using tools like Google Search Console), and provides you with a wealth of data which can be used in the future to inform targeting on paid activities further down the line.
All in all, if you’re considering slashing your marketing budget over the next 12 months, you should seriously consider investing in your SEO.
Our team of organic search experts can help you in a wide variety of ways. From defining your strategy and providing guidance on implementation to a fully managed service, please do not hesitate to contact us should you require assistance.