15/03/2020
Good morning everyone and I hope you are all keeping safe. During the current lock down many small businesses will be feeling the impact and it is easy to lose sight of things that you can do to minimise this. To hopefully contribute and help a little I have created a few points of what you as a small business owner can do. I know there are many different situations for many different businesses so the list is generic and you should only take what applies to your business. Please share this to anyone you know who has a small business, its times like this where everyone has to pull together and every little bit can help.
To all group admins....please excuse me if this is not a normal topic for your group but this is intended to assist small business owners so please make an exception and allow this post.
1. Update your opening hours on your website/facebook/google - Remember people may still buy online, you may not be able to deliver yet but you will be able to eventually.
2. Update your customers - If you have a database then mail them and reassure them that whilst maybe you cant provide your usual service now you will in the future.
3. Check Google - Are you registered on Google? If not it may be difficult for your business to be found, not everyone has facebook.
4. Review your web pages - If you have a website now is the time to check everything is as it should be, prices/opening times/ descriptions. Remember many things change and you might not have updated things for a while.
5. SEO - Check your SEO. How do you rank on a Google or Facebook search.
6. Create some marketing - Whilst there would not be much point in sending it now you can create ads to be sent when everything is open again. Whilst you cant open now is the time to do it.
7. Review your offering - You are likely to have time on your hands so check your offering versus your competitors. Do research, check your prices, are you offering the latest products.
8. Create a pop up - These are very low cost and easy to add or remove once the situation is back to normal.
9. Check your costs - You will now have time on your hands so check your bills such as electricity, telephone etc. Whilst you were maybe too busy running your business before now is the time to do this.
Once again I hope this helps anyone with a small business to focus a little and it will even stop you thinking about CV19 for a while.
If it helps I will also carry out a free SEO audit for any business owner. Just PM me your e-mail and website address and I will send you a free PDF of your current SEO situation.
Best of luck to everyone.
Colin @ Smeseoconsulting
