What to do with all this time?

As mentioned in a previous blog Wehi is lucky enough to be able to keep trading. But, we just like everybody else are experiencing a sharp slowing in our business. 

Carlo and I are using this opportunity to improve our knowledge and plan new products. Every challenge is a growth opportunity. This is easy to say but harder to practice in a time of stress. 

In an effort to relieve stress and give ideas to our business partners we are including examples of things that we are working on. These are not suggestions but ideas to inspire our business partners to make the most of this unusual period.

Research into Corona trends

I am currently reviewing the effects of the Corona Crisis and self-isolation on Social Media trends and marketing trends generally. My research is focusing on how businesses are using this opportunity to grab more attention. I am noticing three key trends:

1. Businesses that need to communicate their response failing to do so - many small scale businesses are small enough to react quickly to this obstacle. Many have done so admirably. However, very few of them are communicating their new operations. They are making good efforts to share new services such as home delivery on their social media channels. They are not capitalising on tools such as Google, Facebook or Youtube Ads to widen their reach.

2. Business over communicating their response - I like you have subscribed to many mailing lists. I receive the same amount of emails constantly updating me about services and products. I do not care how my favourite clothes brand is coping with Corona. I don’t need to know; at best it is spam at worst it is a cynical attention grab. You can see that their priority is competition over cooperation; a short sighted strategy.

3. Adverts that are not striking the correct tone - Many corporations and SMEs are using this as an opportunity to market their services. Business is business and the bottom line always matters. However, some companies are adopting a mercenary tone in their attempt to chase attention.

I am currently compiling a report into the most and least effective strategies these companies are using. This will be available soon so that we can all limit the damage of this period and prepare our marketing strategies for any future challenges.

Continuing SEO Improvements

My advice to all online businesses is to have a consistent SEO strategy. I suggest regular audits; weekly or monthly depending on the scale of the operation. The key is to make small measurable adjustments. Incremental improvements are the way to build sustainable and organic growth. This slow period gives online businesses the chance to review their strategy or to make more radical changes in their approaches. Simply speaking we have less to lose so we can be less fearful about taking a confident step. Read that again; confident not risky.

Here are the questions I am asking myself:

1. When did our website have the highest and lowest views? This needs to be broken down on a daily, weekly and monthly schedule.

2. Was this something we planned for; was this purposeful or accidental? Any set of data will give you anomalies. It is important to understand if an increase in traffic is the reward of a well thought out strategy or if it is coincidental. Acting on a rogue piece of data such as a spike in traffic that was an anomaly will end in wasted time and a decrease in traffic overtime.

3. Is this strategy sustainable? You may have mastered SEO in your businesses niche. Well done. You may have created the perfect library of content that fulfils every metric. Congratulations. However, is this sustainable? Is the effort you have put into your SEO or content strategy better placed elsewhere. Can you devote 20 hours to writing a blog post when the business has more pressing needs. Could you have spent 2 hours and placed this 18 hours in improving your product so it increased traffic implicitly?

4. How can I automate, develop a system or create a template for this? I am a big fan of templates. I even wrote a blog post about it, which you can read here. Developing a system or template for your SEO streamlines the process, reduces the amount of time you need to invest in it and gives your more time to focus on your products or services.

This is the perfect opportunity to go deep into your sites SEO and ranking. Read Wehi’s recent SEO Tool Kit Blog to find some useful tools for auditing your website

Reviewing Support

Carlo has been busy supporting businesses that have moved to remote working en masse. All of our clients have been able to make a smooth transition to this new way of working. Our servers running VPN systems have been able to cope admirably. We helped clients move onto stable video conferencing systems for minimal disruption to their operations.

This is due to the work Wehi did when preparing their servers and communication processes. Carlo as an engineer believes that ‘over engineered is correctly engineered’.  Wehi is proud that our efforts have been rewarded and that we are able to support our Italian business partners at Arcos. 

The next step is to analyse why our configuration was so effective. Then we can streamline this process and share it with more businesses in the future.

Google Data Studio

Part of Carlo’s continued development is experimenting with new analytical tools. This is to review our performance so that we are performing to our full potential. Secondly, to ensure that we are offering our customers as much value as possible. 

Carlo is currently working with Google Data Studio. The advantage of this tool is its flexibility. The market is full of dashboards that are either highly specialised or too expensive for SMEs to access. As there are so many similar tools it is hard to find a tool that can draw information from a variety of sources. Google Data Studio satisfies both of these obstacles by being free and being compatible with most business tools.

Google Data Studio is very flexible in its scope. It can be used to quickly help everyone from our larger international clients through to our small scale bloggers and solo-preneurs. Google data pools information from a variety of sources to give you clear  graphics and all the data you need to make decisions for your project. It is fiddly to understand at first but as with any Google tool there are several comprehensive resources to get you the skills you need to use this tool effectively.

Help for Businesses

Wehi is proud to be part of the SME and Welsh Business community.  If you need any help with your business please contact us here or through social media.

In this time of crisis we are happy to provide our services with extreme flexibility. We do not care about when or how you can remunerate us. We care about supporting our business community.

We are better together.

Comment below with any new skills and tools that you are developing to help you during this period.