Content writing in the times of the coronavirus
After originating from China the Coronavirus has taken the entire world in its grip. Thousands of people have died. More than 200,000 are quarantined or being treated as I’m writing this. Businesses are being shut down. People are losing jobs.
During such a human and economic disaster, how do you take care of your business? My content writing queries are going down; what steps am I going to take to see me through this lean period?
Businesses depend on each other. I provide content writing services but I can provide my services only to those businesses who are in a position to spend money on marketing, branding and SEO. When they are grappling with the question of survival, they aren’t much worried about marketing.
Even the markets to which they need to market themselves aren’t responding, aren’t in a position to respond.
Nonetheless, a good thing about the Internet is that you can work from home, and you can provide your services to different parts of the world.
Although many countries are struggling with the pandemic, there are many other countries who haven’t been as affected as some countries have been. Till the world realigns itself, you need to continuously find opportunities, as little as they are.
Below I am listing a few things I’m going to do to promote my content writing business even during the Coronavirus outbreak. Maybe you can apply some of the things that I mention here to benefit your own business.
Don’t worry much
Worrying is a natural reaction. Whenever we are alarmed we worry. Worrying kept us safe when we were living in jungles and caves. Even at the slightest of sounds and movements in the bush, we simply bolted without spending a single second on second-guessing. Hesitation could get us killed.
We live in relatively safer times. Even when long months of recession gawk at us, worrying isn’t going to help much. It stunts our thinking. It even harms are immune system.
Find out ways to get rid of your worry. If you cannot do it yourself, talk with someone close to you.
Network with other business owners
You may not just get new business, you will also provide support to each other during hard times. Maybe you know something that the other person doesn’t know and the other person knows something that you don’t know. You can both help each other.
Also, you can refer a new business to each other – something that you may have ignored in the past.
Work on improving your online presence
Yes, it also involves publishing more content on your website. Remember that no matter how dire the situation becomes, there is someone out there always looking for you.
I’m still getting a lot of content writing queries from all over the place. Even from Europe and America. So, if on an average I’m getting 2 content writing queries, if I can improve my SEO and make it easier for people to find me, I can increase that number to 3, or 4, or 6.
I have been buried under lots of work. I’m still working for a few clients and I know I have plenty of work for the next two months,
I’m also going to get lots of free time to add extra content on my website and blog, which I have been ignoring in the recent months because of my work. I’m going to use this extra time as an opportunity to improve my search engine rankings and add more content to my website.
Explore untapped opportunities
Are there some opportunities you have been ignoring? What about your mailing list? Haven’t you always wanted to have your own mailing list? Maybe this is a time you can start focusing on building one.
What about LinkedIn? Personally I have always wanted to spend more time promoting myself on LinkedIn but there hasn’t been much motivation which, I’m sure, is going to manifest now.
Improve conversion rate
Although I’m constantly working at improving my conversion rate so that I get more content writing traffic that converts rather than bringing those people to my website who simply want to learn how to write better content (no harm in that, though), there is always scope for improvement.
You can use Google Analytics to take note of what type of traffic your website or blog is attracting from Google and how much of it brings you actual business. Study the keywords that convert and then generate more content around those keywords.
Decide to outsource
If you haven’t been outsourcing, this is a good opportunity to consider. To be frank, my entire business depends on people’s tendency to outsource their content writing needs.
Businesses and people don’t hire me full-time. They contact me whenever they need quality content to improve your conversion rate or SEO.
You can outsource many things. You can outsource content writing if you don’t want to spend time writing and creating content for your website or blog.
You can outsource graphic design or your web maintenance or your SEO. What about accounting and bookkeeping? I’m writing content for a website that does precisely that – take care of accounting for many businesses.
Outsourcing saves you time and money, and it also gives you greater choice. You are never stuck with a single employee. You can dip your feet in the global talent pool.
Audit your content
For a small business having 50-60 web pages and an equal number of blog posts, this shouldn’t be a tough job.
What does content auditing mean?
It means going through individual content pieces and improving them. Improvement may involve rewriting their titles and descriptions, improving content quality, making your content simpler and concise and pretty much, incorporating improvements that make your content better. Content auditing also improves your SEO.
In the end, I suggest, don’t worry about the sky falling unless the sky is actually falling. Use the time. It might be a blessing in disguise. Maybe the collective destiny of the world wants you to turn over a new leaf and start exploring opportunities that you have been ignoring so far.