The world’s economy is facing bad times due to the coronavirus outbreak. Businesses are either closing or laying off their employees as they are not able to produce capital in fact they are going into losses. This is one of the historic hard times for businesses worldwide.
Coronavirus pandemic has forced many of employees to switch to remote model.of working and hence the rise of remote productivity tools like TaskQue has tremendously increased.
On the same side, challenges are being raised for website’s security and maintenance. As most of the people are working remotely from their laptops . Many of them might be doing office work like emails from their personal laptops as well. So, the chance of data theft or hack is broadly increased as there might not be enough security layers.
The VPN industry has also seen a positive surge during this remote work culture rise during Quarantine. Hence, a lot of IT professionals are using VPN service for remote work during this time.
So, it is extremely important to secure your website with necessary measures to avoid vulnerability during covid 19 outbreak. In this article, you will learn how you can use Quarantine time for improvement of your business website while keeping your audience up to date with COVID-19.
However, It is still important to help clients through website maintenance. Following are the ways to keep updating your website through COVID-19 Pandemic.
1: Update Website Header, Not Home Page Alone:
Home pages are usually the most traffic driven page of any website. But it’s not necessary that the audience’s first interaction is with your homepage. Often it happens that when someone searches your organization, they get the result of the inner page rather than the home page. See below picture showing Techradar inner page against “Cheap dedicated server query”
You can also monitor this through the associated Google Analytics account. Since, the home page is not always the first interaction for the visitor, but your website header is so, it’s better to place push information about COVID 19 in the header. Also mention how it relates to you and what you are actually doing for the community in this regard. It will enable visitors to get the latest information through your website.
Following are the 2 ways to update website header:
A: Add Link in Main Navigation:
If your website is based upon CMS like WordPress then you may take the following steps:
1: Go to Appearance > Menus
If your website is based on Drupal CMS, then Go in structure > Menus
And if you are not a technical person then you should reach your development team for these changes.
2: Keep the title of the main navigation as short but meaningful as possible. “COVID-19 ” is the ideal one.
3: Once you have added a menu item, now adjust browser width from super narrow to super wide in order to make sure that the new menu does not have an overlap issue with elements.
4: If navigation is getting wide for its container by adding new item then try to shorten other main navigation items. For instance, Remove Home and let users click on your logo to visit the home page.
5: If you are unsuccessful in finding the place in main navigation then you may add COVID-19 to your dropdown menu.
Regardless of coronavirus pandemic, it is among website’s navigation best practices so there should always be a spot in main navigation that is subject to change based on topic or trend.
B. Add An Alert Bar Above The Navigation:
Many websites have practices of having a sitewide alert bar for drawing attention towards any critical issue or trend. You may need the help of web development experts This type of alert bar is not only useful in global pandemics but in promoting a special offer as well. Moreover, you may use this alert bar for an upcoming event as well.
While placing the alert bar, make sure the alert bar is in different color to grab the attention. Also, it should be easy on and off for users so that users may not get frustrated by it. Also, make sure it is easily customizable. See below picture to have better idea:
2. Update Home Page:
Even if you have updated COVID-19 in the header still the home page needs to be worked on. Home page is the most significant page of any website. By pushing COVID-19 information, it can significantly create impact on your audience. Also Google sees Homepage as the most valuable one and takes it as a ranking signal.
- Try to cover messages in minimal words in order to eliminate text wrapping at small browser sizes.
- Use words like “Follow updates” or “Explore the latest” for the button of COVID-19 page.
- Use a high resolution image for quality and better user experience.
- Also take a note about the date of updation of the click through page.
3. Primary Landing Page for COVID-19:
Keep a single page for coronavirus related stuff and don’t change url. In this way, you wouldn’t have to change the alert bar every time for an update. Moreover, it is good from an SEO perspective as well. Also visitors will be able to bookmark this page.
This page should be rapidly updated . You should always post links to new content on COVID-19 landing page. Visitors will then be able to see how you are updating information from time to time.
4. Put COVID-19 in URL:
As more and more content is being created by your website related to coronavirus, try to keep COVID-19 in urls of all posts . It will also help you in tracking the impact of content. In short you are making /coivd19/ directory and all new posts will go with the same url after / as you have been doing for blog urls.
5. Keep Website Up to Date with Non COVID-19 Stuff:
All the world is publishing content about Coronavirus this time. So, there is continuous change in keywords ranking against these keywords. Many webmasters are feeling it hard to write regular content for educating their target audience on subject matters.. WHO is promoting Physical distancing rather than social distancing as still you may connect yourself through the digital world. And a website blog is a great way to keep it. If your website traffic is huge then you may also think to switch cloud hosting to improve performance of the website. .
Let’s have a look below, how Quora community suggests to improve website during Quarantine:
Jack Kai, A businessman, software engineer and a health care blogger says:
“Quarantine made online businesses fly sky high and made hundreds of thousands of websites get more traffic and earn more money.
This is the time to improve or make a website. I can give you some ideas :
- Start blogging, make web pages that are there just to discuss something. Write around 1500 words articles and publish it on your website. The article should discuss a very specific topic to get traffic. Write as many articles as possible.
- Add faq (frequently asked questions) where people can add questions that you can answer or just pretend that someone asked you something and state the answer. This will help create a bond between you and the visitors.
- Make accounts for clients and add email marketing options so they can receive emails from your website to remind them to pay you a visit.
- Affiliate marketing. Find a company that has a product and recommend that product in your blogs and provide a link so they can buy the product and you get paid. This helps your pocket and your website too.
- Make your website faster by creating double URL links to the same page that are connected. The one showing on google displays your blog and it directs the visitors to your main website if they are interested.
- Use social media to introduce the world to your website.
- Write about hot topics and topics that people care about (coronavirus, domestic violence, dogs, babies, suffering, hope, life, death, tech…)
- Providing comments, reviews on a product or a blog
- Get a security certificate for your website.
- Always manage CMS and content.
After you have already chosen a niche and a website try adding those stuff and manage your SEO to get more traffic so your website gets more successful.”
Wrapping up: When there is so much negativity and uncertainty around us, there is a positive side too. You have plenty of time to work and plan for business. Specially improving your website. So, work on the above tips and let’s utilize your time effectively for business.
