Improvements to make on your website during COVID-19 downtime

If COVID-19 has caused you to close your doors or limit your work capacity for a few weeks, you may be sitting around feeling unproductive or even a bit helpless. But, there are still things you can do to help your business. One of them is making improvements to your website.

6 improvements to make on your website

Let’s look at six updates you can make to your website during COVID-19 downtime to support your business now and in the future.

Add ecommerce functionality.
Update your About page.
Add a FAQ page.
Write blog posts to publish in the future.
Update and add internal links to old blog posts.
Set up A/B testing.

Read on for more.

1. Add ecommerce functionality

If your business doesn’t sell items online, it might be time to start. As your business adapts for social distancing, you can keep revenue coming in by selling online.

Add an online store and start selling your products as well as gift cards.

This improvement will provide immediate value and revenue as customers can start making purchases as soon as you launch your virtual store.

Get started with 20 features to look for in an ecommerce website builder.

2. Update your About page

About pages are often one of the most visited pages on a website, yet many businesses don’t put much time or effort into creating them. Use your downtime to craft a rich story about who your brand is, whom you serve, and why you do it.

Having a more compelling About page can help future customers decide to do business with you. It also can drive more customers to support your business now if you are reaching out and asking for help during this difficult time.

Get started with How to create an About page for your website.

3. Add a FAQ page

When you’re busy, you probably field a lot of questions from customers. Now that you have some downtime, think about all of those questions and answer them on a FAQ page on your website.

Having a useful FAQ page on your website will come in handy when business picks up.

You can cut down on customer service calls and decrease customer stress by having an informative page on your site that gives people quick access to the information they need.

Get started with FAQ pages — Benefits, best practices and examples.

4. Write blog posts to publish in the future

Blog post writing is often pushed to the side when business is busy. Use the downtime around COVID-19 to get ahead of this problem. Work ahead and write blog posts so that you have content to publish in the weeks and months to come.

Publishing regular blog posts helps search engines notice and rank your website, engages your audience, and gives you content to share on social media and through email marketing.

Get started with an editorial calendar to organize your future posts.

5. Update and add internal links to old blog posts

Also, revisit old blog posts already published on your site. Update outdated content, incorporate fresh images, and add internal links to other posts and pages that were added after the original blog was published.

Updating old content can give it new life so you can reuse it on social and in email.

Plus, adding internal links also sends good signals to search engines which can help improve your site’s search visibility.

Get started with 10 ways to improve Google keyword ranking.

6. Set up A/B testing

You may think that your website performs the best it can. But, the only way to know for sure is by using website analytics and A/B testing (aka split testing) different pages. Use your downtime to set up different versions of your home and sale pages, and use A/B testing to see which performs best.

During the downtime, you may not collect enough data to determine a winner. But, setting up A/B testing now will allow you to collect data and make decisions on the highest performing pages when business picks up again.

Get started with How to use Google Analytics.