Positive Ideas for Businesses During this Coronavirus (Covid 19) Time

[engine]

Let's look at positive tips and ideas to help businesses of all sizes, especially smaller, to get through the challenging times of the Coronavirus (Covid 19) virus. Not just for online busineses, but any business.

Let's keep this to positive ideas and not drift off topic.

I'll start with a few ideas.

If you can't meet up with clients and customers, start using video conferencing to keep in touch.

For retailers, ask everyone to switch to contactless payments.

Add an information page to your site about the trading position of your business so customers know what to expect if they visit, and how you're protecting against the spread of the virus.

[lammert]

Before corona, I was sourcing much of my products directly from China, or I was using products of large western manufacturers with factories in China. With exports from China coming to a halt, I am now using more small local manufacturers. Some local manufacturers make pretty neat stuff which I until now always overlooked.

[iamlost]

A trifecta:
* self isolation
* socialising
* supporting local small business

This past weekend a group of women, mostly DBAs, began picking a movie, syncing start time, watching ‘together’ while chatting on discord. Monday night they added takeout to support local restaurants.

Last night (when I joined in) it was Dirty Dancing, tonight it’s Road House. And let me tell you that the ladies are a rude crude and raucous bunch. Not sure I can take another night of Patrick Swayze leching...

Fascinating ad hoc community building, leveraging the power of the web to outreach and inclusion. The addition of local food support simply icing on cake.

[lucy24]

a group of women, mostly DBAs

:: detour to abbreviations dot com [abbreviations.com] ::

Well. That was exceptionally entertaining, but I am none the wiser :(

[iamlost]

DBA: database administrator

[graeme_p]

I did for a second think "a group of doctors of business administration" then worked it out.

[Barbados]

At the risk of self promotion, I've just published advice for all our UK customers on our website. Will only post the link if it's OK with mods?

The essence is Clear Communications, Support your Customers, Don't be Mercenary, Plan for the Future.

There's a lot we can all do to help others through the crisis and by pulling together we will stand a chance of emerging from this intact.

Stay safe everyone

[lammert]

As long as clear communications and support your customers don't mean sending out emails to everyone in your database about how you handle your COVID-19 internally in your business. I am honestly not interested in dozens of emails per day of companies that I had interaction with years ago and now see this crisis as an opportunity to circumvent spam laws and use "public safety" as a reason to send surreptitious advertising to all entries in their email database.

Unless otherwise mentioned, it is business as usual IMO. We have a public health crisis, not an economic crisis and should focus on those who are directly affected. The most affected are the B2C companies that need direct contact with large customer bases. But most communication I see currently are B2B companies who are affected only secondarily.

[tangor]

The most positive idea is PATIENCE through this ordeal. Focus on what you have, what works, and avoid spinning wheels trying to make things better (for your site) when sales/conversions fall off. Make too many changes and you might actually hurt your site in the long run.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Meanwhile, buckle up for the ride, as these events do resolve over time.

If your product/service/content is relative to the event certainly press it, if not, don't try the square peg round hole approach ... it won't come off feeling real.

[Barbados]

As long as clear communications and support your customers don't mean sending out emails to everyone in your database about how you handle your COVID-19 internally in your business.

Agreed. Tired of people spamming my inbox telling me about their hand sanitizer protocols.

Our advice is more about talking to your customers and asking them what you can do to help them. As we are B2B, with most of them it's around communications. How to, what not to do and when. For others, it's a payment holiday or help with invoices.

The summary is, be nice. Everyone is in this together so help everyone like they are a member of your family.

[engine]

As long as clear communications and support your customers don't mean sending out emails to everyone in your database about how you handle your COVID-19 internally in your business. I am honestly not interested in dozens of emails per day of companies that I had interaction with years ago and now see this crisis as an opportunity to circumvent spam laws and use "public safety" as a reason to send surreptitious advertising to all entries in their email database.

I completely agree. I've had quite a few, and they think they are the first to think of this and send e-mails.
It's one reason I suggested businesses should put a page on their website addressing what they are doing. It's perfectly adequate.

One other suggestion is that businesses should consider making use of the online collaboration tools. There are plenty out there, and you're probably familiar with them.

[blend27]

The Dollar Store next door(not the brand) has(packed with them) best Gift Ideas for the upcoming Pre Winter Holidays on Sale - Plastic Gloves.

Smart! Magnavox!

[lammert]

If you have a brick and mortar business, be sure to update your opening times on your website, on your GMB listing and business listings which you expect people to use to find your company.

A prominently visible phone number on the home page can be helpful for visitors who want to call you first before visiting your premises.

[iamlost]

I’ve noticed a lot of both Bing and Google searches still show ‘normal’ business hours for shops that have been closed (and say so on their sites) for a week, some are national chain affiliates. Same for community services such as rec centres, libraries.

Major fail for them to miss this fundamental change on crawl.
Note: these often being organizations that ignore/aren’t aware of SE specific business/local UGC listings.

I’ve been watching for a full week as of today and it will be telling how soon the SEs recognise a change that should (1) have already been picked up and promulgated to results by current algo and (2) should have been manually noted as critical weeks if not months ago. No excuse imo.
Note: Does shine a narrow beam on their indexing methodology though.

Along with the idiotic even hazardous behaviours/remedies in results and otherwise on SM.

Never underestimate the booberie of the booboisie.
—-H. L. Mencken

[tangor]

Wondering about above ... the crisis is known to all, government edicts have been announced... would users and search engines really expect websites to CHANGE EVERYTHING for what is reported to be a 5 day, 7 day, 14 day, er, perhaps a month change?

Just wondering how quick/radial updates need be made.

I note that Wal-mart has not changed their biz hours (local and regional)... as an example...

[lammert]

Actually I received this evening an email from Google for one of my GMB listings with recommendations to check and correct the opening times, add a post with updated information to the business listing and check the telephone number in case people wanted to call first.

It seems they have read this topic on WebmasterWorld and acted on the recommendations here ;)

The only problem, I received the email for a GMB listing of a company that has a service area listed in GMB, not a physical address where visitors can be received. So the recommendations weren't applicable in this case. I haven't received any recommendations yet for my listings with a physical address.

[lucy24]

The local grocery store's website says they currently open at 8 AM. Signage in the store itself says they open at 7 AM. That’s already two contradictory pieces of information without even involving the search engine, which still says “open 24 hours”. I did wonder if the website intentionally put an incorrect time so they could start the day with a little breathing room. But really, incompetence is a likelier explanation.

[lammert]

Not so much about helping businesses in this time but about helping society in general, you could consider joining the folding@home project to add your idle computer resources to the largest distributed supercomputer which currently tries to understand the dynamics of COVID-19 [foldingathome.org].

[tangor]

er... could this supercomputer be turned to evil purposes, such as datamining cryptocurrency?

No thanks. I have enough load on my gear as it is.

[JS_Harris]

My addition to this thread, make it happen.

I'd like to see road work done NOW. Put those crews on the street, have them use all of that out of work manpower available etc. Fix the potholes everywhere!

Seriously, the streets will not be this empty for a while nor will there be such a huge number of capable people NEEDING work of any kind. We should have brand-spanking new roads everywhere, they work in small numbers together away from people so.... NOW is the perfect time to be putting crews to work on our roads.

idea: Let businesses sponsor the crews. I'd love to see team Dunkin Donuts working on potholes during the shutdown, for example. Painting crews, planting crews etc. Our cities should never have looked so good as we repurpose manpower to do things that CAN be done during a pandemic. Small groups of workers isolated from others is doable. Get it done!

[JS_Harris]

My 2nd entry onto this to-do list.

Brush up on idioms, then remove them from all ad and content copy!

- piece of cake
- a hot potato
- once in a blue moon
- a bed of roses
- raining cats and dogs
- devil's advocate
- etc, etc, ad nauseum etc

Nope, none of those have anything to do with your widgets! Mass repeated unrelated text, they'll help your rankings.... "when pigs fly".

Clean up your room, errr, the net! Don't "miss the boat", it's not "hit or miss", there is a "silver lining" to DELETING IDIOMS, so "zip your lip" and "git-er-done". "Throw down the gauntlet" and "in no time" you'll "find a way forward". I don't think cutesey text loving webmasters realize just how many idioms they use sometimes. Once you see them, however...

Have you googled your favorite idiom in exact match to see how duplicate it is lately? Yikes.

Edit: This is extremely good practice for something else you should be doing, culling unrelated keyword use. When you look up your page and figure out which keywords you rank for but that drive no traffic you'll often find it's because you used some text that was entirely unhelpful and you now rank for it(horribly). Improve the copy to clean that up, too.

P.S. - if you've written the words "Everyone loves..." quickly, go delete it! Not only is it untrue by default but it's untrue and an idiom!

Is there not an idiom alert tool available for your favorite CMS? hint, hint. Webmasters will be "blown away" by how often it goes off.

[KR_Bell]

I tend to look for technology solutions for pretty much everything. I have been researching return to work apps, and there are a few out there already. A friend's company started using something called cert19 recently, and says it's working well so I am now evaluating for my company. For me, the 3 most important things are making sure my employees are well and feel good about coming to work, making sure my customers are comfortable, and last but not least, making sure my business is protected. It's scary how many stories keep coming out about companies getting sued or under the microscope because they don't have the right protections in place...