Listen, this isn’t a fun topic or article to write.
I’ve been through a lot in my career as an employee. Now, as an agency owner, I understand how economic factors, downtimes, and other ripples can have a big impact not only on budgets, but also on careers and lives.
Downtimes, downturns, and anything negative connected with the economy can mean a lot for marketers.
Whether it is due to the immediate need to scale back quickly, a lack of focus on longer-term digital marketing strategies, or the fact that it gets connected to pull-backs in broader marketing budgets, SEO is often impacted when a company encounters downtimes.
When you’re faced with shrinking budgets, having fewer resources than you need, and feeling the pressure to achieve SEO results, I have a lot of empathy.
As SEO pros, we already do a lot of work to get the dollars, software, resources, and commitment needed to achieve short-term actions that will lead to long-term performance.
My hope is that these eight steps will help you get the most out of any type of SEO downtime you might be facing and push forward.
1. Cultivate Situational Understanding
In some cases, you might be fully expecting and feeling downtime or economic circumstances. It could include global economies and have a number of different reasons for it.
In other situations, it could be something you have encountered and experienced in a specific region, industry, or vertical.
In other cases, though, downtime could be less extreme and more surprising. That doesn’t make it any better, and it means that you will need to adjust your strategy accordingly.
As an in-house SEO or digital marketer, an external consultant, or an agency professional serving clients, you need to have a situational understanding of the “what” and the “why” behind the downturn.
This doesn’t mean that you have to be an economist or policy expert.
You’ll likely be asked to do as much or more with less during a downturn.
So, before you can get deep into the “how” that you’re asked to accomplish from an SEO perspective, you need to have enough understanding of what you’re facing, the impact on your company/client, and how this reframes the organization, marketplace, and your work world overall.
2. Demand Analysis
Drilling down into the specifics and putting your SEO hat back on, the most important thing to understand is whether factors impacting budgets are tied to business and market conditions and what the impacts are on demand.
If you’re on the brand side or are in an agency or consultancy that focuses on a single industry, you likely have some ideas.
However, if SEO budgets are being reduced or cut and you have to do less with more, you need to do some analysis to understand whether demand is down overall for your product, service, or market.
Are fewer people searching? Are fewer going through the funnel or customer journey? Is there some new drop-off point that didn’t exist before?
3. Revisit Goals
Similar to demand analysis, you need to revisit goals more broadly.
Even if the market is the same, if you’re receiving less budget or fewer resources to work with, you need to reset your own expectations – and those of stakeholders.
Can you do as much as you did before with fewer dollars? Can you work with fewer internal and external resources – and still make SEO successful?
If you have to cut content, technical support, or even SEO research and strategy, even if market demand hasn’t taken a hit, you can assume that the outputs and results won’t be the same.
Revisit your goals, communicate them, and make them as objective and tied to budget and resources as possible. If you’re being asked to do more or less, that’s ok, but know that going into it!
AI is a great tool right now that can help you do more with less, so leverage it where you can in smart and quality ways.
4. Narrow Digital Footprint
I hate this tip, but it is important.
I’m typically all about more being better if it is high quality – whether that is content, features, functionality, or aspects of customer journey paths and funnels.
However, in lean times or on limited resources, you do need to limit your digital footprint.
Whether it is due to streamlining resources or your own focus and budgets, you have to scale back. If market demand is diminished, zero in on where people are still searching and have needs.
It could mean shortening your topic and keyword list to address the part of the funnel you want to be strong in or on the most profitable product or service offering.
With a narrower focus and fewer resources, you can also reduce your website resource needs.
Whether it is getting really detailed with a certain section, sub-section, subdomain, or microsite, you’re likely going to have to make some decisions and strategic and tactical choices you wouldn’t in abundant times.
You may not be able to optimize a full site, so get as narrow as you need to and focus your attention there.
5. Focus Resources
SEO is impossible to do as one person wearing all the hats unless you’re in a unicorn situation.
It requires resources like IT, web developers, UX, content writers, brand strategists, legal/compliance, and/or management approvals.
And I might be missing something from the above list!
Back in the day, when I started doing SEO in the mid-2000s, I was able to do about 80% by myself. Now, for good reasons, much more collaboration is necessary.
However, when budgets get reduced, you have to be very focused on where the remaining money goes.
In some cases, you might have that dictated to you. However, if you still have enough control, you’re going to have to prioritize where you put the budget and deploy resources.
That means possibly prioritizing content over technical updates. Or technical over UX. Or CRO over link building.
Be smart, utilize your updated strategy and goals, and deploy your resources in ways that don’t stretch you too thin.
6. Target Short-Term Wins
What can be gained in the short term? Your market conditions, goals, and the ultimate extent of how restrictive budgets are will help you dictate this.
Are you down to just a few dollars? Put it on the highest opportunity and priority items.
I know that sounds obvious, but SEO is big and complex. We’re prone to go down rabbit trails.
There are a lot of distractions. Stay disciplined, know what you need to do and achieve in the short term, and do your best to forget about the long-term items.
If you’re trying to keep the lights on, achieve ROI in the short term, and get through this season to see budgets increase again, go for things that have the best chance of short-term success.
That could mean local SEO, partnerships/affiliations with content, going bottom of the funnel in the keyword and content focus, or full SEO scope/scale but on a very short list of topics/terms.
7. Think Long-Term
If you have the luxury of thinking about long-term strategy, or more likely, are hit by decreased demand but still have some SEO budget, then you can do things that will build for the future.
With a long-term focus and strategy, you can get ahead of competitors who are cutting budgets entirely or are focused on short-term thinking even if there’s no demand there.
I can speak from experience with clients in past downturns who we collaborated with even when their demand slowed down, choosing to invest in building longer-term plays that put them on top when demand picked back up.
Things to invest in if you have some budget, even when you don’t have the demand and want to be future thinking: website tech, infrastructure, the base of content, your thought leadership platform, and how you serve the full funnel as the authority in your industry.
If demand is down short term, I’m willing to bet that your competitors are taking their foot off the gas, giving you an opening to pass them and come out stronger on the other side – if you’re not already in the top position across your key focus topics and terms.
8. Measure Efforts
Never stop measuring what is happening. You want to have your own set of performance data to objectify everything you can.
That means being able to draw correlations where you can between reductions in budgets, markets, and other resources and performance.
It will allow you to continue (or start) knowing the true impact of downturns, reductions in investment, and market factors on your SEO efforts now. It will also give you benchmark data for the future.
If you have past data from downturns or budget reductions, use that as guidance, too!
Don’t do anything without projections, expectations, and measurements.
Whether you’re in a publicly traded company or a small business, data is an objective that removes as much gray area as possible.
Conclusion
While businesses might take similar approaches to downtimes, no two situations are the same.
Whether you’re given a reduced budget, team, or set of resources overall, you can still push forward toward SEO goals and success.
I’m not saying this is a fun season, but I want to encourage you that if you understand the situation, recalibrate to the demand and achievable goals, and push forward with a narrowed focus and an achievable plan, you can see things through to the other side.
Sometimes, lean times lead to a better understanding of what is working and what isn’t.
Yes, measurement, analytics, and proper attribution are a big part of SEO. However, until pressed, we often overlook inefficiencies and wasted resources and efforts in less stressful times.
I encourage you to press forward in downtimes. These can be big growth opportunities for you professionally, personally, and for your organization as you persevere and surpass those who don’t have a plan or commitment to the longer-term aspect of SEO.
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