Why You Should Keep SEO During A Recession
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During a recession, it is common for businesses to tighten budgets and focus on every expense. But, isn’t it ironic marketing efforts are scaled back… to save money? Developing a marketing plan that can still achieve positive results is imperative.
That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. SEO is a key support for every other digital marketing channel. So what’s the key to consistent digital marketing results? Developing a strong SEO plan. A well-executed SEO strategy ensures your business stays visible for your target audience and helps you stay competitive.
In this post, we’ll go over SEO strategies you can apply to stay competitive and keep your business in a position to connect with new customers, clients, or visitors whenever they are ready to do business. Need a hand? We’re always here to help.
Does SEO Still Work in a Recession?
During a recession, it doesn’t necessarily mean people are not searching. Instead, people are more cautious with their spending habits and will invest more time before making a decision. Suppose your business reduces its SEO efforts during an economic downturn. In that case, you risk losing visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs), right when users are searching for products and wanting to do research.
We aren’t saying sales volume will increase or even stay the same during this time, but it’s important to maintain a strong brand presence to capture the demand that is out there and stay in future customer’s minds.
You may be wondering how to check for this. I recommend checking Google Search Console to see the difference between your impressions and clicks - this will help you identify:
Where users are seeing your website in SERPs
How many users see your website vs. how many click
You can also check Google Analytics 4 for:
What pages users are visiting
How long users are staying on each page
What pages users navigate to after the initial landing page
If you really want to go into detail, you could also use a tool like Hotjar to identify how far people are scrolling on each page and where people spend the most time. Overall, analytics plays a large role in a successful strategy, especially during a recession.
Creating a Long-Term Cost-Effective Strategy
When you implement an effective SEO strategy, it can build momentum over time. Unlike paid media advertising, where leads stop coming in as soon as the budget is cut. SEO continues to deliver results long after the initial effort. Think about it this way: other businesses might scale back their marketing efforts, including SEO, during a recession. This leaves gaps in the market and creates a unique opportunity to improve your rankings and performance to claim an even larger share of organic traffic during this time. By staying consistent with SEO efforts, you can solidify your position in search results.
Avoiding Setbacks from Pausing Organic Efforts
Yes, maintaining SEO efforts can help bring traffic to your website. But did you know that pausing your SEO strategy can harm your performance? SEO is not a quick-fix solution; it can take time to start ramping up speed to build authority and achieve strong performance. If you pause your efforts, you risk losing the progress you made, meaning your business can be further behind during and after the recession.
Rebuilding SEO performance after a pause can take 3-6 months, meaning you will fall behind competitors who continue SEO efforts. SEO is an investment in your business’s future and ensures you can not only bring in customers during a recession but also hit the ground running when conditions improve.
How to Use SEO During a Recession
I’ve already covered why it’s essential to keep SEO during a recession, but it’s also important to know when to adapt your strategies during that time. Here are a few tips.
1. Monitor Your Website’s Health
Leverage keyword research tools to check your site’s health, such as Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google Search Console (hint: Google Search Console is free!). These allow you to diagnose page experience issues, page indexing problems, and check for any dropped keyword rankings.
One of my other favorite tools is Screaming Frog SEO Spider, which is a great start for discovering unexpected 404s, orphan pages, thin content, and other items you would find in a typical site audit.
2. Have a Keyword Targeting Plan in Place
SEO is the most effective when a comprehensive strategy is in place - if you don’t know what keywords to go after, you may just be wasting your time.
To start, I’d recommend focusing on high-volume, low-competition keywords. It’s also important to know what your customers are searching for in various stages of the buying funnel. Are people searching for specific product names? What questions are they asking about a service? It’s important to keep these in mind when creating a plan.
3. Create a Content Strategy
Google continues to emphasize the importance of creating helpful content, meaning content is an integral part of any effective SEO strategy. It’s important to develop a well-thought-out content plan to help you stay relevant and visible to your target audience. Here are some main points to consider:
Start by identifying gaps in your content and on the internet in general where you can offer unique insights. Figure out what your customers are looking for, whether it’s guides, tutorials, FAQs, or something else. One important thing to keep in mind is the growth in AI Overviews and other SERP features. Overall, focus on creating high-value, evergreen content that addresses your customers’ pain points so they have the extra research they are looking for during a recession.
4. Find Other Channels to Complement SEO Efforts
While SEO can stand strong on its own, you can also pair it with other digital marketing channels to amplify the impact. For example, social media efforts can help distribute your content to different audiences and increase its visibility. Email marketing can also help engage your existing audience, especially those further down the funnel. Paid media can complement your organic efforts during a recession by targeting high-value keywords and re-engaging website visitors through a retargeting campaign.
It’s important to have a holistic digital marketing strategy to ensure you are reaching all of your target audiences and keeping your business competitive, especially when marketing during a recession.
Continue Marketing During a Recession
Your SEO program will help you establish a consistent drumbeat of traffic to fill your sales funnel and help your business stay relevant and successful in any financial climate. Knowing where and how to make changes will help you remain efficient and on budget, and the right complement of integrations with other programs will help your marketing program exceed your targets and expand its value to your business.
If you would like us to help you with any aspect of SEO strategy, contact us today for a conversation (no strings attached) about your digital marketing. We specialize in finding custom solutions that meet your unique goals—all year long!
This blog post was originally published on June 30, 2023, by Leah Shapiro, and was updated and republished on January 14, 2025.
