COVID-19 Marketing Strategies: 5 Ways to Grow Your Online Presence During Lockdown

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak keeps spreading across the United States and around the world. To slow the pandemic, authorities in many countries and states have asked people to stay home. Businesses must follow these orders too, except those deemed essential, such as grocery stores and health care. Faced with this crisis, restaurants, bars, hotels, and every other store, independent or not, need to act now to limit the damage. Here are five COVID-19 marketing strategies to stay visible online.

1. Your Online Presence Is the Key to Staying in Touch With Customers

As a digital marketing and SEO agency, we’ve put together the points to consider during the lockdown so people keep talking about your business.

Communicate, Reassure, Share

The lockdown is no doubt disrupting your business, but it’s also disrupting the daily lives of your employees and customers.

On one side, your team has to work from home or has been furloughed. On the other, your customers can no longer visit your store.

This period of uncertainty is exactly when your website and search visibility come into play, and they can give you a real boost.

Crises, whether financial or health-related, bring out people’s sense of solidarity.

The first thing to do in a crisis like COVID-19 is to alert, inform, and reassure: in short, communicate about where your business stands and stick to the facts.

It’s important to restate the measures announced by the authorities and explain what you, as a business, are doing to comply, both internally and for your customers.

Digital channels are now at the heart of business communication. Social media (in the short term) and your website and its search visibility (in the long term), if you have a website, will let you communicate easily with all your audiences.

Make sure to reassure your audience and followers about your services, and to be transparent and honest about your situation.

Crisis communication happens in three stages:

• Communication before: the measures your business is taking at every level.
• Communication during the health crisis: how your business is responding and will respond.
• Communication after the crisis: talking about the return to normal is just as essential once the crisis is over.

2. Adapt Your Offer and Your Messaging

Can’t open your store during the lockdown? As we said, social media and your website can help you get through this period.

It’s important to keep communicating with your customers, and even to do more of it. If you’ve had to close, share your day-to-day, your recipes, your tips, or anything else that reminds customers you’re still here and ready to welcome them when the lockdown ends. It’s easy to do with social media, email, and above all your website and its SEO.

The lockdown is a chance to build out the content on your website and, at the same time, improve its search rankings, and therefore your visibility on search engines. That’s an essential step for people to find you and discover what you do.

Haven’t started selling online yet? Don’t panic: once again, social media can help. You can offer your products and services through social media.

Let customers order directly in the comments, then set the items aside for pickup or ship them a nice, well-packaged parcel.

Run a restaurant or bar? Offering delivery or takeout can also be a good short-term option.

What social media users love is learning more about a business and what it stands for.

Talk about yourself, your employees, and the brands you carry. It’s worth sharing this on your website as well.

Take a few photos or short videos of your products and describe what makes them special: where they come from, what they’re made of, how to use them. That kind of content appeals to younger generations in particular, given their growing interest in climate issues and locally sourced products.

3. Write Articles

Have you always wanted to give customers advice or write about your services? The lockdown might be the right time.

Stay close to your audience by creating content online: short articles, practical tips, a tutorial. In other words, content that maintains a relationship of trust with your customers while keeping them entertained. Our 10 recommendations for writing a blog post for SEO are a good place to start.

By publishing these articles on your website, you kill two birds with one stone: you communicate with customers and you improve your SEO.

A website fed with relevant, original content can help your site rank better on Google.

And what’s more rewarding than showing up on the first page of Google? It’s a chance to broaden your audience and get your name out there.

Out of content ideas? Anticipate the questions your customers might have about your business, and answer them in a video or in writing.

We know that writing about your small business and what sets it apart isn’t easy. That’s why working with an SEO agency can help turn your ideas into words. Your content will be optimized and your brand presented at its best, while staying visible on search engines like Google.

4. Adjust Your Advertising Budgets

Have you invested in advertising across several channels? The lockdown will limit how far some of them reach.

So rethink your priorities and review your short-term spending.

Bidding competition on Google Ads may well increase after the lockdown, so it’s important to know exactly which services you want to promote, and to keep a close eye on your Google Ads management.

5. Build Your Presence on Google

All these changes caused by the health crisis are worrying consumers, your audience.

Beyond growing your social media and the content on your website, keep in mind that most consumers will need quick answers.

So take the time to update your information online: add a banner or notice on your website about new opening hours or a temporary closure (Google published advice on pausing a website temporarily), or pin a post on your Facebook page.

What about search engines? We recommend also updating your hours and service details for the lockdown period in your Google My Business listing. Google also made temporary changes to Google My Business during the crisis.

Google My Business is the information panel that appears on Google when someone searches for your business. It’s a key part of your communication during this crisis, because it lets anyone contact you in seconds.

It’s also a good option for businesses that don’t have a website yet. Still, an online presence combined with good SEO is the key to reaching new customers.

Google My Business also lets you publish posts to share updates quickly, right on Google.

The COVID-19 lockdown is having a very real impact on every industry. Staying positive and building your online presence and search visibility help you stay top of mind, and prepare, step by step, for life after the lockdown, with these SEO tips for reopening.

Where Things Stand in 2026

Google My Business was renamed Google Business Profile in November 2021. Keeping your hours, services, and updates current there is still one of the simplest ways to stay visible in local search; see our Google local SEO guide.

Need Help With SEO or Social Media?

Référenceur is a French-speaking agency from Belgium and Luxembourg that works with U.S. businesses remotely, through video calls, shared screens, and monthly reporting. Need advice on search visibility or social media marketing? Get a free assessment.