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Adapting Your Website for a Changed World

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May 12, 2020 5 min read
by Nat Korol

Every day, we’re inspired by how businesses small and large have embraced the challenges of this pandemic.

Many local businesses have quickly pivoted their models, operations and marketing to help the people they serve. Large organizations have also been nimble and responsive to support their employees and contribute to protecting workers on the frontlines. Leaders across the board are working tirelessly and showcasing empathy to the new norms and emerging needs.

We’ve felt great solidarity with and drawn much inspiration from fellow business leaders and their actions (Read: Marketing Communication Lessons from the Pandemic Thus Far). 

Yet we’ve also noticed a gap:

Despite successfully shifting their product and service offerings to a digital and virtual environment, many businesses haven’t invested fully into ensuring their websites reflect their actions.

When & why you should invest in your website during this challenging time:

We understand that sales and revenue generation are a priority, and that marketing teams – whether it’s one person or many – are overwhelmed with urgent communications.

Here are some considerations for when and why to invest in your website:

1. If you’ve pivoted your business model or strategy to suit today’s challenges.

Why: You’ve already rethought your business strategy to meet the challenges of the pandemic, so don’t pass up the opportunity to bring awareness to what you’ve done. 

2. If you’re still open, even if you’re offering the same service and product as before the pandemic, and the delivery of your service/ product hasn’t been affected.

Why: Even if your business was made to survive this, your customers’ lives have been shaken and that’s bound to have an impact on your business either right away or in the future (they will be judging you by how you responded to this).

We understand that business leaders may be thinking that this pandemic will be temporary, and therefore making permanent changes to your web presence may not be worth it.

What you need to do is invest more thought and consideration into how people experience your digital space, especially your website.

We challenge you to put yourself in the shoes of your clients and customers. Consider their current browsing and buying patterns. Those have changed.

For the majority of responsible and considerate consumers, they’ll remain this way for a while, and there’s no telling for how long exactly. These are individuals who are providing, or could be providing, valuable cash flow and revenue to your business.

Relate to what your clients or customers are experiencing

Map out the changes your clients or customers are going through and how their lives have changed as a result of this pandemic. Knowing this,  look at your digital experience from their perspective. Some considerations:

Imagery showing human interaction has declined 27.4% (study by Pattern89)

Visuals are likely one of the easiest items to update on your site and social media. Starting there, review your website copy and testimonials to ensure they’re pertinent. This might just be a make or break factor for your site visitors as they decide whether to do business with you. 

Activity on Facebook’s messaging apps has increased more than 50% in many of the hardest-hit countries during the past month (Facebook corporate blog post)

adapting-website-pandemic

How quick and easy is it for your visitors to request something or ask a question, online? As user behaviour is shifting to virtual communications with instant messaging, make it obvious that you’re easy to get in touch with in a format your visitors prefer. Chat apps are becoming more sophisticated and are increasingly a staple of marketing stacks. 

Make sure your visitor journey map is logical

Once you’ve made some initial updates to your website, experience it through the eyes and actions of your visitor. This is especially important beyond the homepage as many organizations have created COVID-19 pop-ups and landing pages.

Take it one step further to discover the overall user journey and ensure it’s logical from your site visitor’s perspective.

  • Are you showcasing relevant service and product offering in places where your visitors might find them?  Are they a ‘no-brainer’ to find? 
  • Is the visitor journey leading them to pages that are outdated or not relevant at a time like today

Use Google Analytics to identify the pages where your visitors drop off, as this could be an indicator that the overall user journey is disjointed. 

Awareness & distribution considerations 

Don’t pass up on the opportunities to bring awareness to what you’ve done and what you’re doing. The pandemic has resulted in significant shifts in consumption patterns: 


We challenge you to put yourself in the shoes of your clients and customers. Consider their current browsing and buying patterns. Those have changed.

Whether or not you’re in the retail sector, these are informative statistics. The broad reality is that the majority of the working population is currently remote and glued to their screens and phones. This is resulting in higher email open rates and more scrolling through social media.

Don’t add to the noise (read: Marketing Strategy in These Uncertain Times), but also don’t miss an opportunity to establish connections with existing and new clients and customers on these channels.

Get set…

Updating your website on top of all the other tasks you’re dealing with seems like a lot of work and may feel overwhelming. We’re fans of breaking big tasks into daily routines and actions.

Dedicate 30 minutes each day to reviewing your site analytics and making ongoing updates. This will also help with your routine and feeling productive during this uncertain time. Small steps like this will add up and pay off.

Keep going!

If you’re one of the lucky business leaders, entrepreneurs or managers fortunate to still be working, no matter how dire the situation, keep going. You’ve got what it takes. Living through this unique period, we need to come together as a community and share new ideas on how to make progress, one step at a time.

We hope this article was helpful for you and inspires you to take action. Nothing would make us happier than to see businesses thrive again.

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Marketing Communication Lessons from the Pandemic