In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses know it’s important to communicate clearly about their response, and update their website regularly.
However it’s not always easy to know how much to communicate and how much attention you want to draw to Covid. Too much and you risk annoying clients with needless updates. Too little and you appear insensitive.
The correct mixture depends on several factors:
Today, we’ll explain three updates you can make to your website that will keep your clients partners, and employees informed.
In our second blog in this series, we strongly recommended that businesses distribute an email stating the changes to your business due to Covid-19. But not everybody will read that email.
For example, people just discovering your business did not have the opportunity to subscribe to your email list in time. So they have no way of knowing how you’re responding to Covid-19.
That’s why we also suggest taking the contents of the email and making a landing page that stays up for the duration of the pandemic. Ideally, put the link to the landing page on your homepage.
It doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be there. Ballard Power Systems has a simple line of text and a link to the full update from their CEO.
If your industry is heavily affected by the pandemic, consider making your response more visible. Optima Living Communities, operators of many senior care facilities across Canada, need to communicate to their clients and anyone visiting their site exactly what measures they have in place to keep people safe.
As a result, their response and updates are the first thing people see when they visit their website.
Messaging is context-dependent. A large risk many businesses face right now is appearing insensitive to the Covid-19 situation. The imagery and language used on your website—unless it was built last week—was not chosen with current social distancing measures in mind.
For example, “stay connected” sounds better than “keep in touch.” An employee working from their home office is a better image than a group of people huddled together in a meeting room.
Spend some time looking over the content on your website for anything that appears insensitive to the current social distancing situation. The change in copy and imagery won’t be permanent, nor does it require a lot of time. There are many great sources of stock imagery you can use.
This is especially useful if your business spans across several offices. Yes, company-wide email blasts can communicate changes with an entire organization, but emails occasionally slip by unnoticed and with a situation as constantly evolving as this, your employees are likely looking for a reliable source of information they can check.
Some things this website portal can include are:
Taking this proactive step helps you, your employees and colleagues. Having a centralized place for information about Covid-19 to be posted and viewed reduces the likelihood of crucial information falling through the cracks.
The three things your website needs to do during Covid-19 are communicate your response to the situation, be sensitive to current social distancing requirements in all copy and imagery, and (if you’re a medium-to-large business) have a place employees can check for recent updates.
Simply by having a link to your Covid-19 response on the homepage and adjusting the copy and imagery on your website, you’ll be able to show that you’re aware of what’s happening, and that you’re being sensitive to the situation.