Earlier this year, we sent out a survey to tsoHost customers asking how Covid-19 had affected them professionally.

The responses offered an insight into the good, the bad and the ugly impact of the pandemic on businesses, charities and bloggers alike.

In this blog, we look at the survey answers in more detail and reveal a long list of resources that could come in handy if you feel you can relate to any of the responses.

How has Covid-19 affected tsoHost customers?

The study revealed that 64 per cent of customers felt that the pandemic had had a moderate to very high impact on their operations.

Twenty-nine per cent of those surveyed revealed that their businesses were temporarily shut down.

On top of this, 23 per cent of customers believed that things were only going to get worse during the coming months, with 20 per cent saying that their businesses would only be able to operate for another six to 12 months if the current culture of restrictions continued.

The main pain points of tsoHost customers

In particular, tsoHost customers said they were struggling with the following…

• Fewer orders

• Moving their business online

• Building a better online presence

• Connecting with customers

• Reaching a wider audience

Resources for tackling Covid-19 pain points

• Fewer orders

Research from Google over the past 12 months has revealed that the pandemic has changed the way people shop online.

Compared to a year ago, consumers are more likely to look for locally produced products and services, they’re keener to know about the sustainability of the products they buy, and they’re more likely to ‘window shop’ online.

Ensuring your website is geared up for these new behaviours could be the key to securing a few more orders.

Check out our blog on 5 ways to optimise your online business for Covid 19 consumer behaviour for tips on getting your site up to speed.

• Moving a business online

In the Covid-19 survey, tsoHost customers who did not have a website expressed their concerns about the cost of building a one.

At tsoHost, we have recently launched a WordPress Ecommerce hosting package, based on WooCommerce, that comes with £4,000 of extensions included for free.

Plans starts at £24.99 a month and the extensions allow you to sell everything from subscriptions to accommodation bookings online.

If you’re not in a position to spend £24.99 a month at the moment, you could look into getting yourself a simple single ‘under construction page’.

You can read about the benefits of such a page in our blog on how to make an under construction page work as hard as it can.

• Building a better online presence

Once you’ve got the bones of a website established, you then have an opportunity to optimise it.

If you’ve got a WordPress site, take a peek at this blog on the top plug-ins you can use to optimise everything from your users’ experience to your site’s SEO.

Or how about adding video to your site? Analysts suggests that in 2022, more than 80 per cent of consumer internet traffic will be driven by online video, so there’s no time like the present to start introducing video to your site and other online offerings.

Check out our guides on getting started with video marketing and improving video marketing efforts.

Alternatively, a simple way to improve your site is to improve your imagery. Read our guide on how to take great product photos at home here.

• Connecting with customers

Over the past year, face to face has become screen to screen.

There are multiple ways to improve your digital communication with customers.

One of the simplest things to do is add a contact form to your website.

The next route, is to ensure you’re present, available and reaching out to your customers on social media. If you’re not confident in this area, read our guide on where to start.

Already set up? Discover how some of the world’s fastest growing companies approach social media success in this blog.

• Reach a wider audience

Reaching a wider audience might not be a question of tapping into new markets, it can be as simple as ensuring you’re not accidentally excluding key customers from buying your products or services.

Ask yourself if your site is accessible. Here are some tips for ensuring it is. In the coming weeks, we’ll also be posting blogs on topics like how to pivot a business and how to partner with other businesses and organisations to become stronger.

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