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Website options for clients dealing with COVID

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Businesses and nonprofits are having to get creative right now to get through the COVID era, and some are being forced to get out of their comfort zones when it comes to generating revenue. In my opinion, the best web developers are not just the ones who have the ability to program something complex, but are the ones who can help their clients feel a little more comfortable when they’re being forced to take risks to survive. Here are a few possible solutions for your business or organization that I have been able to put together recently, that might give you some ideas:

  • Sell customizable products

    A popular idea for my eCommerce clients these days has been offering product packages in their online stores that their customers can “build” and customize to their hearts’ content. My friends at Chocolati in Seattle, WA wanted to give customers the option to build their own boxes of chocolate truffles, picking the ones that they wanted and adding a gift message if desired. This is also a feature that will be included in a couple of other upcoming client projects… stay tuned for more!

  • Use gift cards

    Restaurants have it especially tough right now, so my pals at The Grub Hut in Kingston, WA decided it was a good time to start offering gift cards. This platform I built for them on their WordPress site has gift cards that are sent to the recipients automatically, with no labor on the business side, and was customized to make it as easy as possible for cashiers to make balance adjustments on-site at the restaurant.

  • Employ a business directory

    For my staff job at WSU Kitsap Extension, the Kitsap Harvest program had a need for an online directory of seed swap locations in Kitsap County, places for people to give seeds and take seeds for gardening. It’s a great idea in the time of Covid! I built this directory in WordPress on a pre-existing website, which will hopefully help further this goal a little.

  • Optimize your Google My Business listing

    This is a huge one for making sure people can find you easily online. According to the folks over at Yoast, the most prominent WordPress SEO plugin, “Google My Business continues to be the biggest driver of local SEO success.” Now’s a great time to make sure your GMB listing is fully optimized.

  • Embed a Google Map into your website

    Once you have your Google My Business listing set up and are appearing on Google Maps, it’s always nice to have this embedded on your website to help direct visitors to your location. I do this for most of my clients, as it’s an easy way to make sure customers know exactly where you are and how to get to you.

  • Try using fillable PDFs

    I create fillable PDFs for clients several times per year, turning official office documents into PDFs that customers can fill out and email back to you instead of filling out printed copies on-site. You can also have customers electronically sign certain documents instead of hand-signing them. This is an example of a fillable PDF, created for the Kitsap County Master Gardener program.

I’ll continue to add to this list as more examples come together!

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