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How to Grow Your Business During a Trade War

Published by
Adrian Newman

Over the last few weeks, President Trump has hit Canada with 25% tariffs on almost everything. Needless to say, Canadians are panicking! But what if we told you that there is a bit of a bright spot to all of this? In fact, if you position your business’s SEO and marketing correctly, you can actually weather the storm.

Ever since Trump’s inauguration and his threat of tariffs, Canadians have been worried about what this is going to mean for our economy, and, let’s face it, it’s going to be a tough road. But it’s also increased Canadian patriotism and now there’s a focus on “buy Canadian” more than ever before. Grocery stores are promoting grown in Canada produce. Other consumer goods companies are touting their “Canadian Made” origins. Canadians are embracing the “buy and do business with Canadians” and if you’re a Canadian business that hasn’t jumped on this patriotic sentiment yet, you need to do it now.

So here are a few ways that you can do this from an SEO and digital marketing perspective.

1. Enhance Your Local SEO

If you haven’t claimed your Google Business Profile yet, you need to do that now. The Google Business Profile (or GBP for short) is your local identity on Google. It puts you on Google Maps showing anyone doing a “near me” search that you’re local to them. Not only that, but it shows even people who aren’t local to you that you are a Canadian company, increasing the chances that they’ll want to do business with you over an American company in these times.

GBP also shows your reviews, business hours, sales, promotions, and any other information that a potential customer would deem relevant. It also includes a quick link to call you or visit your website, so if you haven’t claimed your GBP yet, do it today. If you don’t know how, reach out to our team here and we can help you.

2. Increase Your Canadian Identity

If you’re a Canadian company, now’s the time to make sure that your website screams that fact.

Adding a maple leaf to your website header, including copy that says, “Proudly Canadian”, and even making your favicon (that little icon that shows up in the browser tab when someone is visiting your website) a maple leaf will help establish your Canadian identity online.

Another great way to do this is to change some of the copy on your headline. So, for example, if you’re a personal trainer and the headline on your website says, “Fitness and Nutrition Training that Helps 40+ Women Look and Feel 10 Years Younger” give it a tweak so it reads “Fitness and Nutrition Training that Helps 40+ CANADIAN Women Look and Feel 10 Years Younger”.

3. Update Your Website Content to Include Your Canadian Identity

Go through your blogs, your static pages, your About Us pages, and more, and find spots where you can include references to you being a Canadian company. The About Us page is a great start because, if it includes your history, you can easily add in the words “Canadian company” or “Started in Canada”.

But this should also extend to all of your pages, especially your Calls to Action or CTAs. So, for example, if you are a tax accountant and your CTA at the end of every blog post is, “If you need help or advice with your taxes, click here to connect with us”, you should change that to “If you need help or advice with your taxes from Canada’s premier tax accounting firm, click here to connect with us.”

4. Scream It on Social Media

If you’re not promoting that you’re a proud Canadian business on social media, then you’re missing out on a lot of attention. Make posts telling everyone that your products are 100% Canadian. If you don’t import from the U.S., then your products are “tariff-free” and that has to be promoted on social and on your website.

You need to leverage that patriotism on every channel to make sure there’s no mistake that you are a Canadian business and that Canadians need to do business with you.

Final Thoughts

These are 4 quick things you can do right now to help boost your Canadian identity and take advantage of what is likely going to be an increase in local search queries for Canadian businesses.

Enhance that local SEO, increase your Canadian identity on your website, update your website content to enhance your Canadian identity, and make sure you’re doing the same on your social media.

The reality is that no one knows how long these tariffs are going to be around, but if you’re a Canadian company that wants to boost your business with Canadians during these challenging times, then start with these 4 tips. If you need some more help, reach out to the team at Numero Uno Web Solutions and we’d love to talk with you.

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