Search engine optimization (SEO) can be defined as a process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results. It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial,” or “natural” search results on search engines. It means one doesn’t have to pay to search engines for marketing their products. It’s SEO that does the magic.

SEO plays a fundamental role in grabbing the attention of the potential audience.SEO takes time to see initial results because new content shows results in around three to six months, and then it’s about maintaining that activity. SEO has become an integral part of Digital Marketing. Social media marketing and SEO are popular ways to make any business be it small or large, to be noticeable in the digital market during the global pandemic threats. Using the online and digital platforms is mandatory to keep the business active.

 Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nepalese people have opted to use digital transactions. Between March to August, eSewa, a pioneer payment app, saw its user base increase by almost 35 percent. IME Pay, another digital wallet app, saw 25 percent increment in user base during the early months of the Covid-19 outbreak. These numbers reflect that e-commerce in Nepal has gotten the perfect environment for growth. For this type of growth, COVID-19 happened to a blessing. And when we talk about e-commerce, it's just simply using an application, it’s more about using the search engines most of the time, Google. Also, when we utter searching on google, the first thing the bloggers or service providers know is SEO. This surely can get us to visualize how much SEO has been crucial in Nepali market post-COVID-19.

 So dedicating to the growth and popularity of SEO, this article thrives on discussing the relevance of SEO on the Nepali market post-COVID-19.

Businesses have finally moved into online presences.

Nepal having markets heavily dominated by traditional businesses, has now adopting e-commerce models due to the corona outbreak. When the world is fearing about the Virus, the people having their capital and efforts invested in various businesses shifted to strengthening their presence in digital platforms. To cut it down in a specific way we can say that lockdown got its validity for the people who lost their jobs but the people involved in business continued as they earned the opportunity to flourish their online business and attain more insights about e-commerce. So was the drill for Nepalese businesses, be it small scale or middle scaled. Nepalese Market has realized the need of switching their presence more to digital sites than the physical one as the targeted consumers and costumers have been skeptical to go to public places. Moreover, the customers have felt purchasing the kinds of stuff online can keep them safer.

Websites are being made in a huge number

A website is another basic digital platform to get information about the company or organization. As the service provider's physical presence was at a halt during the pandemic, the website has proven to make them have a long run in the digital world. Businesses are more serious about having websites more than before. The businesses in Nepal have realized that having a website is no longer an option; it has to be an integral part of the company’s marketing. With the website’s launch, their pages are also updated and content is created to hit the SEO portfolio and ranking. Whereas the business who had already known that the website is going to be the next business point has been investing in Digital Marketing and SEO and also rebuilding their website.

Competition in the digital market has and will increase

Digital marketing is a marketing done using digital tools like SEO, Social media, blogging, video creation, email marketing, online pay per click advertisements, Mobile Marketing (apps, SMS). Due to the notion of stay home, stay safe online shopping has become the latest fashion. Thus various brands, companies, and service providers are plunging into drafting the best websites, media marketing, and instant customer service. Applying the strategy of SEO and witnessing the flooding of queries and essentials needed about COVID-19, businesses have owned a belief that now is the time to invest more in marketing. With the spirit of supporting the small business movement in Nepal, consumers are making an effort to use local businesses over big brands. Thus the present scenario has made the consumers more into Local SEOs, which has alerted the local service-providers and increased the competition among them.

Business owners should choose SEO and Social Media marketing more than anything

Even though the world economy is not as per the normal years, the prioritization and preference over the digital market have been done especially in countries like Nepal. The businesses in Nepal typically the small-scaled ones and the new entrepreneurial ventures have known the value of digital presence and to excel it using the SEO. To be precise, they have pulled down the fact of investing more in SEO and Social Media Marketing than the physical appearance as the stays during lockdown has somehow developed the habit of being on the technologies for various reasons including online shopping. Thus SEO has been taken as the foremost thing for businesses to excel to have a healthy and constructively positive way to flourish.

Conclusion

SEO is important during the COVID-19 pandemic to make the business movement stronger and get the consumers to use local online businesses over big brands. It is hard for the users and customers of Nepal to switch from traditional business to e-commerce. However, the COVID situation has compelled them to use the online market and get used to it making. Thus the challenge of switching to online business will surely get reduced soon.

Businesses in Nepal such as Travel and Trekking, IT and Digital Marketing, Hotel and Homestays, Techportal are using their websites to sell or promote their services. Among them also only a few of the companies are using paying attention to proper SEO and content marketing.

SEO in Nepal is still in its infant stage. People in businesses get into Social media and advertisements rather than have SEO done for their websites. There is a lack of huge content and information, which is the essence of SEO, in the Nepali market due to which Indian websites are always on top of our search engines. Thus working on content management and excelling on SEO will give better horizons for online marketing in Nepal.