With COVID-19 now a pandemic every country worldwide has felt its effects. Countries worldwide are in lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus and to get back to some normality in life. Many businesses are in crisis mode and the economic effects are huge. It is evident that businesses are affected, and SEO companies are no exception. COVID-19 is affecting each industry differently. One of the main advantages of working in digital marketing SEO is most of the resources that must be used can be operated through the internet. In the business world, the organic search landscape has seen considerable changes over the past few weeks. Organic performance has plummeted in some verticals and there have been many knock-on effects on the SEO industry as a whole. Let’s look at how COVID-19 is affecting SEO companies.
From recent research and analyzing data on various sites the following was found:
- The food shops online had a 56% increase in organic search. They also saw a massive increase of 188% in their organic revenue.
- The micro niche e commerce sites seen a decrease of 25% in their organic searches. They also saw a decrease of 35% in their organic revenue.
Several types of SERP’s now feature Google displays in relation to the coronavirus outbreak
A very interesting development during this crisis, google search engine result page now features a new panel in relation to COVID-19. It gives users on the internet information about the virus. The content is taken generally from the World Health Organisation website, which is the centre of disease control, as well as the other government bodies. There is also safety tips and videos on how to wash your hands correctly. There is also a symptom section where a user can view the symptoms of coronavirus.
Wellness and health sites are surging up
Google has been cracking down on content that provides information and advice on things that are medical related and only looking for high quality content. Wellness and health sites are experiencing a major surge in the overall traffic and impressions. It is mostly caused by queries regarding the symptoms of coronavirus. There are many queries for natural remedies like essential oils and natural foods. Striving for trust, authoritativeness, and expertise with this type of content is more important than ever before. With people searching for questions on google it is essential the correct information is present.
E-commerce sites that sell essential items are seeing an increase in sales
E commerce sites has seen significant increases and surges in traffic and impressions. People searching online for products to help combat the pandemic such as hand sanitizer, thermometer, toilet paper, anti-bacterial wipes and much more. With the significant surge and high in demand has seen product shortages and has created queries online like hand sanitizer near me and toilet paper near me. Products like luggage and anything travel related has experienced drops in sales. Essential office products have seen surges and queries online.
E commerce SEO should consider creating high demand product pages, based on your traffic/impressions data and watch it very closely. If there is errors those pages should be crawled. Your content on those pages should be relevant and reflect up to date search queries online.
Ads spending
Fewer people are in business right now so more and more people are having to pause or cancel their advertising spending with SEO companies. If companies do not have the products to sell or are not selling their products, they will eventually have to withdraw from investing in google advertising. There are currently no changes been made during this crisis.
Marketing events postponed or cancelled
All marketing events have been postponed or cancelled. As part of combating coronavirus companies and people are avoiding large gatherings and crowds. Many schools, organisations, and other announcements that are urgent must have their schedules interrupted. These include events rescheduling, putting up new available facilities for test and medical centres, and complete closure of the facilities.
A dynamic change
It is essential that you understand as a business the effects that COVID-19 will have on your respective and brand industry. With all the data on hand and the relevant metrics, you can then improve and recompose your message to fit around your situation entirely. How the coronavirus will affect your business depends on the steps that you have taken to help improve and increase your website rankings. You may need to restructure your keywords on the site, your message, and your content. If you modify your content strategy for SEO then your brand might be in the position to succeed and strive.
On-site updates and optimisation
There are several consequences and changes due to the coronavirus. Having the correct metadata is more important than ever. If you had to close your business up due to the current situation then it is important that you update this information on your website. It is essential that you let your audience know this. If you are working in the e commerce industry and you may be receiving a lot of orders and sales on a day to day basis which can cause delays. Therefore, you should let your customers and traffic to your site know that there will be delays on all orders.
Websites for recipes have seen a surge in numbers
Several recipe websites have experienced an increase in clicks and impressions, but not as drastic as health and essential retail websites. This is likely due to more and more people cooking and baking at home rather than being able to eat out in restaurants. This is not possible right now with current COVID-19 pandemic. With the lockdown still in place, we will see more surges in the organic traffic to recipe websites. While working in a office workplace with others, we highly recommend using the best Covid-19 disinfectants on the market.
Travel websites have seen a mixture of surges
As a result of traveling being cancelled in and out of countries across the world, there has still been a surge in traffic and impressions. The travel industry is diverse with cruises, hotels, airlines all these sectors are being impacted.
During this time, it is important to focus on your business and adapt new SEO strategies to help during the COVID-19 crisis. A good approach would be to research keywords that are relevant to web users and what they would be typing in at this time. This will allow you to understand and make sense of the quick changes in user’s search behaviours and search interest due to the coronavirus global pandemic. The effects of the virus has affected every enterprise and business globally.