For the past two months, the entire SEO community has been talking about the latest COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and its impact on organic traffic and performance. It has been seen that there has been a significant drop in the organic performance of websites in different verticals. And at the same time, there are also many verticals where you are seeing a noticeable increase in organic traffic. There are several new search engine results page (SERP) features that one can see popping up on different search engines like Google.
With increased nervousness and uncertainty in the economy due to COVID-19, there have been drastic effects on different businesses and industries. Many industry experts claimed that significant changes in organic traffic, as well as revenue, were observed from March 12 to 16, 2020.
One of the interesting developments of the pandemic has been that the Google results page has begun to stimulate many new panels related to the ‘coronavirus’. These dashboards provide users with information and data related to the disease. The content is usually taken from the website of the World Health Organization (WHO), which is the Center for Disease Control, and many other local government bodies.
Google has also started displaying an ‘SOS Alert’ panel to indicate a state of emergency around the world. This is one of the most effective ways to address the COVID-19 emergency online and create a sense of urgency among users. Another interesting feature of the SERP is that when a user searches for something related to the ‘coronavirus’, the safety tips that should be followed during this crisis are displayed on Google. These tips feature a video instructing seekers on how to properly wash their hands or how to sanitize them along with other tips taken from the WHO website.
In addition, an ‘Affected Area’ panel is also displayed, showing the areas that have been affected by this pandemic on a world map. One can easily see on this map how the pandemic is spreading across the world and its density in different regions of the globe.
In addition, before other search-related organic results are displayed, Google also displays a “symptoms” panel where you can quickly check out common symptoms of COVID-19. This list of symptoms was also taken from the WHO website.
How will the coronavirus affect long-term trends?
COVID-19 is dubbed as one of the biggest trends in Google search history. People are not only looking for information related to the coronavirus, but national leaders like Narendra Modi and Donald Trump are also looking for information related to the stock market.
Long-tail keywords have also started to gain a lot of importance. For example, Pandemic vs epidemic, is there a testing center in my area, the best movies/series to watch in quarantine, is there a store open and much more!
These types of searches can put marketers under a lot of pressure, as it is necessary to be careful and thoughtful when finding the right target keyword and creating an appropriate and effective strategy.
It is also possible that COVID-19 related search queries will continue for a long time along with combined searches like future banking, how travel will reopen, the future of schools after COVID-19 and much more.
How should businesses and SEOs respond right now?
With the number of people working from home increasing more than ever, a daily commute to work is no longer a necessity. Businesses and SEOs also have more time now to formulate and execute their digital marketing strategies. Whether you’re creating content for a brand of sanitizers and masks or an SEO marketing plan for a global media agency, there’s plenty of time here to plan and develop digital marketing strategies.
According to various experts, businesses and websites need to stay ahead and apply different ideas and techniques to keep the website updated and optimized.
As the level of competition is expected to increase after this pandemic, it is the right time for companies to partner with the best digital marketing agencies in India like Arm Worldwide to be ready with their digital marketing strategies to in order to rank commercial websites higher than the competitors.