How COVID-19 Is Affecting Search Traffic

How COVID-19 Is Affecting Search Traffic

In light of the coronavirus, or known as COVID-19, it might have webmasters and experts wondering, how does it affect their search traffic?

Unsurprisingly, the answer will be, “it depends.”

Since search reflects human behavior, the coronavirus has been affecting certain industries differently. Similar to how people are purchasing specific essentials in the supermarkets, e-commerce websites that sell similar essentials are most likely to experience a surge in their traffic.

This constantly changes as the news continues to unfold. For instance, when news about quarantine were announced, traffic and impressions for non-perishable food spiked!

This is why you need to respond accordingly as an SEO expert. Based on various data and information shared from SEO experts like Joel House Search Media, these are the ways COVID-19 has been affecting search traffic.

How COVID-19 Affects Search Traffic 2020?

COVID-19 has affected all industries online and offline. For SEO experts, these are how recent news affected the way people search online:

1. E-Commerce Sites Selling Essentials Are Surging

It’s not shocking to see how eCommerce websites that sell essentials have huge spikes in both impressions and traffic. This is coming from those who need hand sanitizer, alcohol, toilet paper, thermometers, anything related to coronavirus!

Because of this huge demand and product shortages, there are new search queries such as “product name NEAR ME.”

But on the other hand, non-essentials have noticed drops in traffic, such as makeup or travel gear. Take note though, non-essentials can one day become essential the next day!

For instance, when gyms began closing, traffic and impressions have spiked for home equipment. The same goes for those who now work at home due to offices closing, searching for “office chair” or “office desk.”

2. Health and Wellness Sites Are Surging

Health and wellness have been popular for quite some time now, but it’s taken a huge surge in impressions and traffic today. One of the top search queries is, “coronavirus symptoms!”

There are more impressions when it comes to sickness-related articles and websites. On the other hand, not many people care about diets and fasting as much as they did before.

Besides this, there are also more searches for natural remedies for sicknesses. People search for “antiviral herbs,” “antiviral foods,” or “antiviral essential oils.”

If you’re going to make health-related content, it’s time to add more authoritative websites and start answering medical questions related to your niche.

3. Recipe Websites Are Slightly Increasing

Because people are in quarantine and staying at home, they are pushed to start cooking for themselves. This is why recipe websites are experiencing an increase in clicks and impressions. However, it isn’t a huge surge compared to health websites and essentials sellers.

This will continue to raise the longer local restaurants stay closed or operate at reduced capacities. Because of this, it’s time you start coming up with recipe structured data, which enhances the way recipes would show up in search results. You can also consider promoting and publishing recipes which use fewer ingredients, as well as ingredients that you can easily get and on a budget.

4. Travel Websites Are Surging

One might presume that because of the travel restrictions, websites related to it are taking hits on traffics and impressions. Surprisingly, the numbers are actually going up!

This is due to various reasons. Many people are looking to reschedule, cancel, and receive refunds from their current bookings.

However, others are also doing the opposite! Search queries such as “cheap flights” are increasing because, with all the rebooking and cancellations, people assume that airlines would be selling seats at a cheaper price.

In other news, hotel and cruise-related queries are trending down, especially hotels that are closed off. Meaning to say, the specific impact of travel search depends on the sector. But overall, the entire travel industry can feel the impact.

5. Publisher Websites Are On-Demand

Publisher websites will and are experiencing humongous surges in traffics and impressions, with people searching for updates. Search queries such as “coronavirus map” down to the way the virus impacts the stock market is trending now.

Everyone is now glued to the news and continue to search for websites that provide the latest and reputable news, whether good or bad.

If you are a publisher SEO expert, you can begin taking advantage of the surge by:

• Watching log files to prevent serving errors
• Monitoring pages by their publishing date for search engine bots to crawl new pages
• Use search data to know what the public interest is

6. Restaurants Are Trending Down

The effects of search for the restaurant industry are apparent. This is due to the many restaurants either closing or operating in a limited capacity.

As a result, search queries on restaurants are now trending down, though there are some searches that are going up.

Search queries such as “curbside pickup” or “delivery near me” are rising, as well as third-party delivery services.

So if you’re doing local SEO for restaurants closed due to the virus, use holiday hours on your Google My Business, indicating that you’re closed rather than to remove the hours completely. You should also update your restaurant status to let people know if you’re open for deliveries or not.

7. Volatility Is Present All Over

While the times are uncertain, one thing is for sure: Volatility impacts all websites regardless of the niche. And during these times your empathy and website data are king. You need to ensure that you look at your query data so you know what your audience needs and see to it that you meet them.

Wrapping It Up

I hope this information on how COVID 19 is affecting search traffic put you up to speed with current events in the SEO industry. So begin acting accordingly based on these data to continue receiving good traffic on your site now.

Do you have any questions or want to share your own observations on SEO traffic today? Share it in the comments section below, your thoughts are much appreciated!