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 see a noticeable increase in organic traffic. There are several new features of the search engine results page (SERP) that one can see emerging in different search engines like Google.

With the increased nervousness and uncertainty in the economy due to COVID-19, there have been drastic effects on different businesses and industries. Many industry insiders stated 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 started 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 agencies.

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 tackle the COVID-19 emergency online and create a sense of urgency among users. Another interesting feature of 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 that instructs seekers on how to properly wash their hands or disinfect 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 around 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 common symptoms of COVID-19. This list of symptoms was also pulled from the WHO website.

How will the coronavirus affect long-term trends?

COVID-19 is termed 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 they need to be careful and thoughtful in finding the right target keyword and creating an appropriate and effective strategy.

It’s also possible that COVID-19-related search queries will continue for a long time along with combined searches like future banking, how will travel 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 is no longer a necessity. Companies and SEOs also have more time now to formulate and execute their digital marketing strategies. Whether you’re creating content for a sanitizer and mask brand 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, companies and websites need to stay ahead of the curve and apply different ideas and techniques to keep the website updated and optimized.

With the level of competition expected to increase post this pandemic, it is the right time for businesses to partner with the best digital marketing agencies in India like Arm Worldwide to be prepared with their digital marketing strategies at order to rank commercial websites higher than the competitors.