The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted many aspects of our lives, including the way we search online, and customers’ searching behavior has shown some drastic changes during this epidemic situation. To be specific, they conduct more online searching and many search terms are also very different from before.
In fact, during the first outbreak of the virus back in March 2020, the search volume for the term “Covid-19” increased by 1300 percent, and the keyword “online” surged by 54%, according to data from noblestudios.com. Therefore, it’s extremely vital for SEO-ers to stay up-to-date with current search trends in order to run effective SEO campaigns and make the most out of their efforts. In this article, let’s look at how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted Google search term trends and how to optimize your SEO strategy accordingly.
1. The effects of COVID-19 on SEO
SEO is no exception when it comes to the areas affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Let’s look at some potentials as well as difficulties for SEO that the Coronavirus has brought.
1.1. Opportunities
One of the biggest opportunities the pandemic presents for SEO is the rise in online traffic from customers. To explain, quarantines and social distancing measures applied have caused the surge in demand for virtual shopping, thus more and more customers search online for products and services. This is a great opportunity not only for SEO in particular but also for e-commerce websites in general.
In addition, people being forced to stay at home due to the pandemic has increased search volume for topics such as healthcare, education, entertainment, etc( which will be discussed in more detail in II). This has opened more SEO opportunities to businesses operating in these areas.
1.2. Challenges
A considerable challenge stemming from the impact of the covid 19 pandemics is the declining economy, not only for businesses but also for individual citizens. When customers have to deal with financial problems, they are less likely to spend money to purchase more products and services, which could affect the conversion rate in SEO.
2. Search term trends in Covid 19
2.1. Health care: self-care, meditation, and psychological help
It should come as no surprise that healthcare is one of the most popular search topics in the current epidemic situation. Customers tend to look for information about the latest updates about the Covid 19 pandemic and precautionary measures to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Some healthcare-related queries that have witnessed a significant increase in search volume are “self-care”, “meditation”, “psychology” and “virtual healthcare”. This is understandable because when customers stay quarantined at home for a long time, they are more inclined to think about ways to take care of their physical and mental health better.
2.2. Education: distance learning and online education
The Covid pandemic has forever changed the way the education system works worldwide. In fact, there are more than 1.2 billion children who cannot attend the traditional classroom due to social distancing. , according to Weforum.org.
This has resulted in an increase in searcher demand for terms such as “distance learning” or “online education”. In addition, having a lot of spare time at home drives people to the desire to learn new skills and knowledge. So search queries like “free courses”, “online courses” have also witnessed a dramatic rise.
2.3. Finance: how to invest/manage finance
It is true that the Covid 19 pandemic has seriously affected the world’s economy and cash flow, and therefore, it has made people more cautious when making financial decisions. This explains why search terms such as “How to invest”, “How to finance” have shown an increase in volume.
And the finance-related search topics revolve around not only small amounts such as rent payments or grocery shopping but could also be about larger and more important expenses such as taxation costs or project investment. By optimizing your content to serve this search demand, you could reach many more customers and boost your SEO to a higher level.
2.4. Entertainment and Events: Games/E-sport
During the time of covid- 19 when social distancing measures were applied, we see the rise of some forms of home-based entertainment, typically games or export. Millions of people are at home dealing with boredom and stress, thus turning to these entertainments for escapism.
This gives tremendous opportunities for the gaming industry. By optimizing their content and SEO practices to reach the most number of customers, game companies can reach large success during this Covid 19 time.
3. Best keyword practices for SEO in Covid 19
3.1. Keep up to date with search trends
Keeping up with search trends is extremely important in SEO because in order to gain traffic from customers, your content must be relevant and high-value to the needs of searchers. The keywords mentioned in II (Search term trends in Covid 19) could serve as suggestions for you to keep your content on-trend during Covid 19 time.
Also, there are some effective SEO tools that could help you stay up-to-date with the current trends, which will be introduced later on in III.3
In addition to creating new content, pay attention to updating or revising your old content. Please ensure that all the pages on your website are appropriate and acceptable in the current context of the epidemic. In addition, making your old content up-to-date also allows you to gain more trust from customers and increase your CTR (click-through rate).
3.2. Respond to search trends properly
One of the first steps you should take to best adapt your site to current Covid 19 trends is to perform Keyword research and optimize your content accordingly. You can start examining keywords of your business and industry, and see whether those are still effective, or whether they have dropped in search volume.
And another step that never does you wrong is analyzing your competitors. Try to research how they respond to trends and what keywords they are targeting. You can also evaluate what keywords of your competitors rank well and learn from that to form your most effective keyword strategy.
And it’s never a bad idea to work on new keywords that have huge potential. Try to look back at some untried keyword options and evaluate to see if it’s worthwhile to invest in those keywords right now. As the world is turned upside down due to the covid 19 pandemic, is it possible that new ideas will have the potential to lead to great success?
3.3. Take advantage of effective tools
Researching on-trend search keywords might involve analyzing a lot of data and require a large amount of time and manual work. Fortunately, there are some tools for you to handle this task effectively while saving you much time and effort. Take a look at these multi-feature keyword tools which could assist you in keeping up with current search trends in this pandemic period.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is an SEO tool that almost all SEO-er knows. With this tool, you will be able to check keyword rankings as well as get suggested related sets of keywords. Ahrefs also enables you to check article rankings, analyze your competitors, check backlinks, and many more. You can choose to use it for free or upgrade to the paid plan to fully experience the benefits that Ahrefs offers.
Google Trends
Google Trends is a free tool from Google that helps you view the searching frequency of an input term entered into Google in proportion with the total volume of all search queries over a specific timescale.
Besides, Google trends provide users with data on related search terms and topics, as well as their popularity in specific geographic locations. So with this tool, you can thoroughly evaluate your selection of keywords to see whether they would be worth trying to rank for in this Covid-19 period.. And the plus is it’s totally free.
SEO Booster – All-in-one SEO solution on Shopify
If you’re running an eCommerce website on Shopify, SEO Booster is a highly recommended SEO tool for you. It is a one-size-fits-all SEO solution for all Shopify store owners of all levels, from beginner to advanced with SEO.
This easy-to-use SEO application allows you to check a keyword’s popularity and related search terms and topics over time in a nation or local geographic areas. Moreover, the feature “Trending” helps you take a look at what’s currently on-trend in a specific country so that you can timely implement your best content and keyword strategy to stay up-to-date with current search trends.
Besides these effective functions that assist you with keyword research, SEO Booster provides many useful features to optimize your on-page SEO and boost your traffic with the least manual work required. Every user is granted a 7-day trial to try the premium features offered for FREE to optimize your SEO to the highest level.
4. Explore Non-Covid, Non-Coronavirus Terms
It’s important to know that although most of our attention and news coverage have been directed towards the pandemic, queries that are non-Covid-19-related are also worthy of ranking.
This is because these terms reflect the needs and circumstances of customers in the current period. For example, keywords such as “deferring payments” show that the searcher is facing financial difficulty and might need support
In addition, our life is increasingly filled with negativity due to the coronavirus, so it is advisable that you try to spread positivity through your content. Just make sure the posts or articles you create leaves your audience feeling motivated and encouraged during these difficult times.
Conclusion
One of the most important requirements for SEO success is being timely and relevant, and keeping up with customer searching behavior is a must to meet that requirement. We hope that the information and insights provided in this article could serve as guidelines for you to employ more effective SEO and content tactics to boost your business success.