In connection with the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and the upcoming crisis, owners of online businesses have a reasonable question: “How does quarantine affect Internet marketing?” Many inexperienced (and even experienced) specialists are now in a panic. What will happen next?
1. Demand reduction
Obviously, demand will decline in almost all areas. In the first days as active as possible. But it is not critical. If absolutely apocalyptic events will not occur: disconnection of the Internet and so on. I assume that the overall decrease in activity will fluctuate between 10–20%.
2. Growth in information demand
E-commerce fades into the background. In the first place – news and articles. People do not go to buy cars, apartments, and refrigerators (unnecessarily). But the latest quarantine news is interesting.
Of course, basic needs still need to be addressed. If you sell something essential for people’s lives and you have a delivery – wait for growth.
3. Change in demand
Another obvious fact: people will begin to look for different things and in different ways. Not dramatically, but differently. At a minimum, qualifying words to queries appear: with delivery, cheap, in stock, etc.
4. Deferred demand formation
Some users planned large purchases. Someone will do them. And someone will postpone the purchase until the end of the turbulent period. This will lead to two things: a non-seasonal surge in activity after quarantine is completed and an increase in information requests during it.
That is, now, who planned to buy something, at best, will collect information about what and where to buy, which and why.
All these points will in one way or another affect search results. Everybody knows that Google has sophisticated ranking algorithms and they take into account hundreds of factors. This means that the demand and interest of users affect the results of issuance. Therefore, even in a conditional vacuum, if all competitors froze their activity, the output would change with a change in demand. And competitors are not asleep.
A few words about competition
Someone will fall off. Or generally closes – this the worst-case scenario. A big part of your competitors will stop SEO-work, until better times (and here they are wrong). And someone will increase momentum.
SEO is too long. Today you start – in a year you will be glad. You stop today – in a year you will sob. Since against the background of quarantine and crisis, new players will enter the arena to take the place of the fallen. Therefore, SEO must be run just the same!
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- We monitor demand and adapt.
- Analysis of the target audience: what and how they will look for – we adapt and help find it.
- There were some moves in the backlog – it’s time to implement.
I recommend changing something global on the site in the off-season. Less risk, less loss. And quarantine is just the perfect off-season! - We create content. It’s time to blow the dust off the pages of the blog and update that latest article of 2017.
Soberly assess financial opportunities. We advise you to invest in SEO, but first of all, really assess your capabilities. Calculate, taking into account possible pessimistic scenarios, will you have enough money? If not, it is better to wait and leave the minimum necessary for survival.
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