How Coronavirus Impacted Search Trends and SEO

TL;DR:
COVID-19 caused dramatic changes in search demand across different industries, but those changes weren’t necessarily caused by websites losing or gaining rankings. Using Google Search Console data from clients I was working with in March 2020, this article shows how impressions and clicks fell sharply in sectors such as travel and hospitality, remained relatively stable elsewhere, and increased for some products and services associated with staying at home. The broader SEO lesson is that sudden traffic changes can reflect changes in search demand, not just changes in rankings.

Why I kept this COVID search data as a case study

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an extraordinary change in the way people searched online. Demand disappeared almost overnight in some industries, remained surprisingly stable in others, and increased dramatically for products and services associated with spending more time at home.

At the time, I was managing SEO and website performance across clients in a wide range of industries, which gave me an unusual view of those changes through Google Search Console data.

I originally published this article in March 2020, during the first weeks of the pandemic. Rather than rewriting it with hindsight, I’ve kept the original examples and observations below as a snapshot of what was happening to organic search demand at the time.

The interesting SEO lesson isn’t really about coronavirus itself. It’s that a sudden loss or increase in organic traffic doesn’t necessarily mean rankings have changed. Sometimes the number of people searching for the products or services you offer has changed instead.

How COVID-19 changed search demand

At the time, I was working as a website optimisation consultant across clients in a wide range of industries.

I monitored organic performance closely, including alerts for significant week-on-week traffic drops. Ordinarily, a sudden decline would prompt me to investigate rankings, technical problems, website changes or a potential Google update.

In March 2020, those alerts started appearing across multiple websites at around the same time.

The difference was that there wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with the websites.

Search behaviour itself was changing.

Google Search Console made that particularly visible because I could look at both impressions and clicks. If impressions suddenly fell across an otherwise stable website, that could indicate fewer searches taking place for the products or services it normally appeared for, rather than simply a loss of rankings.

Conversely, some clients started receiving considerably more impressions as lockdown changed what people needed, bought and did at home.

The examples below show three broad patterns I saw across the sites I was working with:

• industries losing search demand
• industries where search demand remained relatively stable
• industries experiencing increased search demand

Most of the dramatic changes became visible around the middle of March 2020, as COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and restrictions began changing everyday behaviour around the world.

The graphs below use Google Search Console impressions and clicks from the beginning of 2020 and were captured at the time.

Site Losing Impressions And Traffic

Fashion

Fashion has seen varying rates of dips – the following 3 sites are all in the footwear sector:

Though the drops are more dramatic in fast fashion clothing as these clients demonstrate:

From this, it looks like clothing isn’t the necessity it was – let’s face it, no one is going out, so no one needs a new outfit, but, you can still walk places, so people still need new shoes.

Travel

This is a niche that has been badly hit – the following site is essentially a travel agent for luxury accommodation on The Algarve:

Whilst this next client has a chain of hostels in large European cities – they tend to have strong year round traffic as young uns from around the globe (in particular from the Far East) plan their trips and book their accommodation – they’ve seen a downward trajectory since January when word of the virus first emerged globally:

in comparison, this was their visibility and traffic in the same period last year which was very consistent

I’ve been working with this client for a number of years, and this is the first time they’ve seen a year on year decline.

Basically, no one is currently planning a holiday any time soon.

Bars & Restaurants

The following is a distillery in Manchester that offers tours and tasting experiences, though they still sell spirits via their online shop:

However, they also have a bar / restaurant that has bombed in terms of clicks and they had to close their doors prior to the official Government order:

No surprise that people aren’t going out.

The next site is a wedding / events venue:

Events & PR

The following site is in events management, and it’s no surprise that they have seen a drop in traffic:

Home Improvements

With more time being spent at home, you’d think this would be a time to get some DIY done – well, maybe not quite (or maybe it’s not the weather for it) as this bathroom suppliers is anything to go by:

Meanwhile, this tile wholesalers has also seen a drop in interest:

Business As Usual

For some niches, it’s like this whole thing hasn’t happened and life goes on as normal:

Financial Compliance

Whilst the markets may have crashed, money still makes the world go round:

Legislative Compliance

I only have data since mid Feb, but looks like people are keen to continue playing by the rules

Sexual Health Help & Advice

The kids aren’t playing by the rules round here and are still roaming in gangs of an evening, I fully expect this to spike when all this is over.

Sites Gaining Impressions and Traffic

Despite living in the midst of a global pandemic, life goes on, and these websites have all started to see a spike in both impressions and clicks now that people have realised that they are going to have to stay in for a while:

In The Garden

The following site sells garden furniture, a place many of us will be, particulary if this good weather keeps up (sod’s law that the weather got nice post lockdown):

The next two sites both sell gardening supplies – plants, bulbs, pots etc:

Whilst these guys sell artifical grass:

It’s good to know that whilst animals can’t catch or spread the virus (unless you eat them alive), people are still looking out for their pets, as this online pet shop shows us:

Eating At Home

When in self isolation – folk look like they start to think about their eating habits – this site provides healthy meals prepared and delivered:

Whilst this site has a wide range of healthy recipes for those on a budget, which started to see more impressions over the last few weeks:

Passing The Time At Home

This site sells sample packs for the budding music producer to use on their tracks and it looks like overthe last week, a few more people are planning to knock a few tunes out with little else to pass the time:

And Finally

You’re probably all wondering, but my site’s been fine, I don’t get much traffic anyway.

I’ve had a handful of clients ask me to pause activity for the foreseeable, which is more than understandable and I am more than happy to do, whilst as you can see from the above, there’s plenty that need to carry on as normal.

Hopefully your website and/or business hasn’t been too affected by all this – in any case, we will get through this, but it will be interesting to see which trends continue once this whole thing starts to clear up – I fully expect health and wellbeing sites to blossom moving forward, as this whole episode wakes many up to the fact they need to look after themselves for a longer, healthier life.

See you on the other side.

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