SEO strategies during Pandemic: shifts and adaptations

The pandemic has definitely changed SEO strategies in a lot of ways, and today we will discuss how these shifts relate to your website content strategy.

Let’s begin!

Make sure your business is related

It’s important to remember that COVID-19 has affected industries to different extents. To rank for questions people will ask during and after COVID-19, what you do must be somehow related to what’s occurring during the virus. Simply adding to the noise by targeting Coronavirus-related keywords won’t provide value to your prospective customers or convince them to buy from you.

Therefore, before creating COVID-19-related content, consider:

Will targeting Coronavirus-related keywords cause possible trouble or misunderstanding for your business?

Is this topic relevant to what you offer to your audience?

Will you face certain restrictions by YouTube, Facebook, etc. if you post about these topics?

And lastly, most importantly, is it ethical for you to speak about this topic?

Adapt your search behavior during COVID-19

Consumers have different priorities now, people have lost jobs, are searching for the remedies to overcome anxiety etc.

So, you need to adapt your SEO content strategy to accommodate these shifts, which may mean targeting COVID-related keywords.

1. Research Coronavirus-Related Keywords

The easiest way to find COVID-19-related questions to rank for is to simply conduct research using your chosen keyword research tool. You can check these tools in our previous post. Most of them are free and easy to use for anyone. The key here is to find keywords that are actually relevant to your audience or business, or keywords where you can at least add your spin to make it relevant to your site.

Targeting “what is coronavirus” might have you up against some of the highest authority medical industry sites, but it may be worth to play a little and make it relevant to your area of expertise and industry, for instance, write an article like “What Does the Coronavirus Mean for Affiliate Marketers” or similar.

2. Ask Your Audience

If you’re completely stumped on what questions to rank for, consider surveying your audience to find out what topics they are interested in.

This can be effective if you have an engaged social media following or email list.

Some possible topics that might come up include:

“How do I stay focused while working from home?”

“How do I get more clients during COVID-19?”

“Should I invest or save my money during COVID-19?”

“What kind of work-at-home vacancies are available right now?”

Your audience can be a great source of ideas, and since you have already asked them what they’re interested in, you can be confident that they will engage with your content once it’s published. Their ideas might also direct you toward some keywords you might not have thought of on your own.

3. Publish More Video Content

Coronavirus-related keyword searches have risen on YouTube as well.

If you’re not set on creating new blog content, you might consider publishing video-based content.

You can leverage SEO data (using tools like TubeBuddy) to find these keywords and inform your video topics.

Then, you can create “top of the funnel” videos that target questions users are looking for and lead them to information about your services and products.

4. Create a Dedicated Coronavirus Page

If you find that your audience has a lot of Coronavirus-related questions, it might make sense to make a separate Coronavirus page. In doing this, you can target short-tail and long-tail keywords while consolidating all of this information on your site.

Add contextual internal links as individual pages begin to rank in the search results.

4. Publish More Video Content

Coronavirus-related keyword searches have risen on YouTube as well. So, video-based content is a great step here.

You can leverage SEO data to find these keywords and inform your video topics. Then, you can create “top of the funnel” videos that target questions users are looking for and lead them to information about your services and products.

5. Avoid Misleading or False Content

Clearly, it might be alluring to post some clickbait articles, as so many people now do, but… we do not recommend doing this, because in long-term prospective it might hurt your credibility. If you’re going to provide information related to COVID-19, make sure it is well-researched.

6. Monitor Google Updates & SERP Changes

The goal with the majority of this content is to build up your E-A-T signals so Google is likely to rank your site for COVID-19-related questions. But Google is likely to tweak their algorithm over time in order to filter out misinformation and scammers. You’ll need to stay on top of these updates in order to create content that’s likely to rank and also avoid creating content that will get you wiped from the SERPs.

Final Thoughts

The pandemic situation brings changes everywhere. As digital marketers neither should we panic, nor should we exploit the situation. What we should do is to find another way, which is adapting and optimizing up to the current events. Also, pay attention to competition level, as it may be difficult to compete with major news outlets, the CDC, and others when targeting broad Coronavirus-related terms.