Impact of Coronavirus on Online Searches

The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic is a new and ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that can be attributed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The outbreak was initially identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019, and was later classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 2020. By March 21, 2020, more than 284,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in over 180 countries and territories, resulting in more than 11,800 deaths and 93,000 recoveries.

As the new coronavirus pandemic affects the globe and people take to their homes to avoid getting and spreading the contagion, it is expected that much of the conversation about it is taking place online. People are using the internet to share information, show their anxieties, and while away time while in quarantine and self-isolation.

Mentions of “coronavirus” across search platforms and news media started to increase in late February, according to social media analytics platform Sprinklr. The latest rise in mentions shows how the conversation around the Coronavirus pandemic has spiked in recent weeks. Sprinklr recorded about 20 million comments and mentions of terms relating to coronavirus on March 11.

“With 19 million mentions across social media and news sites related to Covid-19 in the past 24 hours alone around the world, it’s clear that coronavirus is the first global pandemic that is unfolding on social media with unprecedented volumes of conversations happening every second,” stated, Grad Conn, Sprinklr chief experience and marketing officer. “Global social media usage rates had grown by about 50 per cent since 2014 when the Ebola epidemic was happening worldwide. And recent major news stories — including climate change, sporting, and political events — have not had the same global impact as Coronavirus on individuals, businesses, and governments.”

The concerns of people about Coronavirus have also been reflective in their search history. Google searches of Coronavirus in the United States saw their first significant spike relative to all search traffic toward the end of January. In recent days, Coronavirus has seen its highest level of search traffic, a level that was indicated by a score of 100 on Google Trends. This is an enormous search volume by any measure. Here’s that same trend indexed against perennially popular Google searches of “Trump,” “music,” and “video” for the last two months: “I haven’t seen anything like this,” Simon Rogers, data editor on the News Lab team at Google, told Recode, referring to the sharp increase in searches of coronavirus related terms.

Collaborative robots, or cobots as they are commonly known, have developed extremely fast and successfully. An emerging technology met with scepticism only a decade ago, and today cobots represent the fastest-growing segment of industrial robotics. Given the latest exciting trends in robotics research, their success is expected to grow. The global collaborative robots market size was valued at USD 649.1 million in 2018 and is projected to expand at the CAGR of 44.5%, from 2019 to 2025. The collaborative robot or cobot is intended to interact with humans in a shared workspace, physically. The growing adoption in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and investments in automation of manufacturing processes are the key factor driving the growth. The emergence of robots working along with humans in areas like smart parts assembly and electronics product assembly further fuels the demand.

This has also positively affected the way they are searched on the internet. According to Google trend, there has been a steady increase in the rate at which internet users search phrases connected to the Robotics industry over the last five years, with the dip in searches recorded about a few months ago.

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This reduction in internet searches on robotics can be attributed to the outbreak of Coronavirus as the disease has been shown to affect all other popular internet searches since the time of its outbreak.

If the recent trends on internet searches are anything to go by, a continued drop in the rate at which robotics-related phrases are searched is to be expected, at least, till the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic is stopped and considerable improvement has been made in developing a cure.

As the global economy reels from the impact of the contagious Coronavirus, businesses are shifting strategies, hoarding cash and preparing for the worst. But the reality is that companies can thrive in downtimes. There will be business winners and losers in this new global situation. And many of the winners will be among those who invest heavily in search engine marketing.

In times like this, money is significant. The only business that has enough funds can survive economic downtimes like this. And as it is, SEO is one of the most effective marketing methods that can give excellent ROI at this moment. This is because SEO marketing gets to the end users exactly when they are in a state of need. Search engine marketing produces sales and leads precisely because the consumer is connected to the company’s brand when they are searching for their product or service.

Despite the self-isolation and social distancing that’s being preached now, people still need things, and now that they are indoors is when they will do more searching for products and services required. By putting a brand in front of searchers, a product seller or service provider make the cut when the buying decision is made. Moreover, there are already indications that some goods are going to be hard to find soon. When products and services are scarce, consumers will search for them. If and when these products or services are not available, users will search for alternatives. If a business brand can be in the search results when people are searching for scarce goods or services, that business will be a beneficiary of the economic windfall.

The types of scarcity that may be witnessed in the coming months are unprecedented in the lifetimes of most people. Forward-thinking search engine marketers will be looking for opportunities to capitalize on the scarcity of specific items and also start working to rank for those items, as well as ranking in the topics around those items. Many SEO professionals will build link building campaigns around alternatives for products that are exorbitantly expensive and hard to find. Those that can capitalize on SEO will be better off, as the keyword costs around scarce items will most likely increase as the demand increases.

Besides, things will revert to normal sooner or later; it probably may not be the same world we are used to or likely take a long time. Nonetheless, SEO marketing will still be one of the most effective ways to reach consumers. Hence, it will be easier for people who have applied effective SEO marketing techniques during the trying times will be in an excellent position to revert to the status quo when things normalize. It is, therefore, encouraged that all businesses to either continue or start aggressive SEO marketing efforts. SEO marketing is the most effective way to market business during economic downtimes like this.