SNYCU Ep. 125 - March 25, 2020 - Light Version
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In this episode we dive into how the Coronavirus has continually impacted search. This includes the changes Google has made to search to provide information to users and businesses, as well as regular SEO news such as tests being done in the SERPs, information on manual actions, and more.
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In this episode:
- Algorithm Updates & Coronavirus Impact
- What trends are we seeing at MHC?
- Additional COVID-19 reading
- Using Google Trends and Google Search Console to help in this confusing time
- MHC Announcements
- Tips to help adjust during this time
- Share with us the amazing things happening out there
- Google Announcements
- A new experience to relay important COVID-19 info in Google Search
- Additional/expanded access for free in G Suite
- Google SERP Changes
- Knowledge panels on desktop displaying large videos
- SEO Tips
- Is your website running slower than usual lately? This may be why!
- Search Console Training: how to use the Index Coverage report to preview statuses and identify issues
- YouTube has a new guide centred around hosting virtual events
- Other Interesting News
- Bing introduces new schema.org markups surrounding announcements related to the pandemic
- Lily Ray’s initiative to help businesses and marketers connect during the Coronavirus outbreak
- Experts say that the internet will remain online throughout the pandemic
- Local SEO - News from SterlingSky
- Local SEO - Google SERP Changes
- Google inserting a COVID-19 alert message in local searches
- Local SEO - Tips
- Free resource for business owners all about keeping your GMB updated during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Local SEO - Other Interesting News
- Google removes the ability to post local reviews amid COVID-19
- There might be delays once you’ve implemented “EventCancelled” schema
- SEO Tools
- Moz’s amazing contributions
- Recommended Reading
- Jobs
- Want More?
Paid members also get the following:
- Google is pausing upcoming Chrome and Chrome OS releases to adjusted work from home schedules
- The latest regarding Chrome’s plans to block mixed content
- A new way to appeal policy issues within Google Ads, depending on eligibility
- Track all major changes to the Google Search developer documentation
- Right side featured snippets have almost entirely been moved or removed
- Clickable cards in the SERPs
- For those of you experiencing issues indexing URLs with anchor fragments
- Debug links clicked through the Debug Terminal
- Chrome Dev Tools updates Long Tasks visualization UI in the Performance panel
- How to build a ‘Buy Online and Pickup Curbside' store using Shopify
- Bing Webmaster URL Submission API -- full documentation in one concise page
- Suggested best practice regarding indexing product category pages on eCommerce sites
- John answers detailed questions about how Manual Actions are handled
- Speed metrics could be more granular of over time and may further influence rankings
- Are strange things happening with your site-specific AMP carousels? This could be why!
- Google has no intentions of hiding News content that is behind paywalls
- Want an effective way to filter out internal traffic while your staff are working from home?
- Curious to know what percentage of sites are not mobile-friendly?
- Are we seeing a new Analytics benchmark?
- Several examples of businesses that began during a recession
- New review highlights on Google Maps
- Here's three options to update your GMB hours
- Google allows *some* modification of certain GMB business names
- A heightened level of Google Posts are getting rejected
- Multiple warnings available in the SERPs to signal when an event may have been cancelled
- My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles
Algorithm Updates & Coronavirus Impact
It is quite challenging to determine whether Google has pushed out any significant updates over the last week as almost every business in the world is affected in some way by COVID-19.
Last week, we published a Twitter poll to ask what you are seeing in terms of impact on your clients’ businesses, or your own business. Last week, 48.7% of respondents said that they were seeing declines in organic traffic.
This week, we re-ran the poll and the numbers are, as expected, worse:
Let's do this again. How has COVID-19 affected your site's organic traffic (or your clients' sites)? We'll keep running this poll weekly as a way to track what is happening. Results will be published and discussed in newsletter.
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) March 23, 2020
Some people did report seeing nice improvements:
- +250% - toys - Roman Sadowski
- I have a gardening centre client whose traffic has gone up considerably in the last week - Alex Mungo
- I work in an industry that is considered essential. A lot of traffic looking at store hours right now. - Mike Nealis
- I have a DIY blog - I’m up 20% at least - decor hint
Clicks from Google for a food delivery company (mostly brand searches) pic.twitter.com/soxQkRPGPL
— Dan Shure (@dan_shure) March 18, 2020
Some have reported that clients are seeing more traffic with increased online ad spend:
Here is the social traffic for a client of mine.
And, yes, the boost is from advertising.
It is fun to see how organic drops in demand can be partially counterbalanced through ads. We don't yet know whether they are converting as it is an off-line conversion. pic.twitter.com/qJ9vLYVwqS
— Ken Lewis (@mrkenlewis) March 24, 2020
We we encouraged though to see people who talked about businesses learning to adapt, or otherwise, starting to see some improvements after initial declines:
- The website reach of one of my clients has significantly declined, which is not really surprising since she owns a gym (closed in the Netherlands). However, since we started offering online gym classes for free, the organic reach through social media is growing rapidly. - Jelle Postma
- First declined, this Saturday restored - Sanju Le
- Client makes a luxury version of a pantry staple and only sells it online, and now everyone is stuck at home, grocery shopping online and cooking at home more than ever. They even launched a coupon to make it more affordable. So it's all been good for traffic. - Becky Lehmann
What trends are we seeing at MHC?
We were encouraged to see that this week, we had more sites to report on that are seeing improvements. Still, quite a few of our clients are continuing to see significant losses in organic traffic.
Some of the sites seeing improvement are ones that are very obviously important in the wake of COVID-19. We are seeing large traffic gains for clients that sell medical supplies, bloggers who write about home remedies, and some online medical advice sites.
There were other gains that were quite interesting:
- Lawn care and gardening. While many of these increases could be seasonal, we expect that many people who are stuck at home now will have more time to work on their gardens.
- Cooking sites. Last week, many cooking and recipe sites saw significant decreases in traffic. We have several recipe site clients who are now starting to see some nice gains. Again, it makes sense that as more people are at home, and not going out to restaurants, there will be more home cooking going on.
We did also see quite a few sites whose traffic continued to decline. Most businesses that rely on foot traffic are suffering.
Most of our attorney clients are suffering very large drops in traffic. We have also seen drops in sites that discuss weddings, and also real estate sites.
Additional COVID-19 reading
We found the following articles from the SEO community quite helpful.
My thoughts on the foreseeable future of eCommerce by Luke Carthy (there will be a brief overview of this article for premium subscribers in our recommended reading section)
Early Take: How COVID-19 Is Impacting Website Performance by Nick Leroy
Covid-19: What is the impact of coronavirus to SEO? by Kevin Gibbons
7 Ways COVID-19 Is Affecting Search Traffic & How SEOs Can Respond by Kameron Jenkins
How Coronavirus Is Impacting Local Search by Greg Sterling
Using Google Trends and Google Search Console to help in this confusing time
How are your potential customers changing their search patterns? We loved this tweet in which Caroline Noades pointed out that Google trends is showing a great increase in people searching for “home gym equipment” as compared to “gyms near me”.
I love looking at how our 'new normal' is changing search habits. Not exactly the most surprising comparison but I like graphs 😆 pic.twitter.com/xRlk94N1fm
— Caroline Noades (@Caroline_noodle) March 24, 2020
We would encourage each of you to spend time reviewing your GSC data to determine whether there are certain keywords for your site that are getting more attention lately.
Under Search Results, choose the Performance report and look at queries. (You can also do the same thing with pages). Set the date range to compare the current 7 day period to the previous 7 days. What you are looking for is to find queries that are suddenly getting a lot more attention.
For example, this particular company manufactures a product that can be used either in person, or remotely. They are now getting impressions for people searching for “web based ____ company”.
This company is indeed a web based company that could capture some of these searches. The page that is currently ranking for this query is their home page. However, their home page does not even contain the words, “web based ____ company”. They could potentially capture a lot more search traffic.
They could also consider creating a page specific to this query. You need to be careful doing that though as you don’t want to create individual pages unless you truly can create unique and helpful content on the subject. Still, for this company, it would make sense to create a page that is optimized for this phrase.
MHC Announcements
Tips to help adjust during this time
If your team has gone remote and is struggling to adjust, here is a thread that may help. The MHC team is staying connected as much as possible to help create normalcy during this trying time. If you have tips on how to help with team morale, let us know in the thread below.
Just got off a call with my team. I miss having a full office with people goofing around & laughing. We're all doing well.
Would love to hear your tips on how you are working to help improve your team's morale. What kind of fun things are you doing while cooped up at home?
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) March 20, 2020
Here are some of our favourite responses:
- Testing out virtual happy hour today! Sharing playlists, board game recs, turning normal conf calls into video. Little things go a long way for sure. Sam Kessenich
- We do a virtual "megadesk" every day for an hour on zoom. we all pretend we're at the same desk working but can ask questions or chat or whatever. Niki Mosier
- Collaborative playlists and virtual lunches on Hangouts! Fable McDonald
- All the cat people did a special Zoom—with our cats! Sarah Teach
- Making sure to have a few minutes in the beginning or end to just chat about life and tv shows or anything “normal”. Scheduling more video meetings just for the heck of it opposed to slack messages. Colin Gacek
- Have a virtual game night! With some @jackboxgames you can have up to 8 people in a game. Set up a call in Google Hangouts, have one person present their screen for prompts and voting, and then everyone can join from their phones. Rachel Stires
Share with us the amazing things happening out there
We want to feature some great ways that business owners, digital marketers and SEOs can get help right now. If you know of someone doing something great, let us know in the thread below. We’ll compile a list of resources and steps marketers are taking to help our community.
We're looking for uplifting stories to add to our newsletter! It's a trying time, so let's put some spotlight on those who are doing great things.
Know of a digital marketer doing something great? Tell us below.👇👇👇(We'll also accept cute animal pics 😉)
— Marie Haynes Consulting 🐼 (@mhc_inc) March 23, 2020
Google Announcements
A new experience to relay important COVID-19 info in Google Search
Remember that COVID-19 website that Google said they’d create following Trump’s speech? Well it’s arrived (kind of). The website, google.com/covid19, features public health info, safety and prevention tips, data and insights from across the globe, resources to help, along with info for those of you looking to support relief efforts. While it doesn’t mirror exactly what Trump said it would do (more on that here), their efforts have been excellent with respect to supplying key information during this time of need.
Google touts this site as an authoritative source of information “from health authorities alongside new data and visualizations.” They’ve done a great job at making its functionality easy to navigate and they want users to know that it’ll continuously be updated as new info becomes available.
A new experience to provide COVID-19 / coronavirus information is rolling out on Google Search, along with a new dedicated site with easy access to information at https://t.co/f7ErniQAm5
Learn more here: https://t.co/ggJTs88oNC pic.twitter.com/V63cL3AnF6
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 21, 2020
Please note that the new search experience has been rolling out across the US in English over the last few days and Google says that added luggages and countries will be available soon.
Additional/expanded access for free in G Suite
We’re seeing a lot of businesses extend free services to help out during this time. Google has made the top features in Google Meet free. Check the tweet below to see how to set this up.
https://twitter.com/ow/status/1242193915987492868
Google SERP Changes
Knowledge panels on desktop displaying large videos
The SERPs are always changing! Large-sized videos have now been spotted in knowledge panels. While videos have made appearances before in Google’s knowledge panels, they haven’t appeared quite this large and we’re not too sure why.
Large videos in Google knowledge panels on desktop https://t.co/EC7r64bSLK via @type_SEO pic.twitter.com/KmWOID9Wgu
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) March 20, 2020
SEO Tips
Is your website running slower than usual lately? This may be why!
If your website has been running on the slow end lately, it may be because there are fewer people keeping things running at your hosting company.
My site TTFB/initial server response is 10 seconds or more 1/3 of the time this week. Was thinking it might be due to several recent plugin updates. Then the host provider gave me this response and I was wondering if you have noticed the same:
1/2
— HairLossCure2020 (Hair Loss News) (@HLcure2020) March 24, 2020
"Yes, as due to the world pandemics that we are facing there has been less people working from our end and more people have been working online due to shutdown/ lockdown. So, the server may be facing latency."
2/2
— HairLossCure2020 (Hair Loss News) (@HLcure2020) March 24, 2020
Search Console Training: how to use the Index Coverage report to preview statuses and identify issues
This is a great introduction video from Google Daniel Waisberg about how to use Search Console to see how Google has crawled and indexed your site.
🔍 Find out which of your pages have been crawled and indexed by Google.
In this episode of Search Console Training, @danielwaisberg shows you how to use the Index Coverage report to assess its status and identify issues.
📺 Watch now → https://t.co/d3ieWfZ7e5 pic.twitter.com/ElT7azEGW4
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) March 19, 2020
Daniel talks us through the basics of using this very useful tool and provides explanations of all the aspects of the coverage report.
YouTube has a new guide centred around hosting virtual events
With everyone going remote right now, events are mainly being run online. If you are thinking of hosting an online event, YouTube has a guide to help you run yours smoothly. We definitely recommend reading it to ensure your event is a success.
YouTube publishes a PDF guide to hosting virtual events
"If you’ve decided that hosting a virtual event is the way to go, this guide explains how you can use YT for creating videos & hosting events, complete w/links to more resources & video tutorials." https://t.co/q6GzDs9qq9 pic.twitter.com/LpAXp4fcSq
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) March 19, 2020
Other Interesting News
Bing introduces new schema.org markups surrounding announcements related to the pandemic
Just like Google’s recent rollout, Bing has also added new schema markups to help sites better communicate special announcements. Here is a brief overview of the new SpecialAnnouncement schema markup additions:
- For government health agencies
- For COVID-19 related business updates
- For risk assessment and testing centers
- For travel restrictions
Be sure to read through the Bing post for the requirements needed to utilize these options.
Bing is adding support for new https://t.co/42QqFY8Ezf markups to help keep everyone up to date on the latest special announcements related to COVID-19 pandemic. Find more details at https://t.co/gCeBlzoaag
— Microsoft Bing Webmaster Team (@BingWMC) March 23, 2020
Lily Ray’s initiative to help businesses and marketers connect during the Coronavirus outbreak
Kudos to Lily Ray who is helping those affected due to COVID-19. She is connecting digital marketers who are offering free services to businesses in need right now. Keep in mind, she is running this on her own so responses may take longer to get to. Thanks so much for doing this Lily!
Hi all,
If you are a business who has been affected by the coronavirus, or an SEO/digital marketer who is looking for ways to offer immediate help, I've launched a project to connect marketers offering pro bono services to businesses who need them.
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) March 18, 2020
Experts say that the internet will remain online throughout the pandemic
A concern I’m sure has crossed all of our minds as we have begun working from home, will the internet hold out? It looks like internet providers have considered this, and hopefully we will go unaffected.
Local SEO - News from SterlingSky
There was some bobbing and weaving in search results - but it's not really reflected in the Local RankFlux score at BrightLocal. I suspect some of what we were seeing are just listings and results moving a bit due to closures and changes around the constant COVID-19 updates.
Google made a lot of changes to GMB this week in an attempt to help consumers find up-to-date information on businesses that are closing, or changing offerings due to COVID-19 mandates. Businesses have experienced a bit of frustration over slow or broken features as well.
- Businesses switching to a Take Out or Delivery model can add those terms to their GMB Business Name
- Google announced that no new reviews, review responses or Q&A would be available during the COVID-19 crisis.
- Many businesses cannot add new posts, nor can they add or edit their business description.
- Some businesses are seeing a "COVID-19" GMB Post type, but others cannot post at all, and many aren't seeing the new post type. Allie Margeson of Whitespark.ca tested it and it seems very limited - nobody is sure what makes it different from other posts - also it doesn't allow image or video
- There are reports of businesses being marked temporarily closed that did not request it. Marking the business as open in the dashboard is the fix, but sometimes it doesn't happen right away. If you're stuck, contact Google My Business support.
- User added photos are not showing live - and there's no indication they're being queued - so they may just be disappearing forever.
- Google is prioritizing reviewing new listings & verifications for critical health-related businesses
- And the icing on the cake, GMB Phone & Chat support is no longer working - you must send an email
There is speculation that adding the new COVID-19 post type is what caused some of the other snags. It's pretty common knowledge that right before they roll out a new feature, some existing features break. The Google My Business team is doing a lot of heavy lifting, so patience is definitely going to pay off - but many businesses that are skirting the line between in business and out of business can't wait too long for some of these features to be functional again.
Local SEO - Google SERP Changes
Google inserting a COVID-19 alert message in local searches
This happens to fall between Ads and the Map Pack results in most cases, but others have suggested that the messages are appearing before the ads in some instances. We’re a little unsure if this is for all SERPs or just those with local intent, but it certainly seems to be primarily in the local space.
Google has now inserted a Covid-19 message for local searches between Ads and the Map pack results. pic.twitter.com/Ayid3Q8Oqg
— Stop Project 2025 Jason Brown 🇺🇦 (@keyserholiday) March 18, 2020
Local SEO - Tips
Free resource for business owners all about keeping your GMB updated during the COVID-19 pandemic
It’s important during this time to have your GMB profile reflect any changes on your business. If you’re not sure where to begin, this guide will help you. Some changes you should make include store hours, contact information, updating your business description, update q&a and more.
So proud of our team for hustling to make this free resource for business owners around the world amid COVID-19, while taking the stress off our clients and making all these helpful updates for them! https://t.co/tkFgOT0ZPb
— Allie Margeson (@SeoAllie) March 18, 2020
Local SEO - Other Interesting News
Google removes the ability to post local reviews amid COVID-19
This is rather important news for local search. Reviews are a really great way to show Google a glimpse of your reputation. It appears that they have stopped allowing businesses to accept and post reviews and Q&A. Joy chimed in and said she recommends asking users to not leave reviews until it is resolved.
Google stops allowing reviews and local Q&A during the COVID-19 outbreak https://t.co/yDGz85O9Pi pic.twitter.com/BNwxENx5QN
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) March 23, 2020
There might be delays once you’ve implemented “EventCancelled” schema
John says that your EventCancelled schema may not be recognized by GMB at the moment which unfortunately could explain why the event is still being shown to the public.
https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1240624649354043393?s=20
SEO Tools
Moz’s amazing contributions
All premium SEO courses at Moz are currently free! According to Cyrus, there are over 15 courses to choose from, *with the exception* of the SEO Essentials Certificate. With plenty of options to choose from, this would be a great time to brush up on your skills or learn something new given you have some free time to spare.
As of now, all premium SEO training courses at Moz Academy are 100% free. A small thing, but we did this to help:
• SEOs become more marketable in the workforce
• Businesses with Local SEO
• Agencies get more leadsUse code "wegotthis" (through 5/31) https://t.co/PlKVfWjFhr pic.twitter.com/XyF1ejJ9QB
— Cyrus SEO (@CyrusShepard) March 23, 2020
Recommended Reading
How does a browser create a web page? – Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR
https://www.oncrawl.com/technical-seo/how-does-a-browser-create-a-web-page/
March 17, 2020
There are some great tips here on how the DOM and CSSOM (CSS Object Model) are processed by the browser and how to approach optimization strategies for both. Different DOM types can be leveraged for better user experience, page speed performance, and crawl budget. Koray Tuğberk does a great job of explaining why a decent basis of understanding in DOM, CSSOM, and how they are processed by the browser is an important tool in a technical SEO’s arsenal.
How to Query the Google Search Console API – Brian Gorman
https://moz.com/blog/how-to-query-google-search-console-api
March 18, 2020
You can use Google Search Console’s (GSC) “Performance” report for a number of different things, including the focus of this article: data for “Queries” and data for “Pages”. The issue is that query and page data is separated, so if you want to see which queries that a specific page is ranking for, there’s not a straight path to do so, and any data needs to be exported separately. Brian looks to solve this by using the GSC API, which should allow for more customized data requests and outputs.
Google Discover: An Image Could Be Worth 1,000 Clicks [Case Study] – Brodie Clark
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-discover-case-study/355124/
March 19, 2020
This is great insight into the importance of images for Google Discover. Brodie Clark does a great job at explaining the relevancy of images if you wish to get a better CTR through Google Discover. For example, a high quality image that strongly connects to the content could grant you a much better number of clicks.
My thoughts on the foreseeable future of eCommerce – Luke Carthy
https://lukecarthy.com/blog/my-thoughts-on-the-foreseeable-future-of-ecommerce/
March 17, 2020
Luke Carthy shares his thoughts on the future of eCommerce and SEO amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. In his article, he talks about how internet traffic has increased up to 40% in some niches and some things you should consider when addressing Coronavirus.
Jobs
NYC JOB ALERT!
Looking for a Sr. SEO Analyst to join our trailblazing team at @CNN. E-commerce experience is highly desirable. If you’re interested in revolutionizing the way breaking news is delivered to the world - shoot me a message!
Job posting: https://t.co/fjovwvYt9N
— Upasna Gautam (@UpasnaGautam) March 23, 2020
Want More?
Paid members also get the following:
- Google is pausing upcoming Chrome and Chrome OS releases to adjusted work from home schedules
- The latest regarding Chrome’s plans to block mixed content
- A new way to appeal policy issues within Google Ads, depending on eligibility
- Track all major changes to the Google Search developer documentation
- Right side featured snippets have almost entirely been moved or removed
- Clickable cards in the SERPs
- For those of you experiencing issues indexing URLs with anchor fragments
- Debug links clicked through the Debug Terminal
- Chrome Dev Tools updates Long Tasks visualization UI in the Performance panel
- How to build a ‘Buy Online and Pickup Curbside' store using Shopify
- Bing Webmaster URL Submission API -- full documentation in one concise page
- Suggested best practice regarding indexing product category pages on eCommerce sites
- John answers detailed questions about how Manual Actions are handled
- Speed metrics could be more granular of over time and may further influence rankings
- Are strange things happening with your site-specific AMP carousels? This could be why!
- Google has no intentions of hiding News content that is behind paywalls
- Want an effective way to filter out internal traffic while your staff are working from home?
- Curious to know what percentage of sites are not mobile-friendly?
- Are we seeing a new Analytics benchmark?
- Several examples of businesses that began during a recession
- New review highlights on Google Maps
- Here's three options to update your GMB hours
- Google allows *some* modification of certain GMB business names
- A heightened level of Google Posts are getting rejected
- Multiple warnings available in the SERPs to signal when an event may have been cancelled
- My tl;dr summary of some awesome recent SEO and Local SEO articles
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Part of the challenge of SEO is staying on top of industry news, trends, and techniques There is so much information out there that it is easy to get bogged down in information overload and trying to disseminate what's truly important from all that noise can be really time-consuming and challenging.
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