Thanks to COVID-19, the volume and trends in search this year have been unlike any other. The momentum of local search & maps going into 2020 completely stalled, with an immediate shift to online services. In other words, it’s more important to have a web presence and be able to be found from search now than in years past. In this blog, our ASTOUNDZ SEO experts share some insights and SEO & Digital trends to follow to finish 2020 on a strong note.

Your Website Needs eCommerce/Pricing

If you’re a store, having an online shop for products to be found and purchased is going to be important for every website to have going into 2021. Even as COVID-19 cases decline in certain areas, consumer habits & behaviors have been shaped by the pandemic and online shopping will be more voluminous this holiday season than years before. Setting up your shop sooner than later will help insure your product pages be found and begin ranking by search engines, like Google.

For non-Ecommerce sites, leverage Google Analytics and other SEO tools to identify the most landed on and highest engaging pages. Look to add a converting action for the holiday season to highlight any specials currently running on services. Additionally, working to create some form of pricing, either as a dedicated page or key section on your homepage, will help in filtering out bad leads and establish transparency with viable leads.

Remarketing Advertising

As we move into the holiday season of 2020, people will begin browsing around a vast number of websites for gifts & end of year shopping. With consumers producing a shopping cart abandonment rate average hovering around 70%, being able to highlight these products in a period where consumers are going to be more inclined to convert is something most eCommerce sites should be considering.

For local businesses and professional services, remarketing still has value as a key piece of a website’s digital marketing strategy for finishing 2020. Because the race to be found online is at a breakneck pace, having your brand stand out

Local Businesses Reopening (Online) the Right Way

As most states begin to reopen many businesses in lieu of the COVID-19 pandemic, many consumers will begin funneling to key areas in search of specific information on a business. One such area is the Google My Business (GMB) listing. Over the past several months, Google has made updates to their GMB platform by providing new fields for business owners/managers to publish COVID-19 related news/announcements. These new features include:

• Temporarily Closed
• Secondary Hours
• COVID-19 Announcement Display
• Safety Features
• Donation Links

For businesses that operate in a more social environment, these features are essential in establishing customer comfort in visiting a business. Also, make sure your website communicates updated COVID-19 info so your map listing maintains high local pack rankings.

Where’d my rankings go? It may be a glitch!

At this point, it’s a trend in 2020 that Google is going to have some indexing issues or instances where search results will radically change unintentionally.

These glitches often resemble a Google algorithm update, which would lead an SEO or Webmaster to begin making changes to restore/retain rankings. However, indexing glitches are situations where results will resolve to their prior state. In addition to this, websites trying to submit new pages may see delays on having this new content scanned and ranked on Google.

Because the new sites found on the first page of search during these indexing glitches are often pushed up from the 2nd and 3rd page of search, the best plan of action during an indexing glitch is to wait it out and let Google resolve their systems. Make sure to follow key SEO news sites, or leverage higher-end SEO tools like SEMRush to stay on top of when Google is making an algorithm update or experiencing an issue with indexing.