The outbreak of the coronavirus is posing a challenge to many businesses in mainland China and in Hong Kong, not least in terms of the impact on their ongoing and future commercial contracts. For example, in China the virus caused retail sales to drop by 20.5% and the unemployment rate jumped to 6.2 in February.
This
pandemic is affecting the health of the public, and it’s also impacting the
economy
(75% of total sectors).
According to Google, “since the first week of February, search interest in coronavirus increased by +260% globally.” While spikes in search trends are common during events of this scale, there have also been surges in traffic for related products and topics as a direct response to the pandemic.
Businesses are going to struggle for a while Even if the virus slows down fast as the numbers have dropped in China, businesses are going to struggle for well over a year because they will have to make up for their losses.
Organic traffic is down in most industries. from an SEO standpoint, last week there was a huge drop in organic traffic for 75% of all industries. Just look at the chart below (compares last week to the previous week).
Conversions were also down for most industries
From a conversion rate standpoint, we recognized drops in most industries as well. Even the financial sector, which had big traffic booms in traffic, dropped in conversions.
Just look at the chart above (comparing last week to the previous week):
With Coronavirus spreading at an alarming rate, companies are now beginning to implement measures to mitigate its impact. It doesn’t matter if your products or services are designed for in-store experiences, now is the time to re-think how your business can evolve to ensure it survives this changing dynamic. Whether it’s creating new product lines, better leveraging content marketing and social media strategies to keep customers connected to your brand (especially that during an economic downturn, you’ll find that you will have less competition, which means it is easier and faster to get results, and in some cases, you’ll be able to get deals, such as a potential reduction in pay-per-click advertising.) or even thinking bigger about new business ideas that capitalize exclusively in a digital world, you’ve got to think differently. Subscription-based delivery services and remote focused technology offerings are going to explode in growth as more and more people choose to shop and make their buying decisions from the comfort and safety of their own homes.
Find a way to help your business with us.
Reminder from The Portal Agency
It’s better to work from home. Self-quarantine. Cancel all events.
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