Every fortnight the Croud SEO team collate the latest news from relevant sources around the web so you don’t have to. Read through the top SEO news stories for this week below and follow us on Twitter or sign up to our newsletter.
Google turns on ‘mark a business temporarily closed’ for business owners on GMB
25/03/2020
Google has introduced instructions on how to mark a business as temporarily closed within Google My Business. This will be useful during the COVID-19 outbreak which has seen some countries close non-essential business for a period.
Pivoting and planning for a future after COVID-19
25/03/2020
A number of SEO marketers share what they’re planning during and after COVID-19 for clients, noting that many are switching to a greater focus on online. This includes reviewing messaging to ensure clients are communicating with their audiences, maintaining a positive relationship and ensuring improvements to search performance continue to make up for the fallout of the virus.
Winners and losers: How COVID-19 is affecting search behaviour
24/03/2020
SEL analyses which verticals have seen improvements across the period of the outbreak and those that have lost out. The biggest winners appear to be the grocery, bulk delivery and productivity sectors whilst hotels, theme parks and restaurant chains saw the greatest decreases.
YouTube updates for creators to improve analytics for live streams & more
25/03/2020
YouTube has announced several updates for creators, including better analytics for live streams, in its latest video on the Creator Insider channel.
Google temporarily disables local reviews
20/03/2020
Google has temporarily disabled local reviews on GMB for both consumers and business owners. Yelp has also issued a similar policy, preventing negative reviews over the period due to the impact of COVID-19.
Google’s right-sidebar featured snippets are no more
20/03/2020
Google has migrated it’s right-hand sidebar into the main results; appearing above the organic results. This has pushed the organic results even further down the page and may impact the CTR of those listings.
Yelp lets users donate to small businesses
24/03/2020
In an effort to give loyal customers the means of contributing to local businesses, Yelp is partnering with GoFundMe to introduce a way for independent businesses to accept donations through their Yelp pages.
Data suggests there’s still no corporate or brand bias in Google results
13/03/2020
An analysis by SEL indicates that there is still no bias when it comes to corporations and brands in the Google search results pages. It appears that nonprofits dominate the search results (such as Wikipedia) and personal blogs rank better than ever.
COVID-19: Pulse of the consumer
23/03/2020
Research by Engine appears to show that despite consumers being more pessimistic, they are spending up to 30% more online across both grocery and non-grocery products, though this is split between increases for home entertainment/fitness and decreases for apparel and furniture.
