Featured article by Rory Hope, Independent Technology Author
Google Search Trends data for the UK is showing a significant increase in business searching for IT communications providers in response to the impact of COVID-19.
Semetrical, a leading digital marketing agency, have undertaken Google Search Trends analysis relevant to core products and services provided by companies within the IT Communications industry in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate how IT conferencing solutions have become a top priority for many UK businesses.
It was estimated by the ONS that 5% of the UK’s workforce had adopted remote working at the beginning of 2020. This percentage will likely have increasedexponentially between January and April 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with UK public transport usage reducing by 80-95%, according to the BBC.
As a result of this shift towards remote working for companies in the UK, there has been a surge in the number of Google searches for IT communications services such as “video conferencing”, “web conferencing”, “unified communications” and “digital transformation”.
Increased interest demonstrated via Google searches
The notable uplifts in UK Google searches for IT communications products and services between January 2020 and April 2020 are listed below:
- – 10x increase in “video conferencing” keyword searches
- – 5.7x increase in “virtual conferencing” keyword searches
- – 8.2x increase in “audio conferencing” keyword searches
- – 8x increase in “web conferencing” keyword searches
- – 14.7% increase in “unified communications” and “digital transformation” keyword searches
- – 72.9% increase in “remote working” and “webinar” keyword searches.
In recent years, there has been a growing demand for digital transformation amongst a wide range of global businesses to enable remote working. These search trend uplifts indicate that there is a significant increase in business searching for IT communications providers in response to the impact of COVID-19.
What should IT communications providers do to benefit from this?
As an IT communications provider, these trends could present a number of opportunities to capture new leads through online search marketing, it’s recommended that you consider the following:
- – Revisit your digital marketing strategy for 2020 and consider increasing investment
- – Prioritise your SEO & PPC channels to gain online visibility and market share
- – Review search trends on a monthly basis to identify emerging opportunities
- – Publish frequent up-to-date content around topics such as IT conferencing, remote working and unified communications.
Revisit your digital marketing strategy for 2020 and consider increasing investment
It is likely that most companies would have allocated a budget already for digital marketing activities in 2020, however it’s important to revisit the plan and adapt where necessary as a result of increased search demand for IT communications services.
It can take a few months to undertake market research into search patterns of potential leads, and SEO is an ongoing process that will deliver results in the long-term. For the opportunity to increase search visibility in the short-term to capitalise on the surge, you should consider setting up PPC, display and remarketing campaigns.
Prioritise your SEO & PPC channels to gain online visibility and market share
SEO & PPC channels should be prioritised for budget allocation and optimisation as this will be the most effective way to capture the increase in demand. You should ensure that you, or your chosen agency, has undertaken SEO market research to inform both your SEO strategy and the PPC campaign structure.
For more information on the benefits of SEO & PPC during a recession, Semetrical have written a comprehensive article: 5 Reasons To Invest In Digital Marketing During An Economic Downturn.
Review search trends on a monthly basis to identify emerging opportunities
Using keywords that are relevant to your products or services, you can regularly check in Google Search Trends reports, as to whether the demand is increasing or declining for a certain keyword grouping (e.g. “digital transformation”).
This is most effective to spot emerging trends, so if you have keywords that you think align to R&D projects or new features then try inputting them into Google Search Trends to see if users are starting to search for those terms.
Publish frequent up-to-date content around topics such as IT conferencing, remote working and unified communications
Search engines such as Google, prefer websites that publish frequent high quality content on their website. A key signal of content quality is content ‘freshness’, and therefore if a company updates its product or service pages, as well as it’s blog frequently, then it is likely to benefit from improved SEO performance.
Due to the increase in search demand for keyword topics such as “video conferencing”, “unified communication”, “digital transformation” and others, it’s worth reviewing your content planners to include more content relevant to these topics where possible. If you publish new content on your blog, make sure to include a link within the content to your product or service page as this will give you the most SEO value.
Key takeaway
The COVID-19 pandemic will likely have a profound impact on how the workforce collaborate in the long term, as businesses invest in their IT systems infrastructure.
It’s clear from recent search trends that people are using Google to search for further information and therefore search marketing should be an integral part of your digital marketing strategy to reach these potential customers.
