What COVID-19 Means For SEO And Blogging Income

Donovan Nagel
Written by Donovan Nagel

I was calling BS on the coronavirus a few weeks ago.

Many people still are.

The media has exposed itself over the last 3 years as openly hostile to the common good and utterly dishonest so it’s hard to believe them when news is actually true.

Is COVID-19 another “Russia, Russia, Russia” bit to steal the November election?

I thought so in the beginning.

This week I’m a little less inclined to believe it’s all been hyped up and overblown. People are legitimately perishing from the Kung Flu and the number of deaths don’t lie. All because of a backward, evil country that considers diseased bats to be a delicacy and refuses to accept responsibility for what they’ve caused.

My view and hope is that COVID-19 will start diminishing sooner rather than later and we’ll all be back to normal by mid-year.

I pray this is true.

In any case, the damage to the global economy is possibly more of a concern than getting sick with a virus for two weeks.

It’s plummeting.

All the work that Trump did in getting America’s economy roaring appears to have been lost, and here in Australia things aren’t good either.

Entire industries are on the brink.

People are going to be jobless.

But my question is: For those of us who blog and run niche sites for a living, how is this going to pan out?

I’ll share what I’m seeing already and what I predict for the coming months.

This is happening for me across all my niches and people are saying the same thing in forums.

Traffic shot up this week.

In fact, I’m looking at an average 30% rise in organic traffic.

Now, normally this would correlate to rising sales.

Whether it’s affiliate or product sales, higher traffic = increased buyer activity.

But sales are down.

There’s been a trickle since the big lockdowns were put in place to slow the spread of the Coronavirus.

Of course, it’s difficult to draw a conclusion based on two weeks of data but my assumption is this:

  1. People are stuck at home on the Internet.
  2. They’re also afraid to spend money due to a drop in hours or job uncertainty.

Sales are happening however, albeit lower than usual.

Will the spending stop soon?

Even if the economy is currently tanking, it takes a while for the average consumer to realize that life has changed.

People are panic buying but they’re also still splurging.

Give it another month of jobs and hours being cut, and industries being decimated, and I think people are going to start pinching pennies.

Unfortunately, my main blogging niches are travel-related.

Nobody’s going anywhere right now.

So once the consumer confidence is gone, I have a feeling that sales in my industry are going to be wiped out. It’s a luxury that most people won’t want to invest in.

Other niches that sell products required for essential living should continue to make bank.

Coronavirus will end

Remember that there is an end to this madness.

Humanity has dealt with viruses and plagues since time immemorial.

We might be joking about COVID-19 this time next year as that virus that everybody lost their minds over for a short time.

Or it could linger for ages.

But it will end.

Keep working away at your blogs and invest in your niche marketing now so that when the market bounces back, you’re ahead of the game.