Episode Overview: Millions of workers shifted to work from home status as COVID-19 outbreaks spread throughout the U.S., changing the way Americans conduct business, work and search online. Join host Ben as he continues speaking with Searchmetrics’ VP of Services Tyson Stockton about COVID-19’s effect on ecommerce businesses and brick-and-mortar institutions.
Summary
- Amazon remains king of ecommerce, experiencing five consecutive weeks of continual growth.
- Netflix’s visibility numbers remained steady despite a significant rise in usage.
- Despite federal restrictions on travel due to COVID-19, travel sites like Expedia didn’t see severe drops in traffic through the month of March.
GUESTS & RESOURCES
- Tyson Stockton: Website // LinkedIn
- The Voices of Search Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // Twitter
- Benjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter
Ben: Welcome back to our March, 2020 edition of Winners and Losers on the Voices of Search podcast. Today we’re going to continue our conversation and talk about some of the trends behind some of the biggest movers, shakers, and slackers in the SEO world. Joining us again for winners and losers is Tyson Stockton, Searchmetrics’ vice president of services. Tyson manages Searchmetrics’ SEO content and client success organizations and outside of shepherding their largest and most strategic clients to SEO success, he’s also dug through the Searchmetrics suite to help you understand who’s making moves in the SEO community. All right, here’s the rest of my sit down with Searchmetrics ‘ VP of Services, Tyson Stockton. Tyson, welcome back to winners and losers on the Voices of Search podcast.
Tyson: Hi, Ben. Good to be back and go over this next round of the coronavirus impact.
Ben: Well, you know it’s obviously not a pleasant topic to talk about, but it is dominating the landscape so much that we had to break this conversation into two parts. Yesterday we talked about how people are getting their information and what the impact that the coronavirus has had on that and the big recap there is that people are generally consuming media the same way, but they’re looking more towards the World Health Organization and the CDC in the health space and that when it comes to communication, the clear winner is Zoom as people are starting to do more online conferences. Now let’s talk a little bit about what some of the impacts are for people’s behaviors at home. Talk to me a little bit about what we’re seeing in the ecommerce space.
Tyson: Yeah. So ecommerce, I mean we’ve talked about a fair amount on the podcast, but it’s definitely one of the industries that I follow very closely and it’s been an interesting one because you know that retail is definitely in a bind and is being pressured from this but then you also have some clear winners from that.
Tyson: So I think the first one, always the case in talking ecommerce is Amazon and what’s going on with them. So Amazon, I think from a business perspective, definitely having an influxing increase in people ordering from home. We are seeing some of that in their visibility too. Like they are clear head and shoulders above everyone else. We’ve talked about this in the past. Almost a nine million point gap. And then if you look at just what happened to their visibility over the last month, they’ve had four consecutive, sorry, five consecutive weeks of growth. So I think they are still the biggest player. No surprise, but if there is anything from this, I would say that they’re even gaining a little bit more traction, a little more coverage from the overall space.
Ben: So in terms of visibility, Amazon is continuing the trend of growth. Outside of Amazon, what are we seeing from the other major ecommerce players?
Tyson: Yeah, so two other ones and both are actually also started from this winner’s group is two other significant players. One of them, Walmart we’ve established before on previous episodes that they’re solidified themselves in this in the number two spot. We have seen some minor growth from them as well and I think this is kind of interesting too, is the companies that have the brick and mortar but also the online business, they’re going to be relying more on the online business to be carrying the load and making up some of that ground. So from Walmart’s perspective being that a lot of it comes from their brick and mortar seen a little bit of an uptake on their own SEO visibility is kind of a positive thing for them. Even though it is obviously a tough time.
Ben: The truth is we’re not seeing a ton of growth here with Walmart or Amazon. My guess is that the product mix is shifting because they are sort of the universal hub for buying products. You can get your home goods and your office supplies, you know everything in both of those platforms. When we look a little bit more at the specialty platforms, even if the product mix is changing for the marketplace, they’re relatively stable. What are we seeing for more verticalized search like Etsy, Apple, some of the other, Nike, some of the other sort of big vertical ecommerce players?
Tyson: Yeah, and I think Etsy’s been a really interesting one over the last year and a half because they’ve had some consistent growth throughout that time and they’ve done quite well. I think how this is impacting their business probably varies a little bit and we’ve seen a little bit of a softening in the last couple of weeks from Etsy that’s been a little bit of a plateau. But I mean if you look in even just a three month window, they had some tremendous kind of increases. So I’d say from a business standpoint, definitely then I would assume they’re getting kind of some pressure from this, but from a visibility standpoint, they’ve really made some large gains and I think they’re very much in this kind of like second tier, second, third tier of retail, and if they continue the rate that they’re going at, I think we could see them in almost like a third player position from a visibility standpoint.
Ben: See, I’m reading this a little bit differently than you are. Where Etsy has been on an astronomic ride since the beginning of this year. We’re talking going from 750,000 visibility points to 1.15 million. Right? They picked up 30 percent market share and they were increasing double digits almost on a weekly basis and slowly it’s dropped off to the point where they’re down in the single digits now. So they were on a trend of fast-paced growth and it has essentially flatlined. They’re not losing a ton of visibility, but they’re definitely not gaining it, which tells me people aren’t thinking about decorating their homes as much. They still have the visibility, but it’s probably just a less important topic for right now. Talk to me about what you’re seeing for some of the other verticalized players like Apple or Nike.
Tyson: Yeah, Apple also, I mean I think looking in the macro lens over the course of the last year to two years, we’ve actually seen a decline, especially on the two years standpoint and then the last year relatively flat. If you go into the recent weeks though, we have seen a little bit of an uptake from Apple, but I wouldn’t say that there’s like…
Ben: Little? It’s been, it’s up 10 percent, 20 percent in two weeks.
Tyson: Six percent. I mean, yeah, so it’s like if you look back where they’re at a few months back, it’s like they’re really just recapturing a little bit of it.
Ben: So yeah, again, I look at it a little different. They were on kind of a steady state decline and all of a sudden two weeks ago, boom up six percent, up five percent. I’m looking maybe a little short sighted but I’m thinking that the impact here is all of a sudden people are thinking about I’m going to be spending a lot of time consuming a lot of media at home. I got to educate my kids because I can’t put them in schools. Got to go get an iPad.
Tyson: I see the point there. I think that’s a little early to tell from this. I don’t know if I would say that the two weeks of a positive growth is really talking with larger trend that we’re seen with them so I personally I would want to see a few more weeks and a few more data points to solidify that.
Ben: Hang on. You’re kidding me. Apple has been dipping for a year.
Tyson: Yes, sure. For a year.
Ben: Apple has been going down week over week for a year and all of a sudden they gain 10% market share where they have gone down a million visibility points and they’ve picked up like a couple hundred thousand in two weeks. Don’t tell me that’s not related to the coronavirus.
Tyson: It’s still two points and they haven’t regained how much that they’ve been losing.
Ben: Oh, you’re so conservative. All right. So talk to me about some of the more verticalized ecommerce players. What’s happening in the apparel space?
Tyson: Yeah, so two of the heavy hitters from the fashion segment would be Macy’s or Nordstrom’s. I think when you look first at Nordstrom’s last month, very flat, relatively no gains or losses. If you look kind of, let’s go back maybe six months or so, they have had a decline. But in contrast, when you look at Macy’s, almost the exact opposite, they’ve had growth actually for the last four weeks, sorry, five weeks and then before that some minor growth as well. So I’d say over the last six months they’ve been turning the right direction. And in the last four weeks where we’re seeing more of an impact of what’s going on with the coronavirus, I would say that they have been gaining some, but I would expect some challenges just with the brick and mortar influence of these sites.
Ben: See, I think that in the apparel space things are relatively unimpacted. Maybe there’s, in terms of the search visibility, people are probably still looking for new clothes. That behavior hasn’t changed. Have we seen anything outside of retail? Maybe in apparel? What’s happening with Nike?
Tyson: Nike is an interesting one too because if you think about their brand and their website, a lot of their site isn’t just focused on the transactional keywords. So Nike, you obviously have the transactional keywords, but a big portion of their site is also in other related. So I mean if we think about the impact of this, if we’re going to be wanting to do some of the few things that they can do outside of the house, like running, exercising. So I think there can be and would likely see kind of more of this trend. But Nike is one that we’ve seen on the rise for the last three months. The last few weeks have also been strong by having some increases. So I think this is an interesting story when you think about not just transactional terms, but how can you increase your footprint from the segment or the sub industry that you’re in.
Ben: Let’s talk a little bit about outside of what people are buying and what’s happening in the ecommerce space. They’re also at home more often. What are we seeing in the media consumptions or the streaming players? Are people just sitting at home watching Netflix all day long?
Tyson: I would assume so, but I think in countering to that…
Ben: I would assume not. They’re busy taking care of their kids.
Tyson: Yeah, but the kids watch Netflix too.
Ben: This is where we differ.
Tyson: Okay. Yeah. I mean your home life verses mine, but I’d say what we’re not seeing is I would anticipate like the activity or consumption of sites like Netflix and the other ones, I don’t think it’s reflected in necessarily their visibility. Like the week over week for Netflix was exactly zero. This is rarely the case. Usually you get like a half a percentage point here and there, but the last few weeks have been really, really flat or stable for them. And really going back even further, Netflix has been relatively stable so I don’t think that we’re seeing from a search organic perspective an increase on their search visibility. What I would obviously assume that they have a big uptake as far as overall usage of their product.
Ben: I think we’re skipping the 800 pound gorilla in the room when it comes to streaming media. There’s the biggest player in all of SEO with 53.27 million visibility points. What’s happening with YouTube?
Tyson: Interesting enough, YouTube, we’ve actually seen a decline over the last month, so this was one of our top winners of 2019. They have just been soaring as far as I see as visibility goes, but we’ve actually finally seen kind of a decrease here of how their performances. They’re still heads and shoulders like millions of points above anyone else close to them, but we did see a softening or a weakening in the last month on overall visibility from YouTube.
Ben: In terms of the impact the coronavirus has had on the SEO visibility on some of the streaming tools. Really we’re not seeing a huge amount of fluctuation. Where I think we are going to see some fluctuation is in the travel space. Obviously travel has been limited. Tyson, what are we seeing in terms of people’s interest in searching for travel companies?
Tyson: And this one really caught me by surprise is, I was expecting with the restrictions on travel people rightfully so, having concerns around it, I was expecting to see decreases almost across the board and starting out with the aggregators, the OTA sites we’ve actually seen in the last week an uptake. From either flat or sometimes double digit growth from Expedia, Booking Hotels and Kayak. So I was a little surprised to see that actually some of those were increasing from this last week’s perspective.
Ben: Great. Everybody’s going up but somebody has to be the loser in travel visibility. Who’s that?
Tyson: So one that week over week was flat. But then if you look at the last month or even last few months, the website that’s actually we’re seeing the greatest softening or declining market share from an organic perspective is Kayak. Kayak had a rough February. We’ve seen that continue this month. So I’d say overall, even though they didn’t have a negative week over week, this last one they would be on the loser list from the OTAs or aggregate sites and travel.
Ben: So some of the aggregators like Kayak, we’re seeing some softness but for the most part people are continuing to search for travel. And my guess here is people are probably trying to figure out how to get out of their travel plans.
Tyson: And I think too, you have a lot of people that are sitting trapped at home and you daydream a little bit. You think of, Hey, maybe prices are down. Maybe I don’t want to take advantage of it to book something later in the year. So I think some of it could be a little bit of just this exploratory, like I wish I could get out of here kind of mindset.
Ben: I can tell you that my wife already had a trip planned for us to go to Hawaii and for us to go to Tahoe. And obviously the kibosh has been put on that. So Tyson, as we think about who are the biggest winners and losers in terms of SEO, knowing that all of these stats are affected by the coronavirus across the streaming media, the ecommerce and the travel landscape, who do you see having the biggest fact? Who’s your winner for the month?
Tyson: So as far as, like, winners, I think I default back to the ecommerce category. Even though we kind of disagree with the weekly performance. I’d kind of have Etsy and Walmart in the winners category. I think both of them fighting against obviously the larger player and seeing the softening from Amazon and some gains from those sites. I would say that Walmart and Etsy were the winners.
Ben: Walmart and Etsy being your winner. I’m going to throw Amazon out there. I know that they’ve been just slightly up in the last couple of weeks. My feeling is just from a business perspective, as bad as it sounds, they have to be crushing it because I think people are ordering products left and right. I’d put Amazon for keeping things stable and having the infrastructure during this time for people to get the goods that they need. On the losers side, who do you have on your losers list?
Tyson: I think I’d have two of them. The first one would be Kayak, not just this month but kind of the last year they’ve been having some, definitely some softening. So Kayak would be one loser. The other one is I’d say the big 800 pound gorilla, YouTube. I mean there’s certainly people are using the product more right now given with everything. They had a tremendous 2019. They’ve seen the declines over the last month. The absolute numbers are the greatest of most of these that we’ve talked about. So I would have YouTube as my loser.
Ben: I’m going to go off the reservation with my loser and say the coronavirus, you are a loser. No one likes you. Go away whether you’re affecting SEO positively or negatively. We’re all tired of this. We want to go back to work. We want to get back into the office and have a good time with the rest of our coworkers. Tyson hopefully you and I get to sit in the office and do this together next time instead of recording it from your bedroom. But I appreciate you making the time and the effort to tell us a little bit about your thoughts about SEO impact of the coronavirus.
Tyson: Thanks Ben. I appreciate you having me on. Hopefully next time we chat it’ll be under some different circumstances.
Ben: I hope so too, and that wraps up this episode of the Voices of Search podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Tyson Stockton, Searchmetrics’ vice president of services. We’d love to continue the conversation with you, so if you’re interested in contacting Tyson, you can find the link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes. You can contact him on Twitter where his handle is, Tyson underscore Stockton, or you can visit his company’s website, which is searchmetrics.com.
Ben: Just one more link in our show notes that I’d like to tell you about. If he didn’t have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast. Head over to voicesofsearch.com where we have summaries of all of our episodes and contact information for our guests. You can also send us your topic suggestions or your SEO questions, or you can even apply to be a guest speaker on the Voices of Search podcast. Of course, you can always reach out on social media. Our handle is Voices of Search on Twitter and my personal handle is Ben J. Shap. B-E-N J S-H-A-P. And if you haven’t subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of SEO and content marketing insights in your podcast feed, we’re going to try to publish episodes every day during the work week. So hit the subscribe button in your podcast app and we’ll be back in your feed tomorrow morning.
Ben: All right. That’s it for today, but until next time, remember, the answers are always in the data and go wash your hands.