top spots but less traffic

pagetta · #1 (**permalink**) 03-04-2005, 08:31 AM

just over a month ago our main company site shot to no 1/top 5 in google yahoo and msn for at least 10 of our main keywords (on a UK search) and for 3 keywords searching google worldwide.

Predictably our traffic went up and our average traffic nearly doubled for the whole of last month. However over the last few days it has been dwindling. We are seeing a drop in traffic. We have dropped a lot on msn in the last week (I'm not sure why the site isn't being touched at the minute as we're working on a new one on a testsite!) and dropped for some of our keywords on yahoo, but they only ever bought less than 10% ofour traffic. Does anyone have ant ideas as to
1. why we have dropped in yahoo and msn but continue to climb in google?
2. any suggestions as to why we saw this boom in traffic (and our sales department were noticably busier) but now t has dropped back?

I don't think it is the pages they're landing on as that was attracting customers fine last month (it's all being changed anyway). Any tips/advice would be much appreciated!

voasi · #2 (**permalink**) 03-04-2005, 04:21 PM

Hard to give any real advice without having a URL to see what's going on. :)

AuctionHugh · #3 (**permalink**) 03-04-2005, 06:08 PM

We also jumped to the top of google and vivisimo a month or two ago for "kalamazoo web design", and I don't know why. We did improve our metatags, titles, and homepage text. We also have a lot of junk links pointing to our site (such as in my signature below), and maybe the search engines found those recently. But mostly I consider us to be just plain lucky!

----
Small Business Web Design by AuctionHugh's Wife Kathleen
Artistic - Straightforward - EASY for You!
Examples and Pricing at:
Small Business Web Design by Kallen Web Design

Andilinks · #4 (**permalink**) 03-04-2005, 06:45 PM

I have experienced many wild fluctuations over the past few months from both Google and Yahoo. I have dwelt upon it at length and have read many forum postings and threads on the subject and have not yet heard a satisfactory explanation.

I will continue to follow this though since it does affect my income.

Andi

decaff · #5 (**permalink**) 03-04-2005, 07:46 PM

pagetta,

You face several variables when you start to rank in the top 5 or #1 for your main "competitive" keywords/keyword phrases...

First..if you haven't been in the top 10 prior..then you will have a number of visits from competitors..and some will definitely call and pose as customers to check out your business model...

Second, the "general" searches that occur in your sector will spike because you are a new "face" in the SERPs and people want to "learn" about your services/products...

If you are analyzing your logs and your log analysis software shows you how many people have bookmarked your site...then you should see a substantial percentage represented here...this means that you will experience some return traffic as potential customers have been bookmarking many site as they research out a purchase in your sector (and if your sector is represented by your signature links...then I would expect the sales cycle here to weeks to months)...

Now if you had the traffic spike for last month and things have chilled this month...here are some possible causes:

1. Last month you experienced the "new to the sector traffic which includes competitors, and tire kickers..plus the "real" customers actively looking at your service/products

2. This month you are actually seeing the type of numbers for traffic volume that are representative of your target keywords...(and don't rely on numbers from wordtracker and overture...these are inflated)

3. I don't know what your buying cycle is for your sector...(but if it is the automate business processes sector) then I would expect this to fluctuate throughout the year as different business's purchase at different times during any given fiscal year

4. The search engines are actively looking for ways to drive traffic to "their" (not your) revenue channels (mainly PPC)...so there is some speculation here that "serps pollution" may be causing this...hard to say..

5. You also face the reality that the PPC ads can target specific keywords better then the organic SERPs which tend to have to use a broader language to acquire rankings...so as someone is researching the organic SERPs ... if they are finding things like directories (which means additional searching after spending time searching through the main SERPs...) they may just come back to the top of their search and scan the PPC ads...

6. The other factor with the PPC ads is that you can set up very specific landing pages...with the natural SERPs you can't always achieve this..for higher conversions..

These are just some of my opinions/observations.. have fun folks

**incrediblehelp** · #6 (**permalink**) 03-04-2005, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andilinks

I have experienced many wild fluctuations over the past few months from both Google and Yahoo. I have dwelt upon it at length and have read many forum postings and threads on the subject and have not yet heard a satisfactory explanation.

I will continue to follow this though since it does affect my income.

Andi

I am also seeing daily ranking fluctuations. I doubt these fluctuations for Google and MSN have much to do with any update. I think this is going to be the norm for engines like MSN and Google going forward. Maybe they are shifting the results for other reasons besides algorithm changes. Any ideas?

who67 · #7 (**permalink**) 03-05-2005, 12:59 AM

**FLUCTUATIONS**!!!

I have been a webmaster playing the search engine game for almost 2 years now and I have been happy with my results up until this point. I joined several SEO forums this week to try to figure out what the heck is going on. Maybe there is no need to panic just yet but the first 3 months of 2005 are not looking to good from were I am.

Wits · #8 (**permalink**) 03-05-2005, 08:24 AM

Has anyone given any thought to the possibility that there are other factors that affect traffic besides search engine placement?

As decaff mentioned, buying cycles are one reason. Weather and local/world events are another.

During February, our traffic dropped an average of 1000 visitors a day ... all due to weather conditions. How do I know that? By looking at the domain name tracking reports.

February traffic reports showed regional drops in traffic during the heavy rains in California and Arizona ... as did severe winter storms across the US. States/Regions affected by blizzard conditions showed a decrease during the worst days of the storm in their area.

Wits · #9 (**permalink**) 03-05-2005, 08:49 AM

Has anyone given any thought to the fact that maybe fluctuations in traffic could be the result of something other than the search engines?

The search engines can only deliver those people who are on-line and looking for what you have to offer ... they can't deliver if people are out and about doing other things besides surfing the WEB.

Decaff mentioned "buying cycles" as one possibility. Weather and local/world events are others.

Our traffic in February dropped an average of 1000 visitors a day due to weather conditions in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The Domain tracking reports for our site showed a significant drop in traffic from California and Arizona when heavy rains and flooding affected the area. Likewise state/regional shifts were observed during the severe winter storms that affected the U.S. ... a significant drop in traffic was observed for States/Regions during the worst of those storms.

There was also a drop in traffic for the period immediately following the devastating Tsunami in Asia and Africa. And there is always a sharp decrease in traffic during "nice days" in the middle of winter!

Having said that, our website traffic over the last five years has shown a steady increase. And while we do not sell directly on the WEB, our "brick-and-mortar" sales have shown a similar pattern to our website traffic.

From my perspective, I think it's more important to know who your visitors are, rather than which search engine they used to get to there.

swordfish-1 · #10 (**permalink**) 03-05-2005, 10:16 AM

Wits is right. Often times, I have noticed webmasters
overeacting to a sudden downsurge in traffic by thinking that there must be some kind of algorythim
change by the search engines. Sometimes all it amounts to are seasonal trends in the marketplace.

Our site is now in it's 3rd year. So we are now going back and tracking our general traffic trends and matching those trends to sales. This will help us to understand our marketplace, and guide our traffic building, and marketing strategies.

As search engine algorythims evolve, and more competing sites enter the marketplace, the SERPS will always be in some state of fluxuation.

Keeping current on our SEO practices in order to stay on top will always be a concern. But we must resist the urge to think too much and learn to roll with it.

Andilinks · #11 (**permalink**) 03-05-2005, 11:12 AM

As it happens the fluctuations that I am seeing are unmistakably due to steep changes in the referrals from specific engines, I mean STEEP, 50-150% changes from long ongoing patterns consistent for weeks which then drop or rise over a period of 2-3 hours.

I have seen several of these types of fluctuations over the past few months from both Google and Yahoo. For Google the peaks reach 4000 referrals/day and the troughs as low as 500, while Yahoo has dropped to zero at times during this period. I repeat, the changes occur precipitously, over the period of 2-3 hours.

Not my imagination, I cannot speak for the others...

Andi

**incrediblehelp** · #12 (**permalink**) 03-05-2005, 04:36 PM

I agree wits and swordfish that fluctuations are possible and definitely happen if you are following one website with similar sets of keywords. Outside occurrences like weather or breaking news events can manipulate your current levels of traffic if your website is related to them, but I am seeing these fluctuations across very different range of keywords in short periods of time like anilinks mentioned.

phantomcat · #13 (**permalink**) 03-06-2005, 01:02 AM

Ever since early January, whwn I did my own U.S. Taxes, I have been sending out a very negative message to my collegues. I don't know what percentage of your business is US nor do I know if it is in the general retail sector. As middle class Americans do their taxes the are learning that the Bush administration had instructed employers to reduce employees tax witholdings. I belong to a large organization where the rank-and-file is universally discovering sort-falls of one-thousand dollars and more.
Being actively engaged in retail sales I am noticing an increasing down-turn. Many Americans traditionally rely on tax refunds to pay off the Christmas bills, or finance that planned pet project. Suddenly they discover that there is no IRS return, or worse, faced with a bill to the IRS. This is not only an economic down-turn but a huge psycological one as well.
I truly beleive that retail will reach its low ebb sometime after April.

Andilinks · #14 (**permalink**) 03-06-2005, 01:19 AM

Quote:

the Bush administration had instructed employers to reduce employees tax witholdings.

I've just done a number of searches on this and can't find anything. Could you provide a reference for this assertion?

Andi

espectations · #15 (**permalink**) 03-06-2005, 02:45 AM

I tend to agree with Wits - offline factors such as seasonal shopping will affect sales.

Please also take into consideration your target market and offline advertising campaigns. It will also have an influence if the clients place their web address on offline adverts.

If only online marketing is done you should be able to monitor the campaigns through click-throughs on unique URL's - it will show up in your stats.

Then there are also the threads in this forum dealing with the results after the 2 Feb update Google did......if your rankings changed in Google.

I did not notice any fluctuations on my sites in MSN and Yahoo - it is fairly stable and so are my clients' sites.

But do look at the competitiveness of the keywords you use. It is becoming more difficult with keyword bidding taking place on popular words.

Jason Tor · #16 (**permalink**) 03-06-2005, 03:06 AM

pagetta,
There is some good information in here however, I would not jump to any conclusions just yet. You should give it 2-3 months before you start to worry. Your ranking may still jump back up.

In the mean time try focusing on some other methods of directing traffic to your site. Directories, IBL's from well ranking similar sites, press releases, Pay Per Click advertising (make sure you consult a professional before you try this), and most importantly keep your site updated and optimized.

We have all been guilty of stressing out over our rankings but if you have a good site and a good product there are plenty of ways to gain traffic other then getting the #1 ranking on a search engine(although this is the preferred method).

Keep an eye on your ranking and possibly consult a SEO professional to identify the problem. Good luck!

Jason Tor

miss_alley · #17 (**permalink**) 03-06-2005, 01:42 PM

I'm glad to hear others are seeing fluctuations... I was worried it was just me.

We've been seeing some weirdness in our rankings...just over the last few weeks. Our site www.mightymiramichi.com dropped from a ranking of 4 in google to 12 (PAGE 2!!!) in the last 2 months. Now today I see it is back up to nine so I have my fingers crossed that it will climb back up. Curiously at the same time our visits to the site have increased, and so has our listing in Yahoo, and MSN (#2 on the list).

collusion · #18 (**permalink**) 03-06-2005, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Tor

In the mean time try focusing on some other methods of directing traffic to your site. Directories, IBL's from well ranking similar sites, press releases, Pay Per Click advertising (make sure you consult a professional before you try this), and most importantly keep your site updated and optimized.

Jason Tor

I agree, focus on traffic from other sites and maybe some offline methods of marketing. The search engine ranking will come......

PPHBusinessChecks · #19 (**permalink**) 03-07-2005, 12:09 AM

We have been seeing the same type of fluctuation but only during the month of February. I read a comment about seasonal items, but our business is pretty robust through out the year. Businesses always need checks, forms, and invoices. Even with online banking and a rise in print/mailing services we haven't seen a substancial drop in sales. However, our clicks on keywords that are on top dropped by almost half during the past 3 weeks. We do not use PPC ads and we are still in the same position as we have been in the past. I was wondering if maybe with the google update the click through wasn't being registered correctly in the logs. We didn't really see a decline in sales or inquiries but we didn't have proof that the traffic came from SE's either. It could have been returning customers or bookmarks so I'm not really sure what's going on either. Maybe the SE's are implementing another change. I'll just sit and wait. :-)