How many less visitors do you have?

[PrettyPaws]

2007 was our very first Christmas period and we were not expecting it to be anywhere near as busy as it was! :eek:

Since Christmas however we've noticed a 24% drop in visitors to our site so far, 1st-8th January campaired to 1st - 8th of December. I obviously knew there would be a drop, (still disappointing!) are other store owners noticing a similar drop or is ours higher/lower than others?

[sirearl]

I don't know what your selling but I would in general be happy with those figures as we are entering the kipper season.

Earl

[martynb]

To be honest some of the sites I manage have shown a very strong start to 2008, have a look a google trends it might give you some ideas of what you might expect.

[Blush]

I have had about a 10% drop in total but the last three days have seen quite a steady rise and sales have increased too.Better than I had anticipated.

[Steve2507]

As Earl hinted at, don't worry about it you are bound to get a drop in orders and visitors after Chistmas. You've also got to remember that peole generally tighten their belt after Christmas as they are worried about the cc bills.

[PrettyPaws]

Interesting....some think higher, some lower! As usual!

The conversion rate has gone up which is great so even with the drop in hits the drop in slaes is only about 15% - 20%

Steve - Yeah, not worried mate. Just interested :-)

[sirearl]

Interesting....some think higher, some lower! As usual!

The conversion rate has gone up which is great so even with the drop in hits the drop in slaes is only about 15% - 20%

Steve - Yeah, not worried mate. Just interested :-)

Newer sites are probably going to show better figures compared to sites that have been going for a few years as they are more likely to have reached saturation point in there market,So will be more affected more by seasonal change.

Earl

[UKSBD]

It's been my busiest week for a long time, for visitors, paid listings, sales
of products and AdSense earnings :)
Small business owners must be waking up again after the Christmas break.

[RayB]

Our visitors are up 35% month to date on December (which we expect to be quieter in printing) and January is already on target to be a record for visitors - probably over 20k uniques for the first time ever (previous best 19,000 last October)

[PrettyPaws]

Our visitors are up 35% month to date on December (which we expect to be quieter in printing) and January is already on target to be a record for visitors - probably over 20k uniques for the first time ever (previous best 19,000 last October)

Thats great Ray, well done mate. I guess all industries are effected differently by the seasons which is cool.

[JustOneUK]

Since Christmas however we've noticed a 24% drop in visitors to our site so far, 1st-8th January campaired to 1st - 8th of December. I obviously knew there would be a drop, (still disappointing!) are other store owners noticing a similar drop or is ours higher/lower than others?
You are bound to feel the pinch as most of those Christmas pets have already moved off to Battersea dogs home :| - remember...
a pet is just for Christmas :eek:

[Sue F]

I've been lucky enough to see an increase in both visitors and orders since Christmas.

Christmas 2006 was my first one trading and customers stopped buying baby bedding while they spent their money buying gifts ... fair enough.

By Christmas 2007 I'd built up our gift range and actually did quite well.

I've got a sale on now and customers are going mad for everything but mostly for the nursery furniture which makes sense I suppose because it's an expensive purchase so you are going to try to save as much as you can.

[OhSoCherished]

We have a funny business in which Christmas is quiet for us. We specialize in guest books and visitor books so the wedding season is our busiest time (so Jan onwards) Over the last week has been fab for sales after our slow Christmas.

However on our other website Oh So Treasured we specialize in Condolence Books. We tend to be at our busiest from Nov through to Feb...the cold weather :(

[Glasskanvas]

Well my site is fairly new so on average my numbers have gone up in the New Year. Sales have been a bit more random though, with less orders but much larger...so much so that i've desperately trying to restock now. With mine being a 'luxury items' sector I expect a dip in sales at this time of year. I'm hoping to get my head around ppc and seo'ing sometime soon so hopefully the number of uniques will continue to rise.

[funkydorykid]

Visitors and sales have suddenly exploded for me this month :D. I've already exceeded my best ever monthly sales figure, and achieved my target for this month, so it looks like being a fantastic start to 2008.

It's really taken me by surprise, to be honest - I've been going through a steady growth period over the past 2 years, and suddenly it's taken off.

dawn
xx

[bubulina1978]

Unfortunately, January looks like quite a slow month for us - about 15% less visitors, and a poor conversion rate.
Don't know about you, but we will try signing-up on some of those price-comparison portals (shopmania.co.uk, pricerunner.co.uk etc) - hopefully we'll fix this.
I will keep you posted :)

[deviltronics]

We got the website properly going mid October, December was extremely busy. Bit slow now! Really need to get going again, getting plenty of visitors just not many people buying.

Adwords is costing a bomb!

[darrenwis]

Just posted this on wrong thread!!!! We are just about to launch (weird time i know :-)) but its been in the planning for ages! What webmaster tools are you getting your states from guys?

Cheers.
Darren

[deviltronics]

Google Analytics for me

[darrenwis]

Is that under the webmaster free tools?

[jonnynight]

we had drop in visitors too, but sales increased.. it is our first year too, so can tell you more about previous years..

[Alan Hope]

Google Analytics is accessed via your Google Account.

When setting it up don't forget to exclude any data emanating from your own IP address.

An excellent free tool!

Alan Hope

[galide]

Google analytics is a great tool, free, which can be integrated with adwords, but also other CPC providers (Yahoo or MSN for instance).

Emmanuel

[shallam]

There are a few different measure you need to look at - as you have suggested Visitors (or better yet, Unique Visitors) and your conversion rate.

One of your most important measure should be Abandoned Shopping Carts - people who start to buy, and then fail to complete.

Another measure I like is Bounce - how many come and look at one page, and then just disappear.