Is it just me, or is everyone slow for the month of February? Both my income and traffic has decreased.
I was going to start a thread about this too.. This month I don't know what's wrong with the world.. maybe there too busy with Valetine's... weird...
For the past 7 years, my sites have ALWAYS seen a decrease in sales/visitors in February. Why? Its because of 2 reasons - Christmas and Taxes. The Christmas bills have already came in and people realized how much they spent. Its usually more than they expected, so there is a little less cash to go around. Secondly, taxes play a large part as well. Many people are doing their taxes and have not yet received a refund check (March is best month of the year for me).
Thanks for the explanation. It's encouraging to hear. I guess you could add a couple more reasons to that list: Valentines Day and President's Day Weekend.
Wow... looks like you been in this game for a long time... I would of never guessed the people pay there Christmas bills around this month.
Well I am pleased we are not alone, this month has been very slow, and yes the tax returns are all being processed etc But it is a short month so thankfully it will soon be over Of course if business picks up quickly the month can last as long as it wants so long as the dollars are coming in
Hmm i'm not doing so bad this month but i had mutch bether months Drig explained it very well Let's see march
Hey dude,I'm in too! The revenue in this month has dropped a lot I feel a bit frustrated now! I hope March would be a good start!
Its the people who charged their credit card and are paying the minimum each month. If they are not actually paying the bills, many people are still feeling the effect of paying all their bills.
Well I know one reason I am not spending a lot of money at the moment is because I owe so much in taxes. Maybe the same applies to other business owners.
This month has been a record month in traffic/sales for me. So no, I haven't see any slowdown at all...
January and February have always been my slow months but I have used this period to implement new services, promote my website and blog, update and add content to my website and blog, and create and submit 2 dozen articles and a few press releases to generate new traffic. It is all about aggressive marketing and adding value to the services I offer my existing and new subscribers. For example this year I am using Adobe Captivate 2 to create flash movies with audio to help new subscribers succeed.
I have too noticed this trend, this month I put that more into advertising though but didn't seem to help much, hopefully march will help
Yes, many self-employed webmasters are paying a lot in taxes because they receive 1099's no taxes held.
Business has been booming for me since the beginning of this year, and even picked up a bit more this month so far... both for my PR firm (mostly online PR consulting and writing) as well as my sites' revenue (even though traffic hasn't changed dramatically or anything). Not sure why that is....
Jan was my slow month. Feb picked up and I find from my experience all these years that business will pick up a little more, then slow around Easter and then get REALLY busy from the end of April through October. JHmattern, have you experienced this type of trend as well?
The Spring through Fall thing seems to happen. I've heard some writers having a slow first month and others seem to get a lot of orders once the new year comes (probably depends what you do - I found that while press releases decreased a little, the copywriting aspect of my work has been insane so far... it's as if people all decided they wanted to improve their sites and increase conversions for the new year or something). This is also big "campaign season" for musicians running radio campaigns before spring and summer breaks with college stations, so that's where a lot of my time is being spent lately. Last year for me the only thing I'd call a "slump" was the week before Thanksgiving. I expected a few weeks before Christmas through New Year's to be slow as well, but got a record number of orders. However my site traffic did slow down during that period... but hey, that's what diversifying is all about.
We typically have about the same sales in February as January, maybe a little more in Feb, though it is a short month. Then things pick up in the spring. January and February, however, sales have been running 50% above last year, I hope the trend continues. As for web traffic, February always slumps a bit from January from week to week. I don't know whether to attribute this to black history month, president's day, Elvis's birthday, or the Chinese New Year. best regards wiz