Massive weekly drop in traffic - graph looks like a stegosaurus' back...

Discussion in 'General Marketing' started by hodge, Jan 9, 2009.

  1. #1
    Hi all,

    I'm pretty much new to the whole marketing scene, coming from a programming background, but even as a non-marketer I can see something is severely wrong with my site's fluctuation in traffic. I seem to be getting fantastic results for 4 days in a row (up to and over 900 unique visitors/day), then a dramatic drop to 70 - 90 unique visitors/day for 3 or 4 days in a row.

    My site is shopping related, so I can understand a slight drop in traffic midweek perhaps, and for it to pick up again at the weekend, but such a dramatic drop in traffics every few days just seems too strange!

    So, I was wandering if anyone had experienced anything similar, or have any pointers in the right direction to start investigating possible nefarious causes?

    Thanks for your time, and for any possible information :)
     
    hodge, Jan 9, 2009 IP
  2. river

    river Active Member

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    #2
    Maybe a popular blog linked to you in a post and now that post has fallen off their front page.
     
    river, Jan 9, 2009 IP
  3. bille

    bille Peon

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    #3
    Try google analytics. You'll know where your traffic is coming from ( organic search, paid search, referring sites, direct, etc). Then, they break things down into the next level of detail, like which organic keywords are driving traffic, or which pages are the entry pages, or what regions of the world, which U/S. States, etc.

    I was able to track a traffic spike back to my site being mentioned on a local tv news station once using the tool. Can't beat the price for google analytics either.
     
    bille, Jan 9, 2009 IP
  4. hodge

    hodge Peon

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    #4
    Thank you both kindly for your replies. I have Google Analytics installed, along with a couple of other tracking systems (including server logs). 95% of the traffic is from Google searches, and there hasn't been any major promotion of the site anywhere. I just thought is was strange that every 4 days, the traffic drops so much.

    I'll look into drilling through the Google Analytics results, and see what I can see. Most of the terminology is somewhat strange to me, but I guess I'll pick it up, lol.

    Thanks once again :)
     
    hodge, Jan 9, 2009 IP
  5. ErikJ

    ErikJ Peon

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    #5
    It could also be from the type of products that are being sold or the type of stores that are on or linked to your site just thinking offline for a bit
     
    ErikJ, Jan 9, 2009 IP