Don't want to bitch about sales... but a question...
 

Well I'm just a bit curious if anyone can explain this :)

After the PR update on the 4th of April I saw my SE traffic increase by about 6 times in a day, and it has improved each day since.

That day my sales jumped from a few a day up to around 8-12 a day for 3 days. Then on April 8th everything dropped. I'm sitting again at 1-2 sales a day.

The strangest part is that my traffic has been the highest it's ever been since the 8th to present. Maybe 20% higher than it was when sales were brisk on the 3-7th... with a lot of SE traffic, which is good traffic. Also unique clicks sent to sponsors is the highest it's been.

April 3-7: 1:584 for all sponsors
April 8-Today: 1:2839 for all sponsors

Just a bit curious :thumbsup

Really I'd call it too small of a time frame for anything definitive. It is tax crunch time (money top-of-mind) in the US, been unseasonably nice weather in much of the northeast US until recently too. It could turn right back up for you as fast as it stalled.

I wouldnt touch anything. I'd get tracking in place to show up which search term resulted in which sales and start compiling lists of gainers and losers to act on later.

sponsors shave.

:thumbsup

Yeah I was just a bit shocked at how it just seemed to hit a brick wall... I still care a lot more about traffic at this point than making sales, but it just seemed very very odd :disgust

I did the same thing you did a few years ago, asking on various boards why some sales have been down and the BAM, I look in my stats and the sales went up 400% for the next few days, lol
It's nothing new ;)

I'm not saying that this is the case here, but it makes you wonder... :)

Still only been adult for just over a year... just curious don't really know all the nuances of the business :winkwink:

I talk to my sponsors all the time... I doubt they are shaving :)

Maybe something up with the billing companies? Spoken to a few people with much larger sites than my little site, and they are having the same sort of dips...

Why would you think SE traffic is better than other traffic? Its just as good/bad as any other source. Its everything the same surfers, you need to target them and sell them what they want.

One thing that you need to be aware of is that some of those unique clicks may be fake or non-profitable traffic such as hit bots or bad language traffic. I had a big spike in clicks to my Epoch and CCBill sponsors the other day and discovered it was a hit bot that behaved like a surfer in many ways except it didn't accept a cookie so for some reason was counted as a unique hit on each click, it made ratios look pretty poor for that day.

When things like this happen you need to think more about what can be effecting the sales. Some will argue with me but turn on the news when you see a big sales drop! Did some idiot blow something up? Did the market crash? Is there a new Virus spreading?? People freak for a day or so and think they need to save the case, Best part is though, it comes back and will be up even higher, as the ones that held out now need their fix even more.

Just going off avg. clicks and time on site.

Gallery / Trade traffic: ~ 2 clicks per unique / < 2 min avg time on site / ~ 60% bounce
SE traffic: ~ 6 clicks per unique / ~ 4 min on site / ~ 15% bounce

Doesn't mean it's better, they just stick around longer :thumbsup

Well put :thumbsup

Traffic has been increasing... I'll just stick with that. I'm actually in the middle of a redesign right now, and am also looking at keeping a lot more of the traffic in site :)

There isn't really enough data to determine what, if anything is happening. One thing you need to consider is that not all search traffic is 'good traffic'. Or at least there is different levels of 'good traffic' from the engines.

You say you saw spikes of 6 times the traffic in one day, but if that traffic all came from a generic term, and came from 7th-10th on the page, you will convert better offering them free lobotomies then selling memberships. That traffic (albeit more then normal) is of a far lesser quality then the top listings. Basically because they've clicked through or visited atleast half of the sites above you in the serps before coming to your page.

And everyone of those sites they visit above you is taking sales off the listings, and sending a lower caliber of traffic downward.

To make it simple, a guy may get 6-8k per day traffic from lower 1st page (8th-9th-10th) for 'blowjobs', and a guy getting 2.5k from first spot for 'granny blowjobs' is making 6-7 times as much money as the guy getting double or triple the traffic. Because he has 1 dibs on the clicks, he also has a more targeted search term, and it will be 10 times easier to match up a paysite/niche to that searcher.

Marc Laffer says: The Economy is improving for everyone, including all of us in the online business world. And, I can prove it!

:1orglaugh seo traffic shave

It's not that sort of spike. My model pages must have some sort of PR now... I'm starting to show up for model names now... which before I was not doing so well in. So it's all model name searches from SE traffic. Which sould be targeted and pretty good.

But that doesn't say anything about how effective you work with both traffic sources. :)

Hey still learning... that's why I'm leaving the model pages for last on the little redesign I'm doing. Had some pretty big flaws pointed out for converting traffic to those pages :thumbsup