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I spend my sad life getting traffic to sites mainly in the UK and monitoring them like a hawk…

This is post is nothing to do with conversions as I’d need pages and pages to explian my thought process with examples of what has and hasn’t worked and what has changed over the years of being a seo/webmaster thingy.

These examples also have social media elements removed so we can look into search engine traffic trends.

This is just a simple look at a few verticals of the effect of traffic during December 2009.

Why December?

Well as mentioned I work on mainly UK sites with UK traffic so the below stats show what the UK public traffic trends are.

Why is it interesting?

Most of the UK population celebrate xmas in one way or another, many buy online which is expanding at a massive rate in the UK. Most businesses shut over xmas (most people surf the web at work) so for many sites the 25th Dec should be a pretty dead time for traffic. I know from non UK site stats that the effect is a lot smaller  but this post has a focus on the UK and Decemebr 2009.

Example 1

Let have a look at my first example:

[click image to expand]

Vertical: Arts

Weekends

Your be able to spot each and every weekend on this graph with a drop on Sundays each week and a peck on Mondays when every gets back to work. This Sunday/Monday trends on this site is consistent throughtout the year with only anomalies effecting this.

25th December

This site has xmas themed sections and but you will be able to spot the trend starting from the 11th December which is the friday before the 2nd weekend in December which was a massive shopping day for xmas in the UK (I went shopping and is was so busy). The trend continue right up until the 25th with well over 2/3 of the traffic dropping.

Traffic sources

80.5% Search Organic
11% Direct / Bookmarks
8% Referrals
0.5% PPC

As you can see this site has almost all it traffic from natural ranking thus the trends effecting this site are a mix of the theme and organic.

Example 2

[click image to expand]

Vertical: Home

Weekends

Again your be able to spot each and every weekend on this graph with a drop on Sundays each week and a peck on Mondays when every gets back to work. This Sunday/Monday trends on this site is consistent throughtout the year with only anomalies effecting this.

25th December

This site has no xmas themed sections starting from the 7th December which is the Monday just before the 2nd weekend in December which as already mentioned was a massive shopping day for xmas in the UK the trend continue right up until the 25th with yet again well over 2/3 of the traffic dropping.

After the 25th of December the traffic recovery on this site is pretty fast with with traffic increasing well over any amount before the 25th.

Traffic sources

64% Search Organic
10% Direct / Bookmarks
7% Referrals
19% PPC

As you can see this site has almost all it traffic from natural orangic and PCC thus the trends effecting this site are a mix of the theme and search engine traffic. I feel the theme of the site has effected the recovery.

Example 3

[click image to expand]

Vertical: Fashion

Weekends

One again your be able to spot each and every weekend on this graph with a drop on Sundays each week and a peck on Mondays when every gets back to work.

25th December

Same as the previous site:

Again this site has no xmas themed sections starting from the 7th December which is the Monday just before the 2nd weekend in December which as already mentioned was a massive shopping day for xmas in the UK the trend continue right up until the 25th with yet again well over 2/3 of the traffic dropping.

Pecks

21st December this site saw a per xmas peck with last minute online shopping creating this peck.

Traffic sources

57% Search Organic
8% Direct / Bookmarks
9% Referrals
27% PPC

As you can see this site has almost all it traffic from natural orangic and PCC thus the trends effecting this site are a mix of the theme and search engine traffic.

This site has the most PPC of all the above examples but yet again is effected in the same way.

Conclusion

From the above 3 example we can see if you have a UK site its likely you will see a trend of dropping traffic from around the 7th December until the 26th December.

When looking at the keywords for the first example which had a xmas section which brought in a ton of traffic wasn’t enough to offset the downwood trends.

I feel unless over 2/3 of your site is xmas themed your going to feel this effect.

Of course socail media is not included in any of the above info and site I have/work on have very different stats and trends.

So last night I was surfing around on the Iphone looking for a new SLR digi camera.

I went to google shopping (base) to have a looky…

So what was wrong?

I was on google.co.uk and the prices all came up in GBP £ fine…

I then clicked option to set and price range for what I was willing to send and so what’s on offer. The options  menu only give me prices ranges in USD $ ?

Odd.. Any I clicked on one to see if it would work and maybe some sort of cache. Google then pull in the USD range but output the GBP £ range..

Here is the iphone screen shot showing URL .co.uk/m with both USD $ and GBP £ showing on the results page.

PRS http://www.prsformusic.com and youtube have stuck a deal at last..

Each time you watch a music video on youtube in the uk the artist will now get some £ from youtube.

In march 2009 youtube in the uk took off the music video’s which you can read about here: click here

Today PRS and youtube are at last happy with the amount of money to be paid to each artist for each video view in the UK.

rickrolling should make rick astley some $$$$

I have yet to find out what google/youtube will be paying per video but it sounds like it a small amount.

Blog post from youtube with full detail here

Some negative reports from the bbc today about google earth about people using it to rob churches lead from the roofs.

A wave of people taking lead from roofs of many churches and other buildings have be hitting the uk over the last 2-3years due to is ease of removing it and the access to building like churches that are covered in it.

Walley’s comments follow 70 thefts from Lichfield diocese churches last year alone. Criminals have even used aerial photographs on Google Earth to locate the most lucrative hauls.

Quote from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6806469.ece

St Leonards church Colchester has been hit and just using google maps you can see the lead here: click here

Many people worried about the security issues of home and businesses with google earth, google maps and street view but it seems the mass criminal activities is focused on lead.

I’m not alone in moaning about the uk serps

Take a look at a few of these posts http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020175.html and http://www.ppcblog.co.uk/google/big-geo-problems-still-exist-in-google-uk-serps plus many others..

Well.. Just now google have changed the UI on google.co.uk serps …

WARNING THIS IS NOT GOOD IF YOU FROM THE UK

So the serps are bad already.. yes we agree on the … but google are testing a new UI in chrome only “so far”..

Google have removed the 2 radio buttons with the options  ”the web” and “pages from the UK”

Here is a screen shot from firefox which seems not to be affected:

Here is the google.co.uk chrome home page:

Ok you might not think it “to bad” but one major thing is the serps..

As the radio button has gone google have replace it with “Show only results for United Kingdom” text link… This in a way take up more space and “could” help the uk serps out BUT not all serps have ”Show only results for United Kingdom” at the top..

The screen shot below shows the ”Show only results for United Kingdom” link at the bottom of a google.co.uk serp!

I really hope this doesn’t  stick as its seems to assume you looking for a no UK result well above a uk result and with the way the serps are already this isn’t going to help us in the UK!!

Wow.. 

Google not just adding a little link to chrome at the bottom but a massive graphic at the top of the page…

Crazy…. 

Check out the screen shot or visit google.co.uk

Seem not to of hit the UK in anyway that I can find as yet and nothing new on the amazon Associates blog in the uk which is good for us but not the folks out in the USA… 

Paid Search Traffic FAQ

 

Q: Will Amazon reinstate payment of referral fees to paid search Associates? 

A: No. This change to the Associates Program is not temporary.

Q: Does this affect paid search Associates who send users to Amazon’s European and Japanese websites? 

A: This change applies only to the Associates Programs in North America. If you are conducting paid search activities in connection with one of Amazon’s Associates Programs outside of the US and Canada, please refer to the applicable country’s Associates Program Operating Agreement for relevant terms and conditions.

Full info here:

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/promo/paidsearch

Diagram below show one of my sites that has steady highish traffic with no massive up’s or downs with mondays always with the most traffic hence a good site to look at for xmas/new year traffic. 

First arrow showing 25th Decemeber which is 1/3 of the traffic of new year eve and day (second red arrow). 

Click image to enlarge!

NYE and NYD are 1/2 of the avg traffic vs the 1/5 of traffic on xmas day.. Please note the site is UK focused..

So most people around the world have heard about the snow in the uk that has shut down london this monday. Well we expect more tomorrow!

I love SNOW!! 

We don’t get much snow in the uk :( 

Thought I’d have a looky at google trends for the uk with the term “snow”.. 

check it out click here

One odd thing is google doesn’t pick up snow uk news of which is all the news we have really had this week.

One interesting thing is that Wales come no1 for snow searches when it has fewer people and hasn’t been hit that hard vs the over populated south of the UK… 

screen shot here:

Ok haven’t blogged for an age here… So now that I have a tiny amount of time I thought I’d blog a little now and again.. 

So google hates Wales… 

Well i’ve been away snowboarding for a week as per norm this time of year and brought the snow back to the UK with me … 

So today I thought I’d raise my PPC budget after dropping for the time i’m away.. “as per norm” .. 

Pretty simple.. I raise the daily cap.. done.. 

Me been being bored this am I have a looky at google “Campaign Optimiser” Which states :

Your campaign’s recent performance shows that some targeted locations perform better for you than others. We recommend that you focus on those regions that have higher Click-through rates than your current average.

The Sad/funny thing is I target the UK only with this campaign thus select uk.. Simple yes ? 

Well. Google thinks Wales is just no good for me..  Google suggest removing wales from my geo-targetting which would increase my CTR.. 

wired thing is it will increase CTR and result in less imp’s and clicks.. Odd.. 

Here is the map of the proposed locations: 

This is why removing wales is better :