14.2 Percent January over December
Let’s discuss traffic today: Traditionally, it weakens around Christmas time and has for the past 3 years before it bounces back up in January.
Last night I took the first 20 days of traffic stats for December 2004, 2005 and this year. I did linear trend line & daily delta analysis to try and determine if the softness of this months traffic is a trend or just a seasonal anomaly. Amazingly, the last 3 years of Decembers have been incredibly predictable and I came away from the analysis with only one thought: We can likely expect a January traffic increase of about 14.2% over this months average levels.
Just like the stock market, our traffic levels never go straight up continually, but have very normal ups and downs depending on internal server & human issues and external environmental factors. While many of our stats are hundreds of percent up, so is the level of ‘content supply’ competition in the marketplace for the attention of our installed and future readership base… and this requires continual innovation and urgency in our actions.
Recommendation: Continue writing quality original articles and submit them this and next week so that you can participate further in the anticipated 14.2% January rise in traffic.
At least someone is looking into metrics. It’s good to know for SURE just what is happening.
I’d do it for my site as well but it’s just too complicated for me.
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