Every time I take a peek into the Web analytics accounts for a blog or especially an online store I see something I consider to be VERY frightening! The percentage of traffic and sales being derived from traffic from only one source is frequently 50-70+%!
Can you imagine what would happen to your blog or business if your traffic and sales suddenly dropped by 50-70%!
Don’t think it can happen? It does all the time. The most famous blogger Darren Rowse of ProBlogger and TwiTip wrote an excellent post about his own experience of losing two-thirds of his traffic and income. He has covered this subject several times:
- What Should You Do If Your Google Ranking Falls and You Lose All Your Traffic? (Nov. 29 2006)
- What To Do When Your Google Traffic Disappears (Nov 15, 2005)
- Google’s Christmas Present – OUCH! (Dec 20, 2004)
- Google’s Update Chaos Continues (Dec 28, 2004)
Do you notice anything about the dates of these posts? Remember in the post just prior to this that I mentioned pay per click bid prices having artificially high minimums? Those coincide with organic listings swinging wildly but mostly dropping. (Some have to go up for others to go down.)
If your business normally sees a major increase in sales – or even makes the majority of sales – during the holiday shopping season what would YOU do if your traffic dropped in the middle of the optimum sales period because your organic listings suddenly dropped or completely disappeared from the first page of the SERPS?
How long have I been warning about the dangers of having all your traffic and sales coming from the same source? Have you done anything about it yet?
Still not convinced? There are others who have recognized how dangerous this is. The featured home page discussion at WebmasterWorld (Mar 27, 2009) is about Making Your Business SE (Search Engine) Proof. I know you may be busy blogging or running your online store so you may not see all the uproar whenever there is a new Google Dance.
These issues are not new as this excerpt from Gazumped by Google Florida Update from Nov 25, 2003 indicates (note that the date of this post also coincides with the holiday shopping season):
“Thousands of web pages have been suddenly demoted in the Google search results, primarily on the main commercial search terms for which they targeted their pages to be replaced by other sites who, in the main, referred to the search term obliquely. Several were the main shopping portals or business directories which gave listings for companies who may provide the services requested, many were not. “
Techcrunch has even suggested What An AntiTrust Case Against Google Might Look Like. For several days now I have been searching for specific posts, forums, or pages to illustrate the current state of online sales. I wanted to provide more real life examples from etailers.
With the enormous number of online stores that would seem to be easy to research. Have no Internet retailers asked for input since 2007 when their sales dropped? Do they not visit forums any more or ask around among their peers? Perhaps that information is not as easily located if the discussions take place on Twitter or other Social Networks or maybe it is not easily found in the indexes?
Whatever the cause I have decided to publish this post as is and hope that those involved in ecommerce will share their stories and experiences in the comments here.
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LATEST ON GOOGLE SEARCH ALGORITHM:
- Important New Insights with graph and details from Randfish at SEOmoz – How Google’s Ranking Algorithm Has Changed Over Time (Apr 9, 2009)
- SEOBook: Big Brands: Google Brand Promotion: New Search Engine Rankings Place Heavy Emphasis on Branding (Feb 25, 2009) – even though this post is older I have placed it second because it contains so much important detail on how Google has changed and how those changes affect small businesses and blogs.
- SEMReportCard: Breaking News: Google Algorithm Update Places BRANDS at Top of Results for Geo-Targeted Searches (Feb 27, 2009)
- Why Google’s Ranking Factors Have Changed Over Time (Apr 9, 2009)
ONLINE RETAILERS REPORTING TRAFFIC DECLINES:
GOOGLE DANCES:
- Niche Marketing: Page Rank and Doing the Google Dance (Mar 29, 2009)
- What is the Google Dance (Mar 5, 2009)
- What Happened to My Google Ranking: Explaining the Google Dance – easy version (2004)
- Google Dance Syndrome Strikes Again (Dec 1, 2003)
- WebmasterWorld Forum – Google Rankings Fluctuating Wildly (Aug 2003)
- Coping with GDS: Google Dance Syndrome (Jun 3, 2003)
DEALING WITH DROPPING SEARCH TRAFFIC:
- AimClear – Attainable SEO: Page Strength Versus SERPs Difficulty (Mar 6, 2009)
- AimClear – Universal Search: Optimizing for Blended SERPS (Dec 10, 2008)
- Search Engine Land – How to (Kind of) Buy a #1 Organic Search Ranking on Google (Nov 8, 2007)
- SEOmoz: 90% of the Ratings Factor Lies in These Four Factors (Sep 26,2007)
- Search Engine Guide – The Risk of Over-Reliance on Google (Oct 31, 2006)
- Search Engine Guide – Saving Your Business From Algorithm Shift Part 2 Paid Search Advertising (Jul 18, 2005) – Be sure to read our post on the Dangers of PPC Advertising
- Search Engine Guide – Saving Your Business From Algorithm Shift Part 1; Using Press Releases (Jul 14, 2005)
- Search Engine Guide – Search Engine Algorithm Quandaries (Jul 1, 2005)
- Search Engine Guide – How to Weather Google Algorithm Changes (Jun 22, 2005)
ECOMMERCE PREDICTIONS:
- Bloomberg citing Forrester Research: U.S. Online Sales Grew 11% in First Quarter (Apr 8, 2009)
- Despite Economic Downturn, Outlook for eCommerce in 2009 Still Bright (Mar 10, 2009)
- Online Retail Could Reach $156B in 2009 (Jan 29, 2009)
The above predictions are far different than the results of the Merchant Circle Small Business Economic Stimulus Survey (Feb 25, 2009). The answers to this question are of particular concern:
Month over month, how would you say sales and revenue for your local business have changed?
Severe Decline 31.5% (3,411)
Moderate Decline 41.6% (4,509)
No Change 13.6% (1,471)
Moderate increase 12.3% (1,331)
Strong Increase 1.6% (178)
Total survey respondents who answered that their sales and revenue had declined: 73.1%
Survey participants who answered this question 10,830
Number who skipped this question 49Total respondents 10,879
NOTE: The question specifically asks about LOCAL business. We have no way of knowing how many of those local businesses are brick and mortar, have ecommerce stores, or operate exclusively online.
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More Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
- Tired of focusing on SEO or just want some great new ideas to work on? Check out the 115 Marketing Strategies for Small Business from the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur Blog.
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I agree “You can never rely on anyone type of traffic but organic is the best because of the high standing it holds for Google, pagerank, alexa ranking, etc.” Organic for me is the best. Check out Search Engine Marketing.
My main focus is still on Google. In the beginning you have to focus your resources on one thing. Or else you won’t get anywhere with all the methods you try to implent.
I do find it a bit scary putting all my bets on one horse now.
You never know what Google will do next. But I do find it difficult to find other ways to get traffic that work as good as Google does.
Danny would love you to read ..Black & Decker NPP2018 18-Volt Cordless Electric Pole Chain Saw
Twitter: rogergordon66
June 21, 2011 at 9:31 am
Twitter: @rogergordon66
Interesting that this post was made back in 2009 when there was a lot more ‘gaming’ of Google still going on. I think people on average are a bit more tuned in these days to what G wants and are in a position to benefit from updates such as Panda rather than suffer as a result.
Roger Gordon would love you to read ..Unique Article Wizard Ongoing Development
Twitter: GrowMap
July 12, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Twitter: @GrowMap
Hi Roger,
Since this post was written I have seen the traffic coming from Google as high as 98% and have had some success at obtaining traffic from other sources. See my Local Search Case Study.
I believe it is naive to assume that if you try really hard to be good boys and girls that Brother Google will look upon you with favor. I am reminded of people who think if they drive just perfectly they will never get a ticket – and are surprised when they are stopped for having “dim license plate lights” or even though they signaled they “didn’t signal far enough before the intersection”.
Also since I wrote this post we all have a new challenge. Incorporating social media activities and recent blog posts into the serps is creating massive churn on page one. While many will be thrilled to have their 15 seconds of fame, being unable to get consistent traffic will be the long term effect.
As usual, this behavior will be rolled out gradually so that most will never notice the CAUSE of their decreasing traffic and sales.
I also predict that Google will use the Chrome block data as the perfect excuse to lower ranking or even delist sites just as Automattic uses Akismet to silence the voices of the most active commentators. I wrote about those issues in my post about Crowdsourcing Fail.
You do know that many consider article marketing and using Unique Article Wizard ‘gaming’ Google? I love the guest posts UAW sends. I have it installed in my golf blog and this gifts blog and believe it is a worthwhile system to use.
I don’t do it myself any more because I suspect that unique to the paragraph level is not unique enough. When I need article marketing done Ron Cripps does it for me as he has a method to make the posts and articles unique to the sentence level.
Unfortunately for Ron, just after he published this post on Why You Should Still Be Writing Marketing Articles traffic from Google to his site dropped off a cliff and months later it is still clamped down.
Did you see my post about the Panda update severely affecting Google’s competitors? Many quality sites that I use and recommend regularly including ShopWiki for their Shopping Buying Guides and TheFind shopping comparison site were affected.
See that post for the difference between the number of small businesses you can find to buy from on those sites compared to the few and almost all corporate brands Google shopping gives us. THAT is the future according to Google: big brands.
Aaron Wall wrote a brilliant post around Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s now infamous Internet Cesspool quote. That link goes to my comment regarding how that will affect Internet users.
There is only one real solution: identify INDEPENDENT alternatives (i.e. non-corporate controlled) to everything Google and encourage everyone you can reach to use them instead. Google is the company store and if we don’t support alternatives there won’t BE any alternatives. I encourage those who are willing to hear to see my posts about Free is NOT Free and There is No Google Fairy.
growmap would love you to read ..Google Results Image: Paid Versus Organic Listings
You can never rely on anyone type of traffic but organic is the best because of the high standing it holds for Google, pagerank, alexa ranking, etc.
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Twitter: stutterwear
June 3, 2011 at 1:18 am
Twitter: @stutterwear
I agree with you…Google especially.traffic is organic as well as ‘artificial’
Thanks for sharing these link.id be a good reading material/research
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Depending solely on Organic Search is not really a good action. As they can be instances like this that’s inevitable!
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