Even Online Businesses Have Cycles
All businesses go through cycles. There are times when business is great and there are times when it just maintains itself. For example, a lot of businesses make a good portion of their profits around Christmas time. Accountants are a great example of business cycles since they can make a huge portion of their profits during tax season, and the rest of the year is a bit more relaxed.
So what is the cycle for your business? When is business going to be up and when is business going to be down? When you’re first getting started you won’t know! In fact, it may take at least a year or more before you really start to figure out when your business tends to do its best.
In the meantime, there are a few things you can do to prepare yourself for what might be particular trends in your industry. Some of it would be common sense. Look at when people usually would buy your product and you can deduct a lot from that. Also, go find some of the big players in your industry and check out their Alexa stats over a long period of time to see when their traffic fluctuates. That could also be a good indication of an upcoming trend in traffic for your site as well.
Here’s an example. Let’s say that you have a website that is in the health and fitness industry (not weight loss alone). Well, in the realm of getting fit, building muscle, and all of that one of the big sites in that arena would be BodyBuilding.com. When I do a search for their traffic information on Alexa here is the graph that I get:
So as you can see, there is a definite spike in their traffic right around the middle of January. Does this surprise you? When do people really start making New Year’s Resolutions and start working towards them? Early January! Look at other graphs in your industry and you just might start to put together a picture of when your site might see some spikes in traffic.
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of course it is a season matter… like surfing shops on winter looks kind of sad, but i agree it is funny! it looks like a hand doing an ab seen jester
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It looks like a 1-2 days thing to my… might be specific promotion.
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There could be several reasons for a bit spike like this, but then again its just an example of the overall concept. The main thing to notice is that in the later months of the year the dips are a lot deeper than at the beginning of the year.
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I’m surprised it isn’t a huge spike and then a slow decline for the rest of the year. Interesting graph since I also have a bodybuilding site. Thanks.
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Bodybuilding Web,
Honestly I’m surprised that it wasn’t more obvious with this particular site as well. My guess is that the bodybuilding community is at least somewhat more dedicated year round than the weight loss community. But it’s just a guess. Thanks for the comment!
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Good points. Thaniks
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hi, good post, your explanation with that alexa traffic details was really good and easy to understand the information of this post about change in online business cycle. good job, keep it up.
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I sell website builders and website tools. The only thing that makes my income in constant is occasional using a poor strategy but after years of trying it seems like I have found the right one for memon
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Dan Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
do you have any tips you’d like to share?
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That’s crazy. I never thought trends would be so apparent. Really funny that bodybuilding.com’s traffic spikes in January, but it’s so obvious. I gotta start thinking about stuff like this because it makes so much sense.
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Proper Marketing strategies would definitely increase your page rank and income.
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it takes good analysis in order to have a good traffic and conversion.
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so true, everything comes in cycles it isn’t surprising to see it’s the same for websites
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When is business going to be up and when is business going to be down? When you’re first getting started you won’t know! In fact, it may take at least a year or more before you really start to figure out when your business tends to do its best.
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I hope my bodybuilding blog grows the same way in january.
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Cycles for sure, the holidays are a great example , atleast it was for me
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