Really weird numbers?!?! Sudden drop in sales.

Whats the product? Maybe the product is more seasonal? Did you search ranking's change? Did the product change?

There is a ton of possibilities here. You might need to update the site or offer more incentive to buy through you...

How long have you been doing this? The market is extremely erratic lately, especially the last few months.

So I don't see your experience as unusual. Hopefully you can hang in because it will eventually rebound. But we're going to be seeing ups and downs like this for the foreseeable future.

Someone might have started pirating free copies of whatever you are selling... either that or some competitors might be posting negative reviews about the book. IDK, those are my best guesses.

Have you tried buying from yourself and seeing if it credits correctly?

Larry, There can be a variety of reasons for the sudden dropoff in sales - not the least of which is traffic quality, the competency of your marketing, and the viability of the product being offered. It's important to realize, Internet marketing conversion rates can often be erratic. That's just the nature of the beast. That being said, I've seen conversion numbers stabilize eventually, just as quickly as they went bad.

You said you haven't changed anything. That leads me to believe your traffic might be the culprit. The quality of traffic you were getting earlier was probably better than the quality of traffic you're getting now. Even though the traffic may be coming from the same source, the current quality might not be as good.

My guess is you're experiencing a bad cycle of bad traffic. Like I said earlier, it could eventually stabilize itself. So don't panic just yet. By the way, where is your traffic coming from? Also, how many total click-thrus have you had?

David Jackson

I have several online business- some rely on SE traffic, and some do not.

I did very well in August and I was expecting to see biz increase after Labor Day ( as it normally does).

All of my IM businesses are down this week and I'm not sure why.

Thanks for all the fast answers You have some valid questions and I'll answer where I can:

@Jimspeed: The product is a lifestyle ebook (livinglikejamesbond.com) which isn't seasonal to the point of 80% less sales over a month. Also it hasn't changed over the past half year.
The search rankings on the keywords that I monitor is unchanged. Also search engines supply the same percentage of trafic as a month ago.
"There is a ton of possibilities here. You might need to update the site or offer more incentive to buy through you..." I am in the progress of getting a copywriter to help with the copy since I know its not nearly optimal. However this isn't related to sales dropping since the copy has been unchanged during the last 3 months.

@DavidO: I hope your right and it will bounce back up, but I haven't seen anything like this over the last few months.

@Anthony: Yeah the traffic sources seem to be the same generally. There are small fluctuations but nothing significant.

@Youdon'tknowme: Thanks for the suggestions - Would be feasible explanations. I already did look for new bad reviews and found none. When I saw your comment I checked for pirated torrents and the like but didn't find any real ones.

@GuerillaIm: Yeah I did. Even tryed in both chrome and IE and also with the cache cleared. I didn't encounter any problems. Didn't try firefox but assume it would show the same.

@David jackson: I have around 70 visits a day and they are 1/2 referals, 1/4 search engine trafic and 1/4 direct trafic. The referals are primarily thegmanifesto.com, thrillingheroics.com and then my own articles around the net.



I'm still not sure what is happening and though it calms me that you say fluctuations like this is common, I'm not convinced. It seems too big a difference to be explained by random fluctuations.

Thanks for input so far
-Larry

Keep on working it, you'll get it.

Look at your clickthrus over time for the last several weeks. Are they constant or dropping off?

Are you getting a lot of repeat visitors to your website?