It was obvious after the first week of the month, sales were heading down. This was expected for an affiliate website (FishtFight.com) that gets the most interest during the Spring & Summer seasons.
Several other factors most likely contributed to the downturn besides the usual seasonal drop. These include:
A lack of continuous content onsite (I've been putting my time here and on HIVE, instead)
Google algorithm and/or search presentation changes
A general state of financial insecurity (Sportfishing is a luxury industry)
The industry as a whole has been adversely affected by the shutdowns
View the full report from last month for full details.
@inalittlewhile/offshore-fishing-website-analysis-affiliate-sales-and-ad-revenue-report
Numbers don't lie. It's obvious that Google doesn't favor my website anymore. That's what happens when your posting frequency stops. Though I do keep up and answer any legitimate organic comments that come in, I haven't posted any new blogs in quite some time.
Part of me feels my switch to the Brave Browser could have something to do with it. Google knows when people abandon or block their services. Brave blocks ads and cookies. Of course, I have nothing concrete to back this up. It's just a feeling.
As is shown in the report, traffic took a huge spike in the first week of Sept. It continued in a downward slope the entire month.
When traffic falls, all other metrics fall with it as well. The question is, did they fall at the same rate as the traffic? Another way to ask is what quality of traffic did I lose?
Comparing my Adsense revenue from August, it went from $25.53 to $17.61. Without crunching the math, there's an obvious difference in percentage of decline.
While traffic dropped close to 66%, Ad revenue only fell around 35-40%. That tells me the visitors I didn't lose were doing a lot of window shopping.
Google AdSense pays out every month with a minimum balance of 100.00 (for direct deposit). My account crossed that in Sept, so I can expect that money around the 21st of this month. Should I invest it here or back into my site? 馃槢
Falling sales were much more in tune with the percentage of traffic lost. Sales were actually down closer to 75%, though a return on a more expensive item helped make that number higher.
So Google is pulling Ad revenue while Amazon is not keeping up in the sales department. That's interesting, even if it's only a reflection of one affiliate website.
Another nice report shows exactly which items the traffic I send to Amazon has ordered. The report above shows the items once they've shipped, which is when commisions are earned. Only a little over half were actually fishing related.
I enjoy posting this report even though I haven't been active on my website. It offers a small bit of perspective into the world outside of Crypto.
It should be noted that my site is being hosted by AWS (Amazon Web Services). I'm not too concerned about Jeff Bezos pulling the plug on hosting. He owns the Amazon Affiliate program anyway. Plus, I doubt he wants to lose that many millions of dollars.
Thanks for reading and as always...
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