As many people know, I am an e-commerce retailer of kitchens, worktops and Formica sheets as well as making the websites for other on-line retailers and business.  I have a turnover of 100 units a week with one of my products, the “Formica sheets” that I sell.  This ticks along nicely and it’s a great product as my supplier boxes and rolls them and then the courier collects and delivers for me – Drop Shipping.

However, something very strange happened yesterday.  I was booked to go and see someone about furthering the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) potential for the website yesterday at 11am.  We sent back and forth a few emails, for me to add him to my analytic’s so he can see the current traffic and arranging the meeting.  As it transpired, we would both rather put back the meeting until 3pm as we had other tasks that needed our immediate attention and we did this.

Then something odd happened…

I started to get phone calls, orders and contact form submissions from the Formica sales website…  Why was this random event occurring?  I was so very busy processing orders that I was glad that we had put back the meeting, as I simply couldn’t leave the office.  In fact, that 100 unit weekly turnover was smashed in one day!  It seems odd that I am about to go and see the SEO guru to get more sales and then this happened – too ‘odd’ to be true in fact.

So, I went to the 3pm meeting with the phone still ringing on the seat of the van, to meet with the man that I was going to thank for whatever trick he had pulled for the last 4-5 hours and lay down and be tickled in to buying in to his wonderful strategy – Clearly a listing on a 3rd party site, or maybe he had put in £50 to a very well refined PPC (pay per click campaign).  But no, he had done nothing!.  He had to hold his hands up and confess he could not take the credit.

Then today, half past 12 and no orders…  Sometimes it’s just the luck of the drawer, or is it?  How very frustrating when you have to put yourself out and wait for a bite.  But that’s Google for you – or is it?  Was it something on a make-over program last night telling everyone that you can use Formica to rejuvenate your worktops?   Did I change something without realising, but why is it not working today?

I guess your looking for the answer, well that, would be the mystery that is Google.  My honest advice is just be honest and relevant with your website, build on it and they will come.  You also need to look at your analytics’s.  You will get spikes and low points with your website and your analytics’s should be able to tell you this and if you spend time looking over the analytics’s, you can see what happened, but not what will happen and that’s a shame!  What I will do this weekend, is look at Wednesday’s visits and see what worked, and then build on it.

Thanks for reading and good luck with your website – Check your analytics’s! 

Good luck everyone!