My traffic fell by 50%

Help!

[pmac]

Last Halloween I had over a hundred kids show up at my door and tonight it was less than 50. I'm thinking that maybe last year my ratio of suckers to candy bars was a bit high and now the kids don't like me any more. Is there anything I can do? Should I stick a big sign in an H1 tag in front of my house saying "candy bars?"

Maybe I should do a usability study to check the lighting and the path the kids have to take to get to my door. Should I put on a costume so that what the kids see isn't what I really am?

On the bright side I have a whole ton of leftover candy to munch on. :)

[plumsauce]

well it depends, did you check for how much
of your neighbours bars are GREEN?

mind you as a habitue at ww, you should already
be aware that bar rank is decreasing in
importance, and that you should be prepared
to optimise for suckers.

could the BIG PUMPKIN step in here and
help us all out with a comment?

maybe changes are afoot in the PUMPKIN PATCH?
anyone else seen this?

ps. i hope your costume doesn't have a cloak,
because you know that while it still goes on, it
won't last, optimising like a sucker is much better
in the long term.

:)

edit: added cloak reminder

[HughMungus]

Did you try adwords yet?

[whizkiddo]

I wonder if you have given any attention to your RR (Road Rank).

Depending on the age of your target audience, RR depends on:

1) The number of beautiful women living on the same street - ok ok, i admit thats just a factor for ppl like me

2) Number of incoming "links" meaning the decorations that you put up may make the kids feel that they are much more likely to be tricked then treated.

Also have you been indexed by the sweet bot yet? The sweet bot is difficult to please but once done goes around telling people that this particular house had the best candy of all. One can only guess the time and factors for the sweet bot, but rest assured its quite similar to the G bot. It can either make or break traffic.

Hehe. BTW Belated Happy Halloween.

[plumsauce]

1) The number of beautiful women living on the same street - ok ok, i admit thats just a factor for ppl like me

the blackhat technique:
beautiful women tricking on the same street

[chadmg]

Do you have any annoying popup ads (election plackards) when people enter your site?

[Trisha]

You've got two problems:

1)It sounds like you are only optimizing for candy bars and suckers. There are plenty of 3 and 4 word candies out there that are less competitive, but could bring lots of visitors to you house.

2)Your house needs to be more sticky. Next time put lots of Halloween decorations up around your house. That way visitors will stay longer and come back again next time. Contrary to popular belief, playing scary music for visitors to your house will help them to remember you and make them want to come back again too.

Also, remember off house factors are more important now than on house. Forget about that H1 at your house - you need to put some signs at your neighbors with a arrow pointing to your house!

[DrDoc]

put on a costume so that what the kids see isn't what I really am

Cloaking? ;)

[DrDoc]

You can also hire a kid to trick-or-treat at your house all night...

[plumsauce]

if the roi works for you, how about PPK?

pay-per-kid

whoops, forgot, PPC

pay-per-child, very long lasting usually

from birth through post-grad degree