What works on weekends?

Heavy traffic drop on my site.

[eflouret]

I run a Design site and it has a good ammount of traffic during the week.

On weekends the traffic is reduced by a 40% approx. which is something logical since on weekends most pepole don't work and spend their time on recreative activities.

But is that the reason? Or is it that most people regularly access internet at their work instead of home? Do "all" subjects experience a heavy traffic loss on weekends?

Thanks

Enrique

[Liane]

On weekends the traffic is reduced by a 40% approx. which is something logical since on weekends most pepole don't work and spend their time on recreative activities.

Bingo!

[eflouret]

Ok, but do those recreative activities include browsing the web for Movies, games, music or something or weekends simply do not include web browsing at all? (I couldn't tell because I'm always working on my site at home...)

[Beagle]

I'm involved with a couple of sites that are purely entertainment based (focusing on movie discussion), and things get slow on weekends because people are doing things with their families or friends instead of spending time on more solitary pursuits--and this includes people who always access the internet from home. I'd think with a business-related site the difference would be even more striking.

[eflouret]

Thanks. So it seems that weekends are bad (or not so good) for almost everybody. I don't expect webmasters to reveal their "niche-that-works-on-weekends" secrets, but in general that seems to be the rule.

Enrique

[dickbaker]

I see a drop in visitors on the weekends, but not in the area of 40%. More like maybe 15%.

Since my site deals with products that are not related in any way to 99% of the public's jobs, I know that people are goofing off at work when they visit the site.

[Rosalind]

I have a balance of work-related and pure entertainment sites, and all of them experience a drop at the weekend. I would also expect recent weekends to be especially slow, because there's the summer holidays slump combined with the weekend lull.

Don't discount younger people who log in at school or university. Now these are over, members of these groups could be restricted in how they can get online. So while you might expect them to surf more because they have free time, more of them may be relying on slower home connections or internet cafes and libraries.

That's my theory, but it would be nice to get hold of a comprehensive survey of internet use over time and tracking various demographics, to back it up.

[larryhatch]

My guess is that content is the major factor.
My site runs counter to the trend, busier on weekends. Its about an arcane topic.
My slowest days tend to be midweek over the long haul.
I would say Sunday and Monday are busiest. -Larry

[eflouret]

I think this topic has to deal with three situations.

1) Visitors browse for different things on weekends than on business days (movie showtimes, etc)

2) Visitors take advantage of internet connection at work and use it less at home

3) Visitors don't browse at weekends because they prefer to stay away from computers.

As it shows from the previous answers, all three are correct, but the question is which one is the most frequent.

Enrique

[meg8]

Couple of other factors.
I'm in ecommerce and Sunday is by far my busiest day. I think people browse during weeksdays but because they might get interrupted by their boss they wait till the weekend to actually get the credit card out and make the purchase.

I do far better in the winter then the summer - June is the worst month by far, I think this is true in B+M retail also. People are saving up to go on holiday or buying specific items for holiday, the kids are not out school yet. It's likely that these will be the first hot days of the year and everyone will go out to the park for the day. (I am based in the UK)

School holidays and public holidays are not good for me, I think people are spending time time in the real world.

I'm beginning to think that when it rains I do a lot better than when the sun is shining, but I don't have any figures to back this up, just a feeling.

eflouret - I'm interested to know whether you asked the question because you see it as a problem?

[eflouret]

Although my site is not a "small niche site" it is certainly not massive. Also, I work at home and everyday I'm checking stats to see how's everything.

I know for sure that weekends should be for resting, but when since I make a living on internet, I feel that I should improve my weekends business.

Also, I'm always trying to learn about visitors behaviour.

Enrique