The Sunday Dip

If you are running a regularly update site over the past year or so (or like me for more than 5 years), then you would be taking a look at Google Analytics every now and then to see how is the traffic on your site doing.

Here is a glimpse at the stats of one of the sites that I manage.

Notice the periodic jagged pattern which runs throughout the year? Consistently as well! The general trend of the traffic we see is going upwards (Praise the lord for that!), however we see that every 7th day – yes, the more observant people among you would have noticed that we are running the default view of Google Analytics.

So on every 7th day, without fail the traffic dips. This my friends, I chose to christen as the Sunday Dip.

Why does it occur?

The Sunday Dip occurs when your target audience is out on a holiday and choosing to socialize in the real world than on the internet. It occurs, because like a normal sites target audience, these people are not visiting your site. Ask yourself this question –

On a Sunday, which is the first site you open? Is your machine even on?

For me, it’s Gmail, followed by Google Analytics, followed by my blog’s admin panel, Reddit, Facebook and so on. But I do not consider myself normal, I am the Big, Fat Geek 🙂

Web browsing on an average is lesser on Sundays not only because major office goers are not in their offices, but also because the same people try and stay away from their machines on the weekend.

What should I do now?

Now that your audience is not even online … then what should you do?

Well, you could always step away from that desk of yours and spend some quality time with your family. The Sunday Dip is a natural phenomenon of how your users are behaving in their free time. It is to be embraced and not to be battled against, since you would be fighting human nature.

If you still want to fight human nature, then there are methods which will help you condition your audience to keep visiting your site on Sundays! Here’s a list of things you could try out –

• Schedule your blog posts with military precision on Sundays, share them on Sundays as well. Over a period of time, your returning visitors will recognize this pattern and start frequenting the site on Sundays.
• Give a big bonus incentive to visit your site on Sundays. It could be a free e-book or any other download you think that could be of value to your audience.

Now its your turn!

Personally speaking, I choose not to battle the Sunday Dip. I embrace it and do research for the post on Monday! What have you tried in the past to drive traffic on Sundays?