Update on Statistics in October 2019 and Winter Seasonality Trends

Let’s take a look at another part of our monthly statistics update and October seasonality trends! Apart from the stats, I would like to share our insights and recommendations on optimizing your content. Therefore, let’s take a look at what steps you can take to optimize your website and rank higher! Below you will find our October statistics and winter seasonality trends!

October 2019 Statistics

Traffic And Users

In October, the number of organic visits for all our customers was 3% lower than in the previous month (1,265,807). The decrease in traffic was visible in the case of categories popular in the summer season, which are now less popular among consumers. As far as the number of users is concerned, analogically to the decrease in traffic, the number of users also decreased (by 4.1%).

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate in October remained at a similar level as in September, amounting to 20.98%. We observed a lower bounce rate than a month ago in the case of e-commerce, in particular as regards categories related to fall and winter footwear and seasonal clothing.

Avg. Session Duration

In October we noticed an increase in the average session duration from 3:50 to 4:06. The longest duration of the session invariably goes to e-commerce services with a year-round, wide range of clothing and footwear.

Pages per Session

In October, the number of pages visited during the session also increased slightly from 4.58 to 4.60. The most visited subpages were clothing e-commerce and guidebooks for Christmas gifts.

Trends Now

In terms of sales, November is a very important month for e-commerce due to the Black Friday, which this year falls on November 29. Many online stores generate more sales on just that one day than on the other days of the year combined!

November is also the beginning of Christmas fever and intensive work in e-commerce. Users are looking for gifts for their loved ones, Christmas recipes, and ideas for Christmas decorations. In the fashion industry, categories related to winter clothing and footwear are becoming popular.

Black Friday (search volume in November: 3,400,000)

Winter shoes (search volume in November: 33,100)

Winter coat (search volume in November: 246,000)

Christmas presents (search volume: 165,000)

Christmas decoration (search volume in November: 673,000)

Pro Tips for the Winter Season

1. Create Christmas guides for your potential customers with inspiring ideas for gifts for women, men, children, etc. or other criteria that can make your store stand out. Use question keywords in the tutorials which are very popular in the context of finding gift ideas, e.g. “What Christmas gift to buy for your parents”.
2. Due to the fact that online traffic around Christmas can be much higher than in other seasons, make sure that your website loads quickly and correctly. Users who are feverishly looking for gifts will not wait until a slow site finally loads and simply go to the competition.
3. The last quarter of the year is not always a period of increased sales for every e-commerce business. For some shops and websites which had their best sales period in summer, for example, the last months of the year should be devoted to optimizing the website, adapting it to current trends and search engine requirements. It is worth optimizing the content of the website to comply with voice search, already very popular and mentioned as one of the most important trends in 2020.

Upcoming Trends – Winter Seasonality Trends

Ecommerce owners should be prepared for upcoming trends. Apart from holidays, December is also the time of New Year’s Eve events and parties. Online shops offering a range of products for skiers and snowboarders may already feel increased interest on the part of the customers and more sales.

Ski clothes (search volume in December: 33,100)

New Year’s party (search volume in December: 40,500)

New years dress (search volume in December: 246,000)

Snowboard boots (search volume in December: 90,500)

Pro Tips For Your Business

1. Plan a strategy for building visibility in organic results for 2020. Consider optimizing your website to comply with voice search. Include questions and conversational keywords in your category description, FAQ section, and blog posts. This is also critical due to the recent BERT update, introduced by Google.
2. Review the current content in the context of the winter seasonality trends and check whether some articles need to be refreshed or updated with new data or information. Check the search results and browse through the pages that appear higher than your website in response to the search phrase you are interested in. Then see what content you are missing and try to make your content even more attractive by adding missing elements, facts, and data.
3. In December, review the statistics from the entire year and consider which areas need attention in the coming year. Plan actions that will help you achieve better results in 2020 by learning from the experience of the past year.

Optimization Is a Constant Process

If you have read my previous monthly updates, you probably know what to do, and how constant content optimization is crucial. I hope that my insights on winter seasonality trends can help you improve your ranks and drive more valuable traffic to your website. If you want to share other tips, let me know!