We don't talk enough about the seasons.
When you’ve been in this game for a while you notice that the calendar has significance. In my experience in the charity sector our websites were always quiet in August. I guess the audiences were mostly based in the UK, where August was the big school holiday period of the year.
I once worked on a website for a US-based university fundraising operation. Surprisingly, their peak-time was December. You see, you get tax relief on donations in the US. And, if I recall correctly, the tax year ends in December. So, every December was peak-donation time, which meant peak-website-traffic-time.
Regardless of your organisation there will be monthly and seasonal fluctuations in traffic. For that reason, it’s common practice to compare with the same month in the previous year. For example, how did website traffic in August this year compare to August last year?
Be careful about diagnosing a new trend without a prior year of comparison data. How do you know it isn't a seasonal fluctuation?
A colleague once pointed out something interesting: the impact of the length of the month on our reporting. You see, most years February has 28 days. So, most years February will get 10% less traffic than January by default. In the same way most years March will receive 11% more traffic than February by default.
I hate to think of the times I flagged a good result in March without considering the impact of the short month in February. An 11% jump is a big number.
Are there any aspects of the calendar I've missed? Let me know on X, Threads or Bluesky.