Planet13. I'm sorry to hear about the drop, but on the surface the data doesn't tell me enough to guess. Forgive vagueness of this reponse in advance... as I may not be addressing your original question... but from my point of view, here are bunch of questions, to get some productive discussion going.

Were the queries general or precise?

What kind of analytics, are you using, if any, to examine this traffic?

Are you assuming there should be a direct relationship between blog traffic and ecommerce traffic?. Eg...

Way back on May 20th, 2014, the ecommerce pages of my site got a 40% boost in traffic when Panda 4.0 was launched.

Was the ecommerce traffic coming from your blog or was it coming from elsewhere? Is your blog targeting people who might respond to what your ecommerce pages are offering?

On a very simple level, did your site visitors use those blog links to your ecommerce pages and how did they respond? What was your conversion data like during this same period?

Were the blog links sending visitors to page types other than ecommerce? This is potentially important, because if visitors didn't come immediately to buy, you may not be giving them enough motivation to stay on the site and revisit.

What kind of data do you have to segment your traffic, and to examine it over time? Etc etc?

It may be that Google observed user behavior over time and decided that they weren't sending the right kind of traffic to your blog... and/or it may be that Google is in the process of testing, and it's made adjustments based on the first period in order to run further test.

I'm guessing, btw, that these were probably general queries.

IMO, Google adjustments are designed to help Google searchers find what they're looking for as fast as they can... and that Google is always testing... so this should be a factor in your thinking when you look at this.

Thank you for the response and the suggestion on the points that near clarification.

1) The statistics are for landing pages, so when I said that ecommerce pages were up 40% starting on May 20th, 2014, I mean specifically LANDINGS on those pages were up Using google analytics I am looking at the:

Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages

To source the data for both the INCREASE and the DECREASE in traffic - for both the ecommerce pages and the blog pages.

Were the queries general or precise?

Hard to say. They were along the lines of "blue widgets" . They could be interpreted as either an ecommerce keyword (as if someone were looking to buy blue widgets), or a general info query.

But none of the top 200 listed keywords contain shopping-specific keywords such as "buy" or "shop" or even "cheap" or "inexpensive" or anything like that. Just a general "blue widgets"

There were only a couple of keywords that contained an identifiable product brand, such as "acme blue widgets" or "brand x orange widgets"

Is your blog targeting people who might respond to what your ecommerce pages are offering?

Yes and no:

The blog offers information and history about the various widgets, so it was generally informational. But it did / does have LINKS to the ecommerce pages. The click-through rate from the blog to the ecommerce pages is / was very low, and the conversion rate (turning a blog visitor into a product purchaser) is / was abysmal.

The blog is geared toward the long tail: "where to place your blue widgets?" and "What is the meaning of different widgets? are examples of what the blog targets.

But just to reiterate, the traffic increase and traffic decrease I cited above are (as best as I can tell) direct LANDINGS on the ecommerce pages.

Were the blog links sending visitors to page types other than ecommerce?

I am not sure I understand this. Maybe you can clarify for me?

Bounce rate was high (around 80% for blog pages, compared to only 30% for those who landed on ecommerce pages).

Visitors would see a small box on the right with text links to "Related Articles" and then below that links to the ecommerce pages.

What kind of data do you have to segment your traffic, and to examine it over time? Etc etc?

Really, I just have google analytics.

It may be that Google observed user behavior over time and decided that they weren't sending the right kind of traffic to your blog...

That's the thing though.

Landings on the BLOG continued upwards after September 9th, 2014. Landings on the blog were up 125% over the previous period from May 20th to September 8th, and then from September 9th through December 29th they were up an additional 20% over the previous period.

So google seems to not have a problem with the blog at all despite the near 80% bounce rate. (When I was using event tracking on the blog, I found that 75% or more were reading to the end of the content on the blog pages. They just weren't going on to look at other blog info pages or going to the linked ecommerce pages).

IMO, Google adjustments are designed to help Google searchers find what they're looking for as fast as they can...

As my ecommerce landing pages had only a 29% bounce rate, and they showed an ecommerce conversion rate of .55% (which I know is pretty low), I am guessing that google had a fairly good idea when someone had an ecommerce "intention" in mind, even though their query might have only been "blue widgets".

By the way: When google was sending more visitors as entrances / landing pages to our ecommerce pages (May 20th to Sep 8th, 2014) the user metrics were (mostly) better than when they started sending less people to those pages from Sep 9th to Dec 29th.

So our bounce rate was 23% lower and our pages-per-session was 2.5% higher, but the average session duration was lower.

So it would seem like if google were "testing" out traffic to our ecommerce pages after Panda 4.0, then we actually did pretty well with that traffic in terms of user metrics.

In fact, when compared year over year for the previous several years, the bounce rate and pages per session were better from May 20th through September 8th than the same period from previous years (I compared to the same period in 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2012).

On the other hand, the transactions / conversions were significantly worse... for instance, we had only about 35% of the amount of transactions during that period in 2014 when compared to the same period in 2012.

P.s. that knocking sound you hear is me slamming my head against the table...

User metrics are only part of the story. For ecommerce I would suggest focusing more on conversion metrics. If Google's sending traffic to an ecommerce site and the visit doesn't convert, that is a metric of a poor user experience.

The bounce rate metric is only part of the story and that part of the story may be that site visitors enjoyed your site for reasons other than shopping. It's like a shopping mall. Are visitors coming to hang out by the fountain and listen to the piano player? Or are they coming to buy things?

Have you ever been to Japan Town shopping center in San Francisco? I have never been to a shopping center that has the art of optimization down as well. Some of those stores are crammed full of stuff I don't need and I have almost always walked out of that shopping center with my belly full of food and bags of (mostly useless) stuff I never wanted before. Why is it?

We can start with the presentation of the food. Visual aesthetics. It's not even food that's displayed in the windows, they're plastic replicas. They invite me to browse their food and serve the function of being a trail that leads to their front door.

Content is like that. Content about things is, imo, garbage for conversions. Content about products, content about things that are desirable, content about a lifestyle that is constructed around products, content that has a subtext of aspiration that can only be fulfilled with certain products, I think are going to lead to more conversions. Even in a non-commercial site, an informational site, I still think about what it is that site visitors are trying to accomplish. It's not enough to talk about things. There has to be, imo, a subtext of aspiration, an underlying goal, a self-improvement of some kind to the content. Then the link to the product that can make it all come true.

That's a conversion. That's seeing content through the lens of a goal and how content serves that goal. Conversions is what we are in this for, whether it's converting a sale, converting an affiliate link, converting an ad click or getting people to link to a site. Conversions is the reason for every image, word and design plan decision and choice.

Exactly what MB said..:) Print out his above comment ..and stick it above your monitor(s)..and anywhere else that you will see it..*

Good , successfull , offline merchants ( and as MB gave an example of even entire shopping centres ) know how to get you "receptive" .."involved", and then "trigger" or "suggest" you into "buy" mode..( how it all works would fill a large website ..I used to advise B&Ms, and shopping centres ;) on this for a living )..

You can use the same principles ( again as MB said ) online with ecom and even informational and aff sites too..

*I suggest everyone does ..Print it out..think about it..apply it, it is probably/possibly the best advice you'll ever see on the web..

Well, I am wondering if I should just get rid of the whole blog side of my site...

I mean, traffic to my SITE IN TOTAL is the highest that it has ever been. Year-to-date, it is up 118% over the same period last year!

Literally, in terms of TOTAL TRAFFIC, this is the best year I have ever had.

But in terms of sales / conversions, this is the ABSOLUTE WORST YEAR EVER.

My Blog traffic (which doesn't convert) makes up 93% of my traffic, while eCommerce pages make up only 7%

If there was SOME WAY to get my BLOG traffic to convert, then everything would at least be better.

But I have tried everything I could think of to monetize that blog ( including text links from blog to my products, image links from blog to my products, floating footers advertising special discounts to my blog visitors, heck, even tried adsense just to cover all the bases), and NOTHING has worked.

Should I just get rid of the blog?!?!?!?! Maybe put it on a separate domain where I would make a whopping $5 a month in adsense?

Is it possible the blog is hurting more than helping?

Is google "seeing" a bunch of people going to an "ecommerce site " and not converting into shoppers, and then thinking, "this ecommerce site must suck?"

Maybe I could salvage SOME of the text from SOME of the blog pages, put it on the main ecommerce pages, and pray?

Really, the reason I keep the blog around is not because I love it.

the only reason I keep it around now is because I worry that if I got rid of it, I would be making things even worse somehow...

Aaarrrggghhh

_{QUESTION: Is 10 in the morning too early to start drinking?}

Thanks MB and LG:

Yeah, been to J Town many a time, and like you, walked out with bunches of stuff I didn't need and a belly full of food wasn't expecting to eat.

The frustrating thing has also been that I've tried to make the products more visually appealing and haven't really seen any benefit.

Recently moved to a responsive design so that it would be easier for mobile users as well.

You have to create some perceived need for them to buy your products.

You have to create some perceived need for them to buy your products.

That will be a challenge.

Aside from the fact that they look nice.

I don't know if they "solve a problem."

I'm just kind of firing blanks right now...

The perceived need doesn't always have to solve a problem. Maybe it fulfills a fantasy, I dunno. For example, booking a cruise doesn't necessarily solve a problem (unless you're hiding out from the Feds, maybe). But somehow people do.

You may want to consider viewing the problem in terms of the kind of life the site visitor aspires to. Or the kind of lifestyle the site visitor aspires to. Or the kind of person the site visitor aspires to be. Then connect that to the products. That's the problem they need solutions for. As netmeg posted, create a perceived need.

Can this be approached from the point of view of an interior or exterior decorator? Then put together a look. Pick up a copy of Ikea's latest catalog. I was in Ikea last month and over the weekend was looking over a catalog I found lying around and the experience from the catalog was powerful because it was showing me how to do things. It wasn't showing me how pretty their furniture looked. I knew the products already. But the catalog communicating a sense of inspiration and problem solving. It is a well thought out catalog. Pick up a copy and take a look.