Sales Plummeted Recently

I just don't know what happened or where to turn and I'm hoping maybe someone here can shed some light on my problems.

Our website was doing wonderfully; we had quadrupled sales over this past Christmas.
January sales, naturally, didn't match December's or November's, but something happened near the end of January/first part of February and our sales have bottomed out!

Currently, our sales are less than what they were the first month online!

Having to take care of my elderly mother, I haven't been able to devote a lot of time to the site lately, so no changes have been made for a couple months.
Not a good thing, I know, but at least I can over rule that the problem was something new that I tried.

Some of my keyword phrases are still ranked #1 on Google and on Yahoo's first page.
No changes were made to these either.
Other keywords are still ranking pretty much where they have been for the last 6 months.

Visitor counts have naturally dropped a little since Christmas, but maintaining the average count for this time of year.

I just cannot figure out what is going wrong.
I know Google made some drastic changes around that time, but I am not seeing the effect of our ranking, only sales are effected and I don't want to point a finger, when I am not at all certain as to what I should be pointing at.

One thing I noticed and am unsure of: If you view the source of our website, you will see a couple very large areas of white {blank} gaps in between the html segments.
This is nothing I can control, but done by my host company, City Max.
They assure me that this large blank spacing will not effect my website in any way.
Am I being given accurate info?
I'd like to add that this spacing problem has existed for many months, not just since the end of January.

City Max also underwent a lot of changes/upgrades around the exact time sales took a nose dive.

I am just in the dark with this and hope someone can shed some light on something for me.
Any help or suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Our website is my username dot com.

Many thanks,
Kate

Lots of things can happen to tank your sales.

* competitor with lower price
* competitor with similar product line near you in the SERPs
* competitor with a superior product near you in the SERPs
* increase in the strength of your credit card security filter
* changes in your shopping cart done by the cart provider

So, go out and snoop the competition and have a few friends buy something from your site. This is what I have done when I had those concerns.

Thank you for your imput, wisdom, and ideas, EGOL.

I check out my competition regularly: time allowing.
My prices are very competitive, but there are always loopholes and fierce competitors.

I really appreciate your reply!
....Kate

I agree it sounds more like you are having an issue with business tactics not seo ones. My suggestion is to use a software to track to see how people are getting to your site. Or going back and seeing how they at 1 time hit your site. You may be able to figure out what is different.

If your traffic is basically unchanged and your placement in the SERPs has not slipped... it is a product/competition problem. If product demand within the segment is unchanged... it is a product age or competitor problem. If your products are the latest available. It is a competitor problem... Check your pricing... ease of ordering/paying and etc.

If you are head-to-head with your competition... what can you do to distinguish yourself as being above your competition (other than dropping your price and starting a price war)? Think extended warranty, free shipping at certain volume levels, volume discounts, etc.

Hi Kate. I reckon that what EGOl said is also really good advice. You want to make sure something hasn't happened to your shopping cart software that sees orders getting lost. Try to get some friends from different locations to buy a wide range of your products as a test to make sure its all working properly and that the upgrade/changes havn't done something to it.

Good luck. Hope ity all works out for you

I would also get friends on different browsers to buy something. If you get enough friends to buy something you might make a little money.

If I am looking at the correct site ... I would guess your sales started to flatten around the third week in February?

It appears a lot of pages have fallen into the supplemental index around that time. A search for your site shows 274 of 310 pages are now in supplemental.

Even a small shift in SERPs can cause large swings in traffic. The difference between #1 and #5 is huge.

Thank you, Sports Card Freak, for your response!
I currently use 3 different softwares to track everything.
Although traffic is just slightly down, I see no significant changes ....yet!
That's why I couldn't figure out why the sudden plunge in sales.

I appreciate your posting!
....Kate

Thanks for responding, SEO AM!
My pricing is extremely competitive and I have always offered free shipping which adds to the discounted prices.
I compare many top competitors regularly, although lately, not as often.

I appreciate your response and suggestions!
Thank you!
....Kate

Thank you, gazzahk!
I had a couple people try my shopping cart with test purchases and all went well: fast and smooth with no gliches.
I did this because I was worried about the changes that my host made.
I feel fairly confident, that the problems aren't specifically in the shopping cart, but I could be wrong; I DO have a history.

Thanks for your advice and wisdom!
....Kate

Hello again, EGOL;

I had a couple people do some test purchases, and luckily, I thought of asking them what browser they normally used in advance.

Even with different browsers, no one had any problems at all.

Thanks again!
....Kate

Thank you for resonding, rtchar!
I checked what you said and sure enough; way too many supplemental pages!

Forgive my ignorance in this area, but I know very little about things like this.
I know duplicate copy is a threat to make pages supplemental, but the only thing I know that is duplicated is my index and my footer at the bottom of my pages that contains our business info and such.

Please.... why are so many of my pages now marked supplemental? ...and how to change this?

The place I use as a website builder host has most control over things like the index and the html, so my hands are pretty much tied if changes need to be made there.

What do I need to do to get these pages back on track?
Any help or direction is tremendously appreciated!!!
....Kate

Matt Cutts says that PageRank is the primary factor determining whether a url is in the main web index vs. the supplemental results.

I would work on getting quality inbound links to those pages more than worrying about varying page layouts, etc..

Good point, thanks!
...Kate