In late March 2012, Google changed the methods of link building very drastically when it introduced the Penguin search filter. In essence they destroyed every popular method of link building and penalize you for even the slightest evidence of link building scheme detection.
In short, they have made it impossible for anyone to unnaturally build inbound website linking.
Since that time I've been analyzing data a little differently, hoping to find some new information that might help the retail jeweler. Prior to March 2012, I would see a lot of referral traffic from various random blogs, but almost all of them are gone because of the Penguin filter, and jewelry stores aren't getting those referrals any more.
So it's time to look at what you guys are still getting and take action to maximize your sales when visitors do come.
There are different sources where your website visitors will come from: Organic, Direct, Referrals, Paid.
The Organic traffic is generated when someone sees, then clicks your organic listing in the Google SERP, Bing SERP, Yahoo SERP, etc. These listings are what the websites create automatically for you based on how good your website follows their SEO ranking rules.
Organic visitors are always the highest every Monday, with a steady decline through the lowest point on Sunday. The visitor numbers are pretty consistent week after week. This means you should always have your website changed in the latter half of the week or on late Sunday evenings in preparation for Monday's new traffic burst.
If organic is all you worry about then coordinate all your website ads for Monday deployment.
Direct traffic is any visitor that typed in your domain name directly into their web browser, or someone returns to your website using one of their browser bookmarks. Traffic patterns here are not exciting to look at, and I feel that you guys should never give too much credence to the "Sources>Direct" report in your own Google Analytics.
Most of you reading this probably click on your own website's bookmark that you have saved in your own browser. Normally I could look at this Direct traffic report and tell you if your offline ads are working. When a consumer reads an ad they would directly type in the URL into the browser, thus direct traffic.
In the very near future I expect we'll be able to track QR Code landings on this Direct report... that is, when you guys start using them.
Referral traffic is next, but I'll save that for tomorrow.
