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Damn this has been one heck of a long week ... it seems to have been dragging on forever and now there is still all of today to go before it's beer and noodles night. We can't even have our regular Friday afternoon wind-down because there's just so much work coming in from clients.

Oh well at least that pays for beer and noodle night so I can't complain too much.

Seasonal Traffic
While I don't ever plan on getting married again I've just been looking at some interesting figures about marriage. It's not the usual figures about how many marriages end up in divorce and all that stuff, it's figures about online searches for terms related to weddings.

While most people might think that most online searches for wedding related terms would happen during spring and summer that's actually not the case. Hitwise have found that, in the northern hemisphere, searches for wedding related terms really start to peak around the Christmas period and then continue on for a few months after that before dropping away in late spring and early summer.

Even more interesting is the fact that early searches in the wedding category are not the same as searches done later in the peak period. At the beginning of the wedding search cycle it seems that most searches are done by people looking for wedding venues. Later in the cycle more searches are done for flowers and after that come searches for 'wedding dresses' and later still come searches for 'bridesmaid's dresses'.

That got me wondering if there is a seasonal cycle for adult related search terms. Do more people search for mature porn sites in winter than teen sites? Is anal sex a popular term all year round or are there peaks and troughs in the search graph for that term?

If you've got a lot of traffic and a stats package on your sites that actually measures the search terms people are looking for on your sites then it might be interesting to look at something like that. I'm not sure that there really are any seasonal variations in adult related terms but if there was it might help you to make more money by getting into synch with any cycles that might exist.

You might even find that there are some trends that might suggest some narrow niches that you could focus on.

Busting Another Myth
Ask on an adult webmaster board for someone who can handle search engine optimisation for you and sooner or later you'll get the regulation post from someone who wants to tell you that the good SEO people aren't going to come near you because they're too busy working for themselves and making far more money than you could ever pay them.

I always have to smile when I see that because whoever makes that post is simply telling you that they have no clue about reality. Sure there are lots of very good SEO people who are working for themselves and have no time out from their busy money-making schedule to do anything for you but there are also some very good SEO people who do work for others.

In fact if you were the sort of person who was very good at SEO and wasn't comfortable working for yourself why would you bother trying when you can make several hundred thousand dollars a year working for someone else? A recent survey has shown that in-house search engine marketers earn an average of somewhere between $60-70,000 but if you're above average and can really produce the goods then several hundred thousand dollars a year may just be the starting point.

And for those who still don't believe it all I can say is that there are some people who really aren't cut out to run their own business no matter how good they might be at what they do.

Making Money in the Year Ahead
I see reports that indicate that the United States is now in recession and the United Nations is suggesting that such a localized recession could soon spread right around the world. It's scary stuff if you've just made the jump from paid work to working for yourself but there are four things you can do that will help you survive if the year ahead is going to be financially challenging for the world.

The first thing to do is something that I've mentioned before ... reduce your debt and don't go into debt to buy things you don't really need.

The second thing to do is again something that I've mentioned before ... work smarter rather than harder. Sometimes all that takes is just a matter of getting organized ... sometimes it takes a whole rethink of how you things.

The third thing to do is spend time looking at your statistics. Once you've been in this industry for a while your stats will have a lot to teach you. Definitely don't become a stats junky and spend all your time looking at the statistics for your site but do spend some time every week going over what's happening with your sites and where your visitors are going when they land on your sites.

The final thing to do is never give up. That old saying is definitely true ... when the going gets tough the tough get going and if you aren't tough enough to carry on when times are bad then maybe you shouldn't have started in the first place.

Have a great weekend!