Thoughts and Hopes!
Another in the random series from the coalface of our industry – what I have a seen and thought recently! I might as well put the enforced time away from home to good use!
Is our industry going up or down? We have seen so many conflicting indicators; passenger numbers up, passenger numbers down, increase in premium travellers, airlines taking premium seats out, demand for business aviation up one month and down the next. This is not a scientific survey; it is not even as sophisticated as the BBC’s Swingometer dusted off for the Election. This is just my opinion and the stats from our website on what people are looking, in aviation terms!
Looking at what Google Analytics is saying for Q1 2010:
- 54% of the visits to the site have come from search engines, of those more than 33% refer to AOCs and all the requirements around them
- 25% of all visits are direct to the site, and
- 21% are referred from other websites
Comparing this with Q4 2009:
- 34% of all visits came through search engines, the number of searches for AOC and related topics was less than 25%
- 16% of all visits were direct to the site
- 50% of all the visits were referrals from other sites or services
Total site visits was down in Q1 by around 10%, instantly, I can see that because my blogging has been reduced over the past quarter, the number of referrals and visits to the site have been reduced; note to self more blogs!
The number of unique search terms has also reduced, and become more focussed in Q1, the rate of new visits has also decreased, indicating that there are a greater number of people re-visiting the site; I have seen this through my regular data reviews, where particularly noticeable ISP or companies appear more than once in a couple of days.
I believe that the narrowing of search terms and the increase in repeat visits indicates that there is a growing confidence in the sector, there has been a well documented reduction in air travel over the last 12-18 months, it has seen the unfortunate failure of some well known providers and will lead to a potential gap in the market that will need to be filled. It will in my opinion be filled with a combination of increased capacity from the existing providers, if they can raise the capital in the current financial position or through new players entering the field – interesting times I feel! New players are positioning themselves to take advantage of the recovery when it comes. I believe that this is applicable to both airlines and the on-demand charter business, possibly greater in the on-demand sector.
There are increasing numbers of projects coming up; tasks that have been delayed and delayed cannot be put off any longer and operators, MROs and suppliers are beginning to put those shelfed plans into action. The downside is the larger the client, the slower the payments are coming out!
So what have I learned:
- The website is crucial and needs to be continually looked after, content drive people across the metaphorical doorway to your business!
- There are some signs in certain sectors that there is growth in the market, more focussed searches, more repeat visits, people are starting to research potential suppliers
All this research has yet to realise firm proposal requests or a contribution to our revenue stream, and we cannot relax just yet.
I look forward to your thoughts on this article.
Malcolm, this is a nice piece of analysis and all credit to you for the honesty in laying out your analytics figures like this. As you seem to have found keeping on top of the blogging and managing your site is time consuming, but at least you can now quantify and point to the positive impact it can have on your business – and I would imagine that will be a powerful motivator for you. Good luck with the coming quarters, and I look forward to reading more in future
I agree with you that there is an upward trend in the industry. How fast and how far it will go remains to be seen. One aspect you may want to look at is as more countries in MENA adopt EASA’s EU-OPS and Part M in particular there are more requirements for CAMO. A sector that has not launched in the region due to lack of regulations (Part M not mandated in all countries). So far this sector in dominated by EASA certified CAMOs. Eventually, CAMOs should establish a presence in the region similar to AVISA GULF and get local approvals in addition to EASA. Airlines and operators will not want to pay high rates which are driven by air fares and accommodation.
As for new entrants in the market in MENA we will probably see more LCCs as open skies policies take hold. Already Jordan has seen its first LCC operating a scheduled route. As MENA LCCs start expanding their routes to Europe Air Arabia and its Morocco and Egypt Subsidiaries, Fly Dubai and others there will be demand for services.
In any case, these are interesting times.
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Oussama
Thanks for your comments, I whole heartedly agree we live in interesting times! The explosion of LCCs in your region is interesting, I think there will have to be some consolidation, as there was with easyJet and Go-fly in the UK, I cannot see all of the existing and new entrants surviving with the economy as it is, if we have a period of sustained growth possibly, but with one or two dominant player, as we have in northern Europe! The ones that will survive will be those that stick to their business model and don’t try and become a full service airline.
Malcolm
Fascinating analysis Malcolm…
You’re quite right to link traffic directly with your own activity. If its any help I treat blogging as a by-product of my normal day to day activity rather than an activity in its own right. I’m not sure if this makes for a decent blog with high quality SEO content… maybe you can comment on that, but it does make the content up to the minute and as accurate or authoratitive as the work or research I have done without having to duplicate any effort.
It may not be the most optimised article, however as you say it will be the most relevent and applicable article, I guess I need to be less structured and more “live” with the blogs.
Malcolm
well you are certainly a bit more prolific with your blogs since being stuck in the Middle East.
nice post. thanks.
Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!