What is Website Traffic and how to interpret it to make more money | BigCommerceEnterpriseSmall BusinessHelp CenterDeveloper CenterCall Sales: 1-888-248-9325Log In🇺🇸🇦🇺Australia🇩🇰Danmark🇩🇪Deutschland🇪🇸España🇫🇷France🇮🇳India🇮🇹Italia🇲🇽México🇳🇱Nederland🇳🇴Norge🇦🇹Österreich🇵🇱Polska🇷🇴România🇸🇬Singapore🇿🇦South Africa🇸🇪Sverige🇦🇪UAE🇬🇧United Kingdom🇺🇸United StatesFeaturesResourcesPricingGet StartedGet Startedopen menuFeaturesResourcesPricingHelp CenterDeveloper CenterCall Sales: 1-888-248-9325Log In🇺🇸Change countryCreateDesign a beautiful online storefront.ConvertCreate a fast, simple checkout that converts.MarketReach more shoppers across channels.GrowExpand into B2B, new markets, and more.OperateDrive efficiencies with a reliable platform.Watch Our Product TourSee how BigCommerce helps you build and manage your online store with ease.Watch NowLearn & GrowHelp CenterWorld-class support, 24/7.Partner ServicesGet help building your store.App StoreConnect to leading software.BigCommerce UniversityEcommerce training from our experts.Theme StoreBeautiful design templates.Ecommerce BlogNews, strategy and analysis.Ecommerce InsightsPodcastWebinarsDocumentation & Videos6 Key Steps to Launch Your Online StoreExplore our Launch Foundations series to get your BigCommerce store up and running quickly.Learn MoreHomeConversion Rate OptimizationEcommerce AnalyticsEcommerce How TosEcommerce Marketing and StrategyEmail Marketing and AutomationPayment GatewaysProduct and Inventory ManagementSearch Marketing for SEO and SEMHomeConversion Rate OptimizationEcommerce AnalyticsEcommerce How TosEcommerce Marketing and StrategyEmail Marketing and AutomationPayment GatewaysProduct and Inventory ManagementSearch Marketing for SEO and SEMBigCommerce helps growing businesses, enterprise brands, and everything in-between sell more online.Start free trialRequest demoExplore resourcesGlossary HomeWhat is Website Traffic and how to interpret itWhat is Website Traffic and how to interpret itDefinition: Website traffic refers to web users who visit a website. Web traffic is measured in visits, sometimes called "sessions," and is a common way to measure an online business effectiveness at attracting an audience.Web traffic is important — but not the only thingWhen ecommerce took off in the 1990s, the metric of web traffic was first viewed as the most important means of determining a website's popularity, as other metrics did not yet exist to gauge online success. As digital marketers got savvier, became much more comprehensive.Analysts no longer just ask "how many people visited?" Now, it's just as — if not more — important to find out:**How long did users stay?**Bringing in huge amounts of traffic is ultimately meaningless . Metrics such as bounce rate and time on page pant a picture of how users behave.**What % of users made a purchase?**For an online business to flourish, it needs a large audience. But it also needs to be the right audience. Determining how many users buy products, commonly measured by conversion rate, shows whether an ecommerce store is effectively selling marketing their product offerings.**How much does it cost to bring in a visitor?**Some web traffic is free, but many online stores rely on paid traffic — such as PPC or affiliates — to support and grow their business. Cost of Acquiring Customers (CAC) and Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) are arguably the two most important ecommerce metrics. When balanced with AOV (average order value) and (customer lifetime value), a business can assess and adjust its ad spend as necessary.Website traffic is not the be all, end all of ecommerce performance measurements. But it is still a great starting point to determine a website's popularity and visibility. Consider two contrasting ecommerce underachievers:a) Website A: and concise yet eloquent product descriptions convert a high percentage of visitors to sale, but they only bring in minimal traffic., It is not only the traffic on the website's homepage that is monitored. Rather, all segments of the website are constantly monitored by the server to determine exactly how many hits each receives. In web vernacular, a single visit is known as a “session”. The minutia of each session varies, yet each has a beginning and an end point., Discover how to increase traffic to your ecommerce website with effective strategies, from SEO to influencer marketing and mobile optimization..