Traffic
When online marketing talks about traffic, it means the visitors and visits to a website. Technically, traffic can also refer to the volume of data transferred between server and browser when pages are called up – for example in hosting plans. In marketing, however, it's usually about visitor flows: how many people visit a website, where they come from and what they do there. Important metrics are sessions (visits), users and page views (page impressions).
How is traffic measured?
Traffic can be measured in two ways. Server log files record every access to the server, including bots, and are mainly used for technical analyses. For marketing, web analytics tools such as Google Analytics 4 have become established. They use a script in the browser to measure how many visitors come, via which channels, which pages they view and whether they buy or enquire. For organic search, Google Search Console also provides clicks and impressions per search term. It's important to look at developments over longer periods rather than individual days, and to bear in mind that consent banners and ad blockers can lead to measurement gaps.
Sessions and users
A session (visit) is a continuous visit to a website. The number of users, on the other hand, counts how many different people or devices visited the website – usually recognised via a cookie or device ID, not via the IP address. If a user views several pages during one visit, that is one session with several page views. If the number of sessions falls, it's worth looking at the individual channels: less organic traffic can be due to lost rankings; missing traffic from ads can be due to budget or campaigns.
Page views (page impressions)
Page views count how often individual pages were viewed. They show, for example, which categories, products or guides are particularly popular and help plan content and advertising space.
Other important metrics:
Engagement time: how long visitors are actively on the website
Engagement rate or bounce rate: share of sessions with or without engagement
Most visited pages
Conversions and conversion rate: how many visitors buy, enquire or sign up
Understanding and optimising traffic channels
Traffic reaches a website via various channels: organic search, ads in search engines and social networks, links from other websites, direct visits, email newsletters and increasingly AI assistants such as ChatGPT. What matters is not the sheer quantity but the quality. Qualified traffic consists of visitors who are interested in the offer and whose search query matches the content. They stay longer, look at more pages and buy or enquire more often. Anyone who evaluates their channels by revenue and conversions rather than visitor numbers quickly sees where investments pay off.
The difference between valuable and worthless traffic
Not every visitor is valuable. Lots of traffic without conversions can indicate that pages rank for unsuitable search terms, ads are targeted too broadly or the content doesn't deliver what the snippet or ad promises. Then there's bot traffic, i.e. automated access that can distort statistics. A conspicuously high bounce rate or sudden traffic spikes from unusual sources are a reason to take a closer look – and adjust keywords, campaigns or content if necessary.