Why Your Website Traffic Might Be Higher Than You Think
(And Why That’s Not Always a Good Thing)
If you’ve logged into your website analytics recently and noticed a spike in traffic, congratulations! It’s always encouraging to see those numbers climbing.
But here’s the part many business owners don’t realise:
Not all traffic is created equal.
The rise of AI crawlers
You may have noticed an increase in visits coming from countries like China or the United States, even if your target market is New Zealand.
In many cases, this isn’t a sudden wave of international customers discovering your business.
It’s AI.
Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT and other AI platforms, regularly crawl websites to gather and interpret information. They scan your content so they can:
Understand what your business does
Reference your services when people ask relevant questions
Surface your business in AI-driven search results
And that part? That’s actually positive.
It means your website is visible and accessible. It means your content is being indexed. It means you’re part of the digital ecosystem.
But it does slightly inflate your traffic numbers.
What numbers actually matter?
While total visits can look impressive, the metrics we really care about are:
Traffic from your target location (for most of our clients, New Zealand)
Enquiries or contact form submissions
Time spent on key pages
Conversion rate
Because at the end of the day, visibility is only valuable if it leads to aligned enquiries.
Strategic thinking over vanity metrics
This is where strategy matters.
At The Little Acre, we don’t just design websites to look refined and modern. We align every website with your business goals so the numbers we’re tracking are tied to outcomes, not just activity.
A spike in traffic is nice. A steady stream of the right enquiries is better.
What you can do next
If you’re unsure what your website analytics are actually telling you, here are a few practical steps:
Filter traffic by location, we recommend filtering out China from the mix.
Look at enquiry trends month to month.
Review which pages people are landing on.
Check whether your calls-to-action are clear and aligned.
And if you’d like a second set of eyes on your data, we’re happy to step in and help you interpret it.
Because good design is about more than how something looks. It’s about how it performs.
