Starting an Online Business All-in-One For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Figuring Out When You Get the Most Traffic

In addition to increasing your sheer volume of traffic, you have to look at the whole picture to increase your sales numbers. Part of navigating that landscape involves figuring out what time of day you're driving the bulk of your traffic to your site.

The average day is divided into several important time segments, called day-parts. This concept is important if you happen to own a business — even an online business that's open 24 hours a day.

For example, a restaurant typically receives the majority of its sales at three specific times during the day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It works almost the same way with the Internet, where five specific dayparts represent typical patterns of online traffic:

• Early morning (6 a.m. to 8 a.m.): Most people don't shop during these hours. Research indicates online retail buying drops by half in most cases.
• Daytime (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.): This period is one of the busiest for professionals (from 25 to 54 years old) to spend time online while working. Conversion rates for online retailers often peak between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. That's right: Your customers typically spend their lunch hours checking out your site. Not only that — they're also willing to make a purchase.
• Evening (5 p.m. to 11 p.m.): Between the time folks arrive home from work and the time they go to bed, they apparently have enough downtime to do a little more online shopping.
• Late night (11 p.m. to 6 a.m.): This period isn't a busy one. ...