Share Have you ever listened to the news reporting the latest study about how dreadful things have become or what the latest item likely to kill you is and found yourself thinking how can that be true? Did you ever then consider the elements behind the report? Or did you, like the journalists and talk show hosts, wonder how it’s all come to this? I think it’s time we all started thinking more critically about numbers and rocking the right ones! Whether it’s numbers in the news, or, more importantly, numbers in the reports you’re looking at in another window right now, have a second thought about them and see what you think.

Share I have a terrible habit. Every morning, I get on the scales to check to see if I’ve lost weight or fat. In fact, the habit is so bad that sometimes I’ll get on two or three times a morning and even through the day. Measurement is fine and good but sometimes daily measurement of small or difficult to measure changes can be frustrating and inaccurate (unless it says I lost weight – then it’s accurate). The other day I noticed that by simply allowing 30 minutes to lapse without doing anything, my body fat percentage dropped by four percent and I lost 100g (apparently). Well, I thought, forgo food and activity and by lunch I should be at [...]

Share If you’ve ever extolled the virtues of the total accuracy of online metrics to anyone, you’ve been guilty of lying and you’re going to burn in hell. I’ll be there too though, so try and find some good indie music and maybe some cheese dip and try and drag those along. In web metrics, discrepancies abound. If you’ve ever run two sets of metrics on the exact same data, you’ve most likely received two totally different sets of numbers. There are reasons for that, of course, but they may not make sense to someone who isn’t overly technical (or bright, like many of my past clients.) So when we’re telling someone that yes, he or she should funnel more [...]

Share Bounce rate is a critical web statistic that can give you tons of valuable information about landing pages on your website. As it’s a simple percentage (based on how many users hit a page without going elsewhere on your site in a session divided by the total number of users who hit that page) it’s a measurement that doesn’t tax your brain too much (hopefully.) If you’re going to take the time to drive traffic to your site, the least you can do is make sure users don’t leave immediately. However, it’s not a clearcut statistic like you may think it is (and like I have kind of implied that it is, too.) Avinash Kaushik states that “My own [...]