Every month, Base One Search puts together stellar reports for all our clients with loads of statistics.  We do our best to explain what the numbers in these reports mean, but clients sometimes have  questions about certain stats.  Here are the most common misconceptions.


 
1. A rising bounce rate is bad.  Bounce rate is (the number of entrances to a webpage that left the site without viewing any other pages) divided by (number of entrances).  It sounds bad doesn't it?  The percentage  of people who found your site so bad, they didn't abandon it by walking away, they were so thrilled to get out they actually bounced off in glee. 

A high bounce rate can mean that users found the landing page (optimized to rank well on SERPS) perfectly relevant to their desires and didn't need anything else on your site.  They took in your perfectly relevant content and departed without taking an interest in the rest of your site.
 
For instance, my cousin tells me he bought a mountain board.  I do not know what this is, so upon googling "mountain board" I find a relevant site to explain it.  Seeing that I don't have a particular interest in sporting equipment, I bounce from the site after reading up on mountain boards.  Argos-sports.co.uk probably will read my visit as a bounce, but in fact, I utilized their great definition of mountain boarding and departed.

2.Less Time on Site means Visitors are Less Interested. A decrease in the amount of time spent on site doesn't have to spell disaster - it can mean people are finding information faster.  This is a common result for redesigned sites.  So don't be upset if your website is doing an amazing job allocating the time available!  You may simply be leading visitors to their wanted information instead of pushing them out to pasture where they must foraging for relevant content.
 
3.  Impressions are really important.  Impressions are the number of times your ad shows up in a Pay Per Click advertising campaign.  We have clients who see their number of impressions decrease over two months and get worried, even as the number of clicks increase!  Root of Misconception: People familiarize themselves with your company/website by grazing past your impression to click on another source.  Correct: Users who click on your website are learning about your company/product/service. 

So don't worry about impressions, if anything, worry about clicks and the Click Through Rate (CTR), which is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions.  These numbers reflect how many users are becoming familiar with your website.

...So what statistics have you found most helpful when judging your website/s?  Any other common misconceptions you can ad to the list from personal experiences?