I swear, this whole mess started about six months ago when I was looking at the numbers from my little vintage hardware shop. Weekends felt completely insane, right? Like wall-to-wall people trying to look at old tools and dusty parts. But when I checked the register...
Man, I have to tell you, for the longest time, I just looked at my analytics once a day. You know, the big dashboard telling me how many people showed up yesterday. But what I really wanted? I wanted to see someone on the site right now. That instant gratification. It...
Man, let me tell you about the rabbit hole I went down trying to solve a problem that sounds super simple but almost drove my buddy nuts: counting people who walk into his little coffee shop/antique store hybrid. He’s got this small place, maybe 800 square feet, and...
The Day I Learned Why Squirrels Don’t Count as Hikers I’ll be honest, when they first tossed this project at me—figuring out how many bodies actually use the North Ridge trail—I figured it was busy work. I was managing the conservation area, and the board needed...
Man, I got fooled for years. You look at your basic web counter, maybe the one built into your cheap hosting package, and it shows you this huge number. Five thousand hits a day! Ten thousand! You think you’re running the next big thing. You feel great, right? Then...
When I first threw my blog online, maybe five or six years back, I thought the whole game was just about cranking out words. You know, just write good stuff, hit publish, and the rest takes care of itself. I was focused entirely on content quality—the depth of my...
