It seems that every other web site we visit has some sort of hit counter on the main page telling us how many people have been there before us. This week we're going to address this popular trend, explain why you don't need one, and what you should be doing instead.

Most Internet marketers will normally implement a hit counter on their site for one or both of two reasons -- to give them a rough estimate of the number of visitors, and/or to give visitors the impression that their site is popular and thus worthy of a good look.

Let's consider the first reason. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know how many people have visited your web site, in fact it's something that you really do need to know. But putting a visible hit counter on your home page is not the answer, especially not one of those free services.

For one thing, the free services require you to in some way promote their site. For another, they are normally slow and increase the time it takes for your pages to load. But most importantly, a hit counter doesn't provide you with all of the information you need.

Just look at any of the top web sites on the Internet. We promise that you will not find a visible hit counter on any of them! That alone should tell you that the common hit counter is worthless. If a visible counter was worthwhile, don't you think Yahoo or Infoseek would have one? ... More..

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