As the Internet continues to grow in popularity and billion of users access it a day endlessly surfing one website to another, a relatively small but significant percentage of those people are creating their very own websites. Statistically, there is an average of one hundred thousand new websites per day. With so many websites being created per day and so many more potential visitors to attract, to know just how many visitors your website is pulling is important to know for any webmaster. That's where a good performing, reliable and dependable website counter comes into play. No one wants to be given bad information and having a website counter that generates inaccurate data will do just that.

So which website counters are reliable? Which ones are dependable and trustworthy? Well now that you know that not every website counter is worth placing on your website, to find a good one you must look the company or the organization that created the website counter. There are many website counters that are created by no name, incredible people, companies and organizations. Just because those people offer a website counter for free, does not mean that it is reliable. It could be just free junk. Look at the website, the company, the people who are offering the website counter and make a judgment call on whether it is wise to use their website counter. A free website counter should not automatically make you want to use it. So what is the best website counter? One of the most reliable and most trustworthy website counters available so far is the Google Analytics service.

Google Analytics is the best website counter because it is very reliable, dependable and trustworthy. It will give you accurate data and it is very user friendly. Its no coincidence that Google Analytics is owned and operated by Google incorporated. If you didn't know, Google is a search engine and so much more. Google is one of the most wealthiest and credible corporations on the planet Earth. With billions of dollars rushing into their wallets per year, Google is a massive empire with worldwide respect. So with so much at stake, will Google risk their respect by creating an average service such as Google Analytics? No, if they are going to create a service available for the general public, then they are going to give it their best. With billions at their disposal and endless resources, Google is more than capable of creating an amazing service. Google Analytics is also so much more than a mere website counter, capable is of giving you various stats at a click of a mouse.

How long on average are your visitors staying on your website? Don't know? Google Analytics can tell you that a so much more. In fact with so much information, Google Analytics can get slightly confusing. But with a dedicated support team just waiting for your questions, Google Analytics quickly propels itself into a legendary service. Also with full video tutorials like GlyticVideos, anyone can master the Google Analytics service overnight. Ah and I almost forgot, did you know that Google Analytics is 100% absolutely free? But to be able to fully use Google Analytics you have to master the service. That's where GlyticVideos comes in. After that, all I can say is, checkmate.

Last February, I received a call from a man in Wisconsin asking about my writing services. He was particularly interested in having me rewrite the copy on his Web site. I was very surprised and wondering how in the heck he got my name. Then he mentioned something about my being my Internet hosting service's "customer of the month." I was very pleasantly surprised. After I spoke with him, I logged onto my email and there was an e-newsletter from my host server. And, yes, I was the "customer of the month," and my Web site was the featured site for the month.

Of course, I quickly hastened to my site and checked the traffic. I was up to over 300 visits to my home page for the morning, and the day was to end with 796 visits! I don't believe I'll ever see numbers like that again. I also received several other calls from people interested in my services.

It wasn't a complete surprise that my site was featured. Last year, I had filled out a "success story" response form on the company's site. I was later interviewed and told that I would be used as a case study. But the case study never materialized so I had forgotten about it. Thus I was very pleased when my site landed in their e-newsletter as the featured site.

My host is one of many companies where you can register domain names and get your business online. They will build a site for you; or, if you are cheap like me, you can build your own.

When I began my business a few years ago, I waited a whole year for my brother who owns an ad agency in L.A. to professionally build my Web site for free. Now he's kind of successful, and he didn't get that way by doing a lot of free work for relatives. At the time, my server was doing a lot of radio advertising claiming you could "build your Web site in 20 minutes." One day after nagging my brother once more, he became exasperated and said, "Why don't you just build your own."

So I did. I called the company and they provided templates and lots of help. I chose an animated template with a layout ideal for showcasing a portfolio. There was a bit of a learning curve. I had to play around and call for help a few times. It took me longer than 20 minutes; yet, technically, the commercial was accurate: you could really get a home page up with your contact info in 20 minutes. I believe I spent about 20 hours to get my Web site to the point where I was willing to "publish" it.

One of the advantages I have found about building your own Web site is that you don't have to rely on an outside Web Master to update it. Sometimes those fellows are swamped and it can take awhile. If I want to put a new project in my online portfolio, I can do it in a few minutes. Or if I want to add something new to my list of services, I can quickly type it in and it's done.

I found a huge difference in how I was perceived in the business community once I had a Web presence. Suddenly, I was taken seriously. These days when someone asks, "What's your Web address?" you should have it ready. And it should never be "under construction." Visitors find that very irritating. It's really not that hard to get a presentable Web site up.

As I mentioned earlier, there are numerous places where you can go to build a Web site. Just Google "do it yourself Web site" and you will get numerous options.

It is very inexpensive. My site costs me less than $100 a year for 20 pages. Some places are even cheaper. Compared to the thousands of dollars one can pay a Web designer, it's a sweet deal.

That's not to say that I don't believe in professionally designed Web sites. I still want one with more bells and whistles. I'm just waiting on my brother.

(Since initially writing this piece, my server has made the process even better. It's more professional, a lot more pages available ... and more bells and whistles.)

Reusing pieces of HTML code is a common way of making web sites (or web applications) more consistent, reliable, and more manageable. Even a small web site consisting of perhaps 20 or 30 web pages can benefit from reusing code for header and footer sections, for example. If the same header or footer is used across all the pages on the site, it makes sense to put the header and footer code in separate files, and then call those files to insert their contents where required.

PHP offers two statements that can be used for inserted the contents of one file inside another: include() and require(). These two statements are virtually identical, with the only real difference being that if require() fails, it gives a fatal error, whereas if include() fails it just gives a warning. For this reason I tend to use the include() statement as it just seems slightly more friendly.

So, to include the contents of a file called header.inc inside a web page called index.php, you would just need to insert the following line of code (wrapped in PHP opening and closing tags) inside index.php.

Include 'header.inc';

As PHP takes no notice of the extension used for the included file, you can use whatever extension you want to. Be careful though, if you put passwords inside an include file with a .inc extension, they will be visible. You can get around this by putting include files that contain sensitive information outside the document tree to prevent people from browsing to them.

In Part 2 we'll look at the use of functions when developing web sites and applications.