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.

In fact easy web programming languages are already here right under our noses. Awareness of easy alternatives to popular but more complex systems based on Apache, Perl, PHP, and Ruby and their frameworks is minimal because of marketing forces.

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier but this promise has not been delivered to web developers especially. The page centered way that web applications are created forces programmers to tie many parts together with extra code that isn't needed in traditional (non-web) programming. The complexity of it all scares away the beginners and causes professional developers to be unproductive (and bald).

The popular web development culture advocates programming features like REST capability and stateless pages but these features actually complicate the development process. If you don't know what REST is, or what stateless pages are then you'll appreciate what I'm about to say: You shouldn't need to understand those ideas to create web applications. There are some programming systems which abandon these ideas, and in so doing they make web development simpler and even enjoyable. They also do receive a certain degree of disdain by the "establishment", but for those willing to think outside the box the benefits can be substantial for some kinds of web projects. This article will discuss some of these systems in short.

Seaside, http://www.seaside.st- The Seaside web development framework (also known as the Heretic web framework) is a system which provides almost a complete stack (provide your own database). It includes an HTTP server, automatic application sessions, transparent state management, live development and debugging, Ajax libraries and more.

Seaside developers code in the venerable Smalltalk language to build their applications. With a combination of an easy to use component-style page generation metaphor, support for cascading style sheets, and the powerful expressiveness of Smalltalk the Seaside developer enjoys tremendous productivity.

Seaside is an open source project with a liberal license and is available for both free and commercial Smalltalk platforms.

Run BASIC, http://www.runbasic.com- Run BASIC is a zero configuration web application server that features an extremely easy web development metaphor, suitable for the beginner. In one easy install it provides an HTTP server, automatic application sessions, transparent state management, tightly integrated BASIC programming language, inline CSS capability, graphics library, an XML parser and SQLite database support. Even with all the included functionality, the programmer is not confronted with a lot of complexity because of Run BASIC's built-in easy to use commands.

Run BASIC brings to the web the easy programming that BASIC has historically been known for. It is suitable for personal projects, educational situations, small business apps and more. There is an interactive version of the system hosted at the Run BASIC website so that anyone can try their hand at writing code. Cost: $59.95

Sun Labs Lively Kernel Project, http://research.sun.com/projects/lively- The Lively Kernel project is a web programming system developed at Sun by the inventor of the Smalltalk programming language. It is very cutting edge and very novel. It turns your web browser into a Javascript development environment and it includes a scalable vector graphics based windowing library. While this system may not be appropriate for some commercial websites, it is suitable for online games and educational curricula. Lively Kernel provides a kind of personal laboratory for building very dynamic applications that work in a browser.

Lively Kernel is supported in Safari and Firefox 2 and 3, but Safari is the recommended platform as of the writing of this article. It is licensed under the GPL2.

So you managed to get a website up and working. You managed to set up a pay per click campaign. But you have not managed to get lots of buyers, callers, joiners, clickers or whatever it is you were after. You may even be advertising to a niche market, yet your website speaks to a general audience. If you try to be everything to every body these days and you will end up being nothing to anybody. So let's look at how you might make changes to your site to speak to a niche and get some conversions.

News Flash. The general store can't compete with the amazons of the world.

If you try all by yourself to compete with mega mart, you will get lost in the big black wormhole of the internet-- also known as the limp, lame, solitary server for misplaced website owners. That's why you choose a segment or a niche strategy. It offers you an opportunity to carve a market share out of that big giant pie. The trick is to identify the niche market or brand audience who will value the service or product enough to pay for it.

How can you position to a primary target audience ?

Don't shoot at the ocean hoping to hit a fish. You need to follow a plan or niche strategy to develop your website so it speaks to this primary target audience. A website is a marketing tool. So here is a brief outline regarding how you might go about the process of creating a well-positioned, marketing savvy website that is not generic. This is an extremely simplified website plan for positioning to a target audience but it outlines a process that you can follow.

• Define your site- Before you can actually choose the type of software or tool you will need to create your site, you need to first determine what KIND of site you want. Is it a site to promote your business? Or an eCommerce site to sell stuff? Is it a community forum for like minded. You site definition determines which development tools you'll need. A free template might do the trick or you might like to look into ecommerce programs.

• Define your goals- What do you want this website to do for you? Sell? Get additional business? Advertise more high-profit items or services? Serve as a status gateway for your sales and marketing team? Do you want it to be an informational platform that is supported by advertising. Writing down your goals gives you a focus.

• Define your target market- It's not "everyone on the internet". Big companies spend MILLIONS to define their market and create an appropriate strategy. So you need to research the segment of the population who you are trying to reach. If it's teenagers, is it female teens with self esteem issues? Is it teens who are book worms? If you know which segment it is, you can further define the audience and know how to speak to them.

• Define features- These are the features you want on your site. If you are a real estate firm, do you want an amortization calculator? Do you want a venue for people to leave comments? Do you want a slide show, streaming video, audio files? Do you want a schedule of how-to clinics and sign up capability for these clinics? What about registration and payment capability? All of this helps determine the tools you use, the package you might buy the host you will choose. Some hosts are better if you happen to be posting lots of video or audio content for example. Still others offer ecoommerce packages with a higher level of tech support for these customers.

• Target marketing strategy-Your marketing strategy is a plan to reach specific objectives. It does not have to be catchy. It just has to define what you would like the site to accomplish. Example: For instance, you want your computer repair business to cater to home office entrepreneurs who want same-day repair. Your focus is getting computers fixed fast from a remote location and keeping the business person at peak productivity by minimizing downtime. You may also want to get an affiliate cut for spyware you recommend on your website and other products that keep computers virus free and performing smoothly. You want to keep in touch with your market through a newsletter with free tips on how to boost performance and with latest virus alerts. You would like to start offering monthly contracts for being the "IT Department" for the home office entrepreneur and eventually establish yourself as the go-to company for IT services.

Remember to write or use copy that does not focus on yourself or your company, but think strategically in terms of how your product(s), service or company benefits your target market. Then your website should guide them along the path to the action you wish them to take much like a live sales person would do. Plan your website well and it could become one of your least expensive and highest yielding marketing and sales tools.