How To Put a Visitor Counter On Your Website

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In the online world of personalized browsing and intuitive displays, websites can showcase their popularity to visitors of their online store, blog or marketing funnel by adding a visitor counter. Albeit with anything that involves technology, there is always an easy way and a not so straightforward way.

The same applies with how to put a visitor counter on your website.

Rest assured this article doesn’t overcomplicate, it’s a simple guide that will help you decide on the best option for your website.

What exactly is a visitor counter?

At their core, a visitor counter simply tallies up the number of website visitors at any given time and reveals the total amount to all users on the website. Visitor counters can take many forms. Some are popup based, whilst others are constantly active widgets providing live real-time totals that update as you browse the site. The display style will be particular to the website with a color palette and design that connects to the brand.

Most counters update amounts according to a timed interval, such as every minute, 5 minutes, etc. Visitor counters have been sharing record-breaking website traffic numbers since the very beginning of the dot.com revolution. Modern-day visitor counters evolved from the original 90s hit counters.

Their popularity has been steady over the last 20+ years of internet history. In recent years there has been an increase connected with the rise of online dropshipping stores with the top-performing eCommerce drop shippers utilizing app-based notifications and visitor counters.

Why put a visitor counter on your website?

Inherent within society and the deep complexities of human psychology is a strong underlying need to follow. Whether it’s a belief system, movement, brand or political leader, theories like the Bandwagon effect showcase why so many people, trends and ideas are followed based on the popular opinion of the crowd. Some scientists believe the social norms that guide society have been embedded over years of social conditioning and stem from our collective mechanisms for survival.

he science behind virality and trending popularity can be leveraged to fuel online success. Websites such as auction sites and eCommerce stores use visitor counters to great effect, inducing a level of added anticipation and perceived demand vs supply. Creating greater buyer interest and propensity to purchase. In most cases adding a visitor counter to a website can:

  • Boost credibility: Showcasing a visual representation of the level of interest and popularity for the brand and website.
  • Improve conversion rate: Introducing elements of scarcity prompts urgency to buy factors that can result in higher sales and better conversion.
  • Sales momentum: As more people visit a website and share their experience with their network, a natural progression should take place leading to greater momentum towards sales.
  • Increase trust: Sharing accurate real-time numbers for site visitors can add a layer of trust for first-time visitors.

Ways of creating a visitor counter

There are several different ways to create and add a visitor counter to your website. Some web hosting providers offer free basic solutions, but these tend to be limited in comparison to the other methods described below.

Coded Visitor Counter

This option offers the most accurate visitor counter powered by real-time to the second updates that are almost instant in sharing precise visitor numbers. There is a level of coding with programming languages such as Perl and PHP required, so an element of technical understanding and know-how is necessary to make this type of counter possible. The time to set up and the level of testing is greater than pre-built options and also the chances of potential server or display issues to arise can increase too. However, if accuracy to the very last digit is a critical factor for your website then a coded solution could be the perfect option.

App-Based Visitor Counter

This option offers the best of both worlds. Providing almost instant updates that mirror real-time visitor numbers whilst convenient integration with most websites as the counter widget is pre-built. These solutions are fast to implement and can be live quickly. In most cases, an easy, straightforward setup can take a few minutes with no technical expertise or computer coding necessary as the app’s do all of the work. You get the benefits of time-based accuracy and simplicity of setup in one.

As more websites become user friendly and developed by marketers instead of pure tech expertise the need for initiative app-based visitor counters has grown considerably in the last few years. Adding the time-based marketing widget’s popularity and widespread online presence.

The simple way to add a visitor counter on your website

Now you know visitor counters to the very last detail. The final part of the equation is to understand the exact steps to put a visitor counter on your website. The easy way is to use a pre-built visitor counter from an app provider such as Igniterfy. It’s free to sign up and create a visitor counter. You can have a counter live within a matter of a few clicks:

  1. Create a Campaign: Start by defining a campaign with a specific set of marketing goals and deliverables. This will outline the specific measures and success criteria behind installing a visitor counter.
  2. Install Pixel: With the unique piece of JS code, simply copy and paste into the HTML code of the website where the visitor counter will be live, sharing numbers.

  3. Select Visitor Counter Notification: From the list of 20+ website notification options, select the visitor counter widget. An example will popup to clarify you’ve selected the correct notification type.
  4. Customize Notification: Change the design and specific details of the visitor counter to match the branding or marketing requirements of the website it’s connected to.
  5. Go Live: Update the status to active and now your visitor counter is live.

Once live, monitoring the exact impact your visitor counter is having on website performance and conversion is simple from Igniterfy’s platform dashboard.

Key statistics like total impressions can be compared in real-time against actual website traffic and sales. Offering opportunities for further analysis and understanding of the counters effect on driving key deliverables. With premium plans offering unlimited campaigns and notification impressions, the social proof app is literally doing all the hard work on autopilot.

Get started today with Igniterfy and see what a visitor counter can do for your website