I first started to look at other counters that are either successful by functionality or have a good looking layout or navigation. In other words: learn from your competitors, don’t imitate them, just do it better!.

I signed up for a bunch of them and created a testpage. It’s about the same page as what Tellertest.com (Dutch) has to offer

I set up a test page. A also evaluated them on different points and pointed out what I could use of them, how I would improve it or what I should definitely not do.

I started by signing up for the counters that scored best in this test

Here’s the testpage: http://stats.anthoro.be/testpage.php.

Here are some of the counters I signed up for (more will be added later to the page):

CQ Counter

OneStat.com Lite

OneStat.com Basic

StatCounter.com

eXTReMe

CheckStat.nl

Stealth Lite

BelStat

NedStat

LetsStat

TopStat

Site Meter

GheoStats

StatsBox

RealTracker Free

GoStats

Counted!

eStat Perso

ServuStats

I signed up for each of them and reviewed their homepage, signup page, conditions, emails, etc… Later on I will summarize that whit the pros and the cons of each of them and translate them to do’s and don’ts 🙂

While signing up and reviewing these counters, I sometimes thought: “How can it be that this counter has a much higher score than mine? Is my counter really that bad?” And then again: “Yes, mine IS that bad. And that is not how I intended it to be.”

Conclusion: There’s a lot of work that needs to be done.

Now I’ll continue with the reviews and start putting together a Functional Analysis.