Everyday there are just as many sites going under as there are sites being launched. So, what makes or breaks a web site? Traffic? Yes, and no. Traffic gets visitors to your site. That's it! Once there, your site must give your new visitors a reason to come back.

Web tools help you achieve this. Don't get me wrong, web tools alone will not get visitors to come back, but web tools can add value to your site. Finding the right web tools can actually help support your site. Web tools just go hand in hand with your topic. You just need to decide which tools you can and cannot use. These tools are easy to install. Most are cut and paste HTML. In this article we will cover two very useful tools. One will help you, the other will help your visitors.

Counters are a very useful tool. However, a basic counter that just tells you the number of visitors to your site has little use. In fact it may work against you. A basic counter tells you nothing about new or returning visitors, how long they stayed, or what time of day is the busiest for your site. All important information for any webmaster. One very useful counter is www.hitbox.com. This site has all the features mentioned above and more all for free. Think of it this way. Do you see a counter on yahoo? of course not. You already know they get millions of hits a week.

Now, if yahoo wasn't as popular and you saw their counter at 20 would you still think it was a great site? Maybe you would. Some people let their opinion of a site be determined by the counter. If a person feels a site is good and they see only 20 hits then they feel it cannot be "that" good because no one has been to it. However, if a site looks unappealing and the counter is at 10,000 a person may feel that if so many people have visited the site "it must be worthy." Your best bet is to have a counter where only YOU know the numbers. Let the visitor use his or her own judgment on whether or not they wish to return. Besides, I think no counter is more professional looking.

Making it easy for visitors to search your site is a must. Especially, if your site contains a lot of information. Visitors can type in keywords associated with the topic they are looking for. They will then view a new page which will give them links to your site that contains the words they are searching for.

You can head on over to www.atomz.com. This site will provide you this web tool for free. Plus, you can have a report sent to you listing all the words searched for on your site. All you need to install this tool is to just cut and paste some HTML. Web tools like these can aid you finding out the habits and needs of your visitors. Knowing that will help you to shape your site to cater your visitors.