Just last Monday Statcounter announced that the 100 page view limit for the Free accounts is raised to 500 for Free

Now for some of you, that will be off no intrest, but for the Small and Medium sized Business that run their own websites this is really great news.

Hold it, but Google Analytics does a lot more and is also free…

True, but just place yourself in the the mind of a small business entrepreneur that wants to see how he is doing with his website.. which screen showing you the results would you prefer?

The Statcounter overview

Or the Google Analytics overview?

Or even the old Graphics?

Now you must admit that Google has now a better interface then before, but for me…
I like the Statcounter view better because it gives me a lot of information right there in that one screen.

But I also have to admit that I use both an every site I build for myself, but just the Statcounter for my customers.

Why the Statcounter for Customers?

If your work with in the SMB sector like I do, you cannot expect from your customers to learn how Google Analytics works.
They just want to see how they are doing, visitor wise…and how people get to their website and as cheap as possible.

But you, you want more out off you statistics, you need to get more data to be able to optimize the site for you clients.
Well in that case you combine the two.

Here is another fun part of Statcounter for you as a developer / optimizer.. you can have all your customer statistics on your own login and give your customers their own login name and password, and limit them to their own domain!

Just giving them a free service from your part.. and freeing up your time to do more productive work than writing the reports for your customers.

I think its a smart move from Statcounter to upgrade the free accounts.
The create a Buzz in the Internet about it, and are (hopefully) able to hold their customers that would otherwise run for the Google Analytics Hills.. 

Of course the Google Analytics tool is more focused on Conversions and Data for the AdWords user, that is why there are so many conversion statistics incorporated into the overviews.
But it makes it hard to work with for the average Jane and Joe of a Small Business.

So, which Statistic counter would you present to your SMB Clients?