Free website visitor counter: add one in 2 minutes (HTML code)

Old-school hit counters showed a number on the page — "You are visitor #10,482". Today most people want the same information privately: how many visitors came, from where, and what they looked at. Here is how to add a free counter to any site.

Public hit counter vs analytics counter

Unless the number on the page is part of your design, an analytics counter is the better choice.

Add a free counter with one line of HTML

With LightMetrica the whole setup is:

1. Create a free account and add your site's address.
2. Copy your tracking code:

<script defer src="https://lightmetrica.com/lm.js" data-site="YOUR-ID"></script>

3. Paste it before </head> in your site's template so it loads on every page.
4. Open your site. The counter page shows "Active" after the first visit — usually within seconds.

The script is about 2 KB, loads asynchronously and doesn't use cookies, so it won't slow your pages or require a cookie banner for the counter itself.

Where to paste the code

• Plain HTML site — in the shared header file or every page's <head>.
• WordPress — install a plugin like WPCode ("Header & Footer"), paste the code into the header field.
• Google Tag Manager — new tag → Custom HTML → paste → trigger "All Pages" → publish.
• Website builders (Tilda, Webflow, Squarespace and others) — look for "custom code", "head code" or "header injection" in site settings.
• Single-page apps (React, Vue, Next.js) — add the tag once; page changes inside the app are tracked automatically.

Detailed instructions: WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Webflow, Next.js.

What you'll see

• visits, unique visitors and pageviews with a comparison to the previous period;
• traffic sources — search engines, social networks, messengers, AI assistants, ads and other sites;
• popular pages, entry and exit pages, time on page and scroll depth;
• devices, browsers and countries;
• automatic goals: clicks on phone numbers, email addresses and messenger links, file downloads, outbound links.

Want to show the numbers to someone else? Turn on a public link in the counter settings — read-only, no account needed. Here is ours: live stats.

Excluding your own visits

Open your site once with ?lightmetric=ignore at the end of the address (for example https://example.com/?lightmetric=ignore) in each browser you use. The counter will skip your visits from then on.