A web counter requires the ability to write to a file to store the number of hits. This can be done by server side scripting and you may have the functionality on your own webspace. If not, you can link to a third party who can, and they will assign you a link to embed that is unique to your site and therefore tracks you, for example
The target=_blank>http://www.webcounter.com/counter.php?uid=1234
The
1234 bit will tell their script which user the count is for, and the script will then increment the count by one and return either some text, or an image comprising the digits. This second option is what rekstout recommends.
If you feel up to it and you have PHP on your webspace, you can get far more powerful results writing your own script, and to be fair, it's really rather easy in PHP. If oyu need help, just post.