Keep Visitors Coming Back Over & Over! Offer Them What They Want!
If you have a site you want to be “sticky” – meaning visitors will hang out at your site and check it out for awhile, and then come back for more visits due to changing content they want to see – you need to have a strategy. You need to know what your site theme needs to draw targeted visitors back again and again.
No matter what you do with your site – you need good content that changes – relating to what people want to know about. The content must be timely, pertinent, consistent with site theme, and offer something of value to the visitors. Some strategies are offered below.
Figure out what is new, or innovative for your site theme. What can you post in updates that will make the curious come back? Is there a new product, a new site announcement, a new article (especially in a series that is continuous), a new prize or contest to win? Think over your options and see what relates with your site.
Offer a way for visitors to win something – or offer freebies they can win, or discount coupons on items – just for visiting. Don’t go broke over this, but find something of use and which follows your site theme. You might even get donations of products or samples from a company that wants its link or banner on your site, and perhaps has its logo on the samples. When winners are picked, list them at the page or in your ezine so that visitors will return to find out if they won. It will also add credibility that you are actually awarding prizes. Keep the winners current and post any “thank you” messages the winners send to you.
Include ways to collect email addresses from visitors – a site or product review, or a guest book to sign, or a trivia questions to answer – come up with some way to make people leave you with their email or contact information. You can then communicate with them about some new situation you want them to know about. Always give them a chance to be removed from your list – but if you offer useful updates, they will likely want to stick with you.
Ask your visitors to refer the page to their friends, and reward them for it. Let them know they are valued and you are looking out for them – give them a reason to WANT to refer your site to others. Give your visitors an easy way to bookmark your page, and to WANT to bookmark your page.
Offer new games to play, stock quotes that are current, news feeds, or some other type of changing information. Just get them to come back and visit. Leave them with a cliff-hanger. Make them want to see what you do or say next. Just get them to keep coming back for more – and make sure to update your site to make sure they come back and can depend on you!
P. Roe does website optimization work, and is working on her sites all the time – many are in number 1-10 ranking on Google and Yahoo! Subscribe to “Wise Little Tidbits” for more optimization tips. mailto:ezineshere@aol.com?WLT http://doubleii.com/webservices.htm
