How to Keep Web Visitors Coming Back

Why would visitors return to your web site after their initial visit? Several techniques can keep visitors coming back and most are very simple, and very economical, to implement.

Here are some ways to spruce up your web site in order to get repeat visits:

Offer helpful information in addition to sales pitches. Let’s face it, you’re an expert in your area of business and visitors came to your web site for information in that area. If you provide a wealth of information for your visitors, more than they can quickly read through in one visit, they will come back.

Also, if your information is organized into appropriate categories, visitors will bookmark your site and return when they need the information you provide. They’ll know you provide this information by your category headings.

For example, cleaners can list spot removal techniques, restaurants can list recipes and doctors can offer simple first aid tips. Content in all these areas will convince many web visitors to bookmark your site and return again and again.

By giving visitors something useful and helpful to read, you increase return visits by establishing yourself as a customer friendly business that provides value to your visitors.

Offer topical information as well. Winter is time to start thinking about flu shots, storing seasonal clothes or doing some holiday cooking. How is your business affected by seasonal changes? Do you have some special product or service to offer during a particular time of the year? Say so on your web site.

By offering visitors something extra, you give them a reason to return, even if it is just to check for an update. If you establish that new information appears regularly, visitors will return regularly and you will have regular opportunities to sell your product and services to your visitors.

Display up to date offers and sales information. Everyone loves a sale and sometimes just posting your weekly or monthly specials will be enough to get visitors checking back to see what the current offers are. Depending on your business, adding coupons to your web site can be a great way to get people to check back frequently, just to check on what the current coupon is.

You don’t need a full time web designer to have a web site that changes often. Any good web site design company can provide you with a low cost set of easy to use tools that you can update portions of your web site with. While this type of web site will cost you a little more than a static, unchanging web site, the cost is more than worth it if you’re trying to encourage repeat visitors.

For example, for a very low cost, you can purchase an easy to use interface with which to post sales and news to your web site. Anyone can use such an interface that is no harder to use than an email program and can be accessed using a standard web browser.

Not sure of what to say on your web site? A good web site design company can help you with that. Collect all your past and current sales and marketing materials, brochures and fliers, they’re an excellent source to draw from. Try writing up a simple outline of what you think are the important points to convey to new and existing customers.

Bring these materials to your meeting with a web design company and then ask what they can suggest. If they’re worth their salt, they’ll be able to come up with a bonanza of ideas for your web site. Often, once you have a start and the format is laid out for you, the rest will come naturally.

Don’t think you can write for your web site? Don’t have time to update your web site periodically? You’re not alone. Not everyone wants to be a web journalist which is why your relationship with your web designer can become a long term, ongoing one. Yes, having your web design company update your web site is a definite option for you, however, it is often an expensive alternative.

Most web designers charge anywhere from $50 to $100 an hour for updating your site, a fee that can really add up if you want to draw repeat visitors with frequently changing content. Writing your own content, through the use of a web publishing interface, is often your best value, but what if you simply can’t write well or don’t have the time?

There are several companies that now specialize in providing content for web sites at a reasonable fee, sometimes as low as $50 a year or even free of charge if you accept content containing advertising. Offerings vary, but your web designer can typically hook you up with a “content feed” which consists of a control placed somewhere on your web site and a constantly changing stream of content appropriate for your web site supplied by a vendor.

For example, a liquor store can have articles about fine wines and restaurants or a mixed drink recipe encyclopedia appear on their web site. A movie rental store can have movie reviews or celebrity news appear on their web site.

Once these content feeds are set up, they update periodically without any intervention on the part of the web site owner or designer providing a never ending stream of fresh content for your web site. You never have to bother with updating your web site again in order to get fresh content for your visitors. Even better, once you pay your web designer for the setup of the site controls, typically also a very reasonable fee, you only pay the content vendor their low annual fee for the content.

You don’t have to settle for a static, unchanging web site even if you don’t have a Fortune 500 company budget to spend on your web site. Today there are a host of alternatives available to the small business to have a web site full of pizzazz that will keep your visitors coming back time and time again. Repeat visitors are important because they provide you with a loyal visitor base to whom to sell your products and services to.