Bringing People Back To Your Website
A truly successful website relies on a steady growing base of repeat visitors. Here’s how to convince people to keep coming back!
You’ve published your website and the visitors are pouring in, but to make sure your website is a hit you must secure repeat readers. While the number of unique hits (different visitors) is the figure advertisers look for in a website, you’ll want people to keep coming back, whether you’re selling goods or services, hoping to make your name as a blogger or creating an informative site that offers up-to-the-minute news and information.
If you run a small business, a professional-looking website can help mask the fact that your products are produced in your shed. That doesn’t mean you should set out to mislead people, rather that you can gain their trust by providing valuable, accurate information. The way you conduct relationships with readers is important; its better for your site to have a friendly atmosphere rather than a hard sell. After all, its easier to sell to loyal customers than to acquire new ones.
Keep It Topical
If you’re a blogger, never forget that people search for newsworthy topics. During an election, for example, they’ll search for the names of the candidates involved. During big sporting events such as the Olympics or the World Cup, people search for the names of prominent performers, while the stars of new cinema releases are always a top search term on sites such as Google. If your readers get to know that they can count on you for the analysis of breaking stories, then they are most likely to make you their first stop whenever they come online.
The moral of this is to always keep your site updated. There is nothing more off putting than realising that the news item you are reading was updated 6 months previously when the whole point is to keep people informed. If people find you don’t update frequently, they simply wont bother coming back.
This brings us to consistency of quality. People often start their websites with the greatest of care and the best intentions, only to find a year in that it has lost its allure. Boring, out of date content is off putting – people wont return to your site if they’re uninspired by what they see.
Join the Club
People will be more likely to return to your site if they have an incentive. A good way to create one, particularly if you have nothing to sell, is to create a community on your site. This is easy if you’re building a site for a local club or church where people already know each other.
If you have a forum or host a blog, you should get people to register before they post comments. This small action allows them to continue to voice their opinions on your site.
Also if you gather their email addresses, you’ll be able to send out an email notifying them when your site has been updated.
Just make sure you have a strong privacy policy, so people know how many emails they’ll be receiving, and also that you wont give their addresses to anyone else.
And remember, badgering people with spam certainly wont entice them back.
