Getting people to return to your website.

Some strategies for increasing your repeat traffic.

When you are running a website it's important to constantly work at getting new visitors... but don't overlook the importance of getting your visitors to come back again later.

For many people, those repeat visitors are the only ones who actually buy their product or services.

The following simple strategies can help turn your casual visitors into repeat customers.

  1) Have a nice-looking website where everything is working correctly, everything is easy to find and the information provided is timely and accurate.

*) Make sure that all links work, especially any link that goes to another of your own pages. Links that go to another website may 'break' unexpectedly, so use software or a service like LinkChecker (link-checker-pro.com) to monitor them.

*) Timely and accurate information - whatever your subject is, make sure that the information you present is not out of date or inaccurate.

If your website has less than 1000 links, you could use REL Link Checker Lite. It's free and easy to use. www.relsoftware.com

  2) Your Visual Identity. Make your website stand out from the crowd by having a strong, memorable identity. This will encourage repeat visits simply by making your website more memorable.

*) Use a professional-looking template. Build your own or use another, what matters is that all the pages need to be instantly recognizable as belonging to the same website. Make or buy a logo, and display it on every page and use it in your e-mail signature.

*) Make good use of the favIcon feature that is built into most browsers... when your users see your favIcon on their favorites list, they are more likely to return. Learn more here: FavIcon


  3) Regular content updates. Every time your visitors return they should see something new. You can accomplish that in different ways, including:

*) Automatically updated news feeds from a provider like FeedRoll

*) Publishing your own web log (blog) right on your site. If you use a service like Blogger - they will set you up with the HTML code so you can get your blog displayed right in your website.

*) Just make a "What's New" section, and manually add your new features or recently added products.


  4) Make your website "Sticky". Features such as the news feed as mentioned above, games, polls, and other things that make your website more attractive for someone looking for entertainment or interaction.

*) Use any of the free services as listed at FreeSticky.com

*) You can get free remotely hosted message boards from ProBoards.com

  One more thing - it is also a good idea to get other opinions. You are intimately familiar with every part of your website, so something that seems like a 'no-brainer' to you may be confusing to your visitors.

*) Get a couple friends to sit down and look through your website. Get them to accomplish a series of tasks and watch what they do. Don't help them, or coach them, just give them a goal and see if they have any trouble accomplishing it.

*) Also get their feedback on the overall website color scheme, the layout and ease-of-navigation.

*) Join a webmaster forum where you can ask other webmasters to review your website and offer their opinions and advice. The new forum at BLT-Web.com has a section for that, as well as the other stuff.


In conclusion:
The tips and strategies laid out above may or may not be applicable to your website, but one thing is certain: If your website is well laid out, attractive and easy to navigate you will get more repeat visitors than if it isn't.

By Tim Brown © 2006. About the author: Tim is the webmaster at http://BLT-Web.com, where webmasters can find free tools, advice, tips and other useful resources designed to help them build a successful website.

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