Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
  HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

Tactics to Draw People Back to Your Site
By Jeremy A Gislason (c) 2009

One of the biggest measurements of a website's success is the
stickiness of its visitor base. Generally web masters would
rather have 1,000 visitors who return regularly (they are
"stuck to the site") as opposed to 3,000 visitors who only
visit once or twice. These days the web is massive, carving out
a niche for your site and gaining a following within that niche
is the key to success.

There are many reasons why you should try to make your website
as sticky as possible. Visitors who return regularly are more
likely to purchase some of your products or content. If you have
a membership site, then retaining your member base is critical
for growing your income and long term success. Also, a faithful
following will encourage viral promotion of your site.

Search engine optimization can be a costly and time consuming
task and your site's listing can be hammered down by the powers
that be (Google) in the blink of an eye. If you gain a faithful
user base though, they will tell their friends and family about
your site and encourage them to use it as well. Viral marketing
is the cheapest and most effective type of marketing there is
and making your site and content desirable is the only way to
achieve this phenomenon. There are "five C's" of stickiness
to remember, and they are:

Content

Regardless of the site's design, without good content, the
visitor will not come back or stay at the site for more than a
few minutes. "Content is King" is a cliché, but true. High
quality content is far and away the most important factor in
attracting people back to a Web site consistently, and keeping
them there for more than a few minutes when they do visit. It is
said, in fact, that content is what drives 75 percent of
consumers to return to their favorite sites.

In addition to your site being content rich, try to also keep it
fresh. At least part of your site will be regularly updated,
preferably at least once a month. This is why web sites which
resemble online brochures fail. Delivering the same content in a
blog, posted in installments, can be much more effective. This
will encourage users to come back regularly, as they check in to
see what new content you've added lately. This is stickiness in
a nutshell.

Community

When a site attracts enough visitors with similar interests it
has the potential to develop into a "community." That can be
very powerful for the site owner. Providing message forums, chat
rooms, podcasts, user profiles, blogs, etc. are all tools to
allow your visitors to interact with both you and each other.
This also makes your site VERY sticky if you are able to develop
a thriving community.

Rather than visiting your site once a month people may begin to
visit it multiple times a week. Having a thriving community can
be viewed as developing a site which is constantly developing
its own content. Rather than requiring you to spend hours
developing content, you can instead monitor the postings on your
site to ensure they retain the kind of atmosphere you want for
your site. As time goes by you may also be able to appoint some
of your more responsible members to monitoring positions to do
this job for you as well.

Communication

Communication is equally important as content and community.
Communication includes building and maintaining your list,
reaching out to people on your list, and interacting with
visitors to your site. Try to respond to any question, comments,
or feedback you receive promptly. This builds relationships with
your visitors and will keep them coming back.

One of the best ways to reach out to customers is to offer
quality, free information. This is basically a sample of what
your site has to offer, and should always help address the
questions your visitors came to your site for answers for. The
very nature of the web stresses that you consider offering more
free content to your customers than most other mediums do. You
have too much competition to be stingy. One of the most
effective means of providing content to customers and developing
a list of potential customers at the same time is to offer a
free guide to visitors who provide you with a name and email
address.

For example, if you run a site teaching real estate tips and
tricks, after your visitors have seen your "foot in the door"
content located on your "splash page," offer them the first
lesson of your course on real estate for free in exchange for
their name and email address. You benefit from this by having
names to attach to the IP addresses of your visitors. This
provides you with more information about who is being drawn into
your site. It is also important you use a quality auto-responder
for this step, as communication is a critical part of your site
and must be handled professionally.

One last note on communication: Be sure to provide your name and
contact information clearly throughout your site. It will
frustrate and turn away visitors if they have a question or
comment and cannot figure out how to reach you. By providing a
name and place to reach you it also helps contribute to the last
two "C's..."

Commerce and Consumer Confidence

These are perhaps the two most important things that get
overlooked in websites. First, effectively promote your site by
using professional marketing and search engine optimization for
the niche your site seeks to fill. Provide reliable, safe, and
secure means for your customers to purchase your for-pay
content. If your ordering method does not look safe, all your
efforts working to sell your content to your visitors will be
lost if they get to the order page and you look like an
unprofessional, fly-by-night operator. Always use a secure
ordering form. Offering a money back guarantee can be extremely
helpful to reassure customers.

Lastly, respect your customer's privacy. Make it clear you will
not sell their names, personal information, or email addresses.
People hate spam and will be hesitant to identify themselves to
you out of fear of having their information sold if you do not
provide some kind of assurance against this. A clear and easy to
locate privacy policy is necessary.
================================================================
Want to know proven ways to dramatically 'increase membership
sales' (http://www.membershipmillionaire.com/)? Want to take
'membership marketing' (http://www.membershipmillionaire.com/)
to a whole new level of overflowing profits? Build high-earning
membership sites like a pro by going to
http://www.membershipmillionaire.com . Want to discover the most
incredible and intuitive membership site software today? Then go
to http://www.memberspeed.com
================================================================

Copyright © 2009 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.