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? Want to take membership marketing to a whole new level of overflowing profits? Build high-earning membership sites like a pro by going to www.membershipmillionaire.com . Want to discover the most incredible and intuitive membership site software today? Then go to www.memberspeed.com.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Tactics to Draw People Back to Your Site

I’ve seen some crummy sites. What about you? How could they make any money? A poorly done website ruins credibility and runs visitors away before your site has had a good chance to present your offer.

Having spent 35 years in retail furniture we learned that if you want to sell top end furniture fast enough to make money each month there are several things retail store managers have to do to make it in today’s world.

First – The store has to be clean. The floor, the walls, the actual furniture itself, and, the bathroom! That’s where our comparison falls apart as there is no bathroom in a website.

Second - The store has to “make sense”. The arrangement of the inventory, the signage, the bedspreads on the beds, and the logic of store branding logos, posters, and policy signs has to look professional as well. The overall look has to be clean and “feel right”.

Third - What about colors! The ladies in this business know things about color and what goes with what than most men would never know.

In furniture stores the colors need to be those that are popular in furniture today, not last year. I wonder how that applies to websites?

Fourth - The salespeople have to speak clearly and without obvious defects in their speech habits. It’s the same with websites. In retail stores the salespeople need to be clean and spiffy and give their full attention to the customer in order not to appear disinterested.

You can see where this would apply in websites to pictures of people, like in testimonials, and scrupulous attention to detail and spelling.

Spelling! There’s a biggie. It deserves a section of it’s own. It is said that a potential customer’s enthusiasm will notch down a bit for every misspelling and grammatical error. It pays to proofread!

Experts suggest that you should have another person do your proofreading for you, since you are not as likely to catch all of your own mistakes.

Fifth - The sales area has to be kept neat and businesslike, but not barren and empty. Like the rest of the place, it has to be neat and clean. It should be easy to purchase!

Sixth - One last thing, in our stores we always strove to have the best music possible playing in the background and it had to sound good everywhere in the store. We had it at a level high enough to be heard well but not so high that it made it difficult to converse.

In the website world that might compare to having clean, easy to understand audio and video. Hmm…is there a place for appropriate background “score”?

Your business website should come across to your visitors as a professional site with which to do business. It should be welcoming and help them around in order to make the sale as easy as possible.

Your website says a lot about your business, so you need to make certain it is saying positive things.

If you want to make sure your website isn’t falling short on the details of general houskeeping, find a few sites that are trying to do something similar to what you are attempting, and use them for comparison sake. That’s a good place to start.

And my favorite! Keep it simple. My sales pages start at the top and go to the bottom. How are you going to lose your vistor with that?

Keep it simple, kill off the clutter, make it easy to read, and don’t allow spelling and grammar errors. Your customers will like that and be more inclined to buy.

Oh, one last thing. Ask for the sale. Don’t waffle here, be strong. You know what you want them to do, and, if your copy is any good, it contains many benefits for your visitor. Customers want those benefits (like more sales, higher conversion rates, and fewer returns) and they are willing to pay to get them.

Be very direct, but smooth. Say to the customer… “Click this button and when you get to Paypal check that the quantity is correct and that the price is right. If it is, continue with your purchase and start profiting from an improved website right away!

Thank you for your business!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Six No-To-Low Cost Profit Tactics For Your Website