Keep Visitors Coming Back Over & Over! Offer Them What They Want!

By Paulina Roe
Posted Friday, June 25, 2004

If you have a site you want to be "sticky" - meaning visitors will hang
out at your site and check it out for awhile, and then come back for more
visits due to changing content they want to see - you need to have a
strategy. You need to know what your site theme needs to draw
targeted visitors back again and again.

No matter what you do with your site - you need good content that
changes - relating to what people want to know about. The content must
be timely, pertinent, consistent with site theme, and offer something of
value to the visitors. Some strategies are offered below.

Figure out what is new, or innovative for your site theme. What can
you post in updates that will make the curious come back? Is there a
new product, a new site announcement, a new article (especially in a
series that is continuous), a new prize or contest to win? Think over
your options and see what relates with your site.

Offer a way for visitors to win something - or offer freebies they can
win, or discount coupons on items - just for visiting. Don't go broke
over this, but find something of use and which follows your site theme.
You might even get donations of products or samples from a company
that wants its link or banner on your site, and perhaps has its logo on
the samples. When winners are picked, list them at the page or in your
ezine so that visitors will return to find out if they won. It will also
add credibility that you are actually awarding prizes. Keep the winners
current and post any "thank you" messages the winners send to you.

Include ways to collect email addresses from visitors - a site or product
review, or a guest book to sign, or a trivia questions to answer - come
up with some way to make people leave you with their email or contact
information. You can then communicate with them about some new
situation you want them to know about. Always give them a chance to
be removed from your list - but if you offer useful updates, they will
likely want to stick with you.

Ask your visitors to refer the page to their friends, and reward them for
it. Let them know they are valued and you are looking out for them -
give them a reason to WANT to refer your site to others. Give your
visitors an easy way to bookmark your page, and to WANT to
bookmark your page.

Offer new games to play, stock quotes that are current, news feeds, or
some other type of changing information. Just get them to come back
and visit. Leave them with a cliff-hanger. Make them want to see what
you do or say next. Just get them to keep coming back for more - and
make sure to update your site to make sure they come back and can
depend on you!

About the Author
P Roe has been on the Internet for over 5 years. What once worked
well doesn't work now, and new tactics are tested. The tactics are
given out in the free newsletter, "Ponderings" - subscribe by email
mailto:ezineshere@aol.com?subject=ponderings
For samples of "sticky" sites - see ours at
(http://abetterlife.net/ponderings.html)
(http://doubleii.com/scavengerhunt.htm)