It is estimated that it can take the average consumer 5-7 times to see a product they like before purchasing. So with that in mind, how do you get your website visitors to come back to your site so they can see your product again?
Jay Conrad Levinson, author of Guerrilla Marketing said, "Content is king. Provide what your competitors are not providing. Give your visitors information of value. People aren't as interested in you as what they are in learning."
Here are 6 ways to keep them coming back for more.
1. Contests/Giveaways
Offer a contest or give away a free prize. People love to win stuff. Your award doesn't need to be big or costly to be effective. You could give away something as simple as a free consultation or an ebook to the winner. A great contest idea is to ask the visitor to answer a survey of questions about their interests in your products or services and then they are entered into the contest for free. By having them answer a survey, you automatically get feedback on what your potential customers are looking for.
2. Updated Content
It's good to offer your visitors a place where they can view updated industry related news on your site. If you have a potential customer visiting the more free relevant free information you offer the better. Here are some sites where you can get free updated news and content.
FreeNewsFeed.com - Provides eBusiness and Technology headline news feeds from the E-Commerce Times and general technology news headlines from around the world. http://freenewsfeed.newsfactor.com/
MagPortal - Has over 200 categories to choose from, so you can select listings that closely match your users' interests. New articles are normally added to the feeds within one business day of their publisher placing them on the web, so the feeds are a good source of current information that can improve the stickiness of your site. http://magportal.com/help/free_feeds/
Moreover.com - Moreover is a news feed application that sends fresh news headlines to websites. The best source of dynamic news content available on the web. http://w.moreover.com/
NewsIndex - With the News Index Personalized News Ticker you decide the content, not merely by some vague topic like sports or business, but can focus down to the exact area of interest for your visitors. http://www.newsindex.com/tickercust.html
3. Polls
Visitors often like to give their opinion about something. Offering a quick one or two question poll that changes every couple of days is a great way to keep them interested and coming back to your site. Here are some sites that can help you set up a poll for your website.
Mister Poll - Add interactive polling capabilities for your visitors. Claims to be the Internet's largest online polling site. http://www.misterpoll.com/
Pollit.com - Add surveys, polls, guestbooks, and an ad rotator to your site for free to increase interactivity for your visitors. http://www.pollit.com/
Votations - Polls, surveys, quizzes and database forms are free with many options and with an easy and fast four step setup process. http://www.votations.com/
Zoomerang - Zoomerang has more than 100 professionally-designed survey templates to choose from, including those for business, education, community, and personal/social. http://info.zoomerang.com/
4. Guestbook/Forum/Chat
People love to interact with each other. If you give them a place to leave their thoughts and to talk with one another, most likely they will come back to view what else has been said. There are three basic types of this kind of interactivity.
Guestbook
This is simply a place where your visitors can leave their thoughts and opinions.
Forum
This is a more interactive approach, where someone can start a thread and other visitors reply to the posting in an ongoing fashion. This also a great thing to have if you offer more technical or specialized services, so that your customers can ask you about any technical problems they are having and might even find the answer in a previous posting.
Chat
Most of us know that chat rooms can be highly addictive and most online surfers at one point has participated in some kind of chat. You can provide a cat room for either social purposes (like an online dating site) or for customer service issues, where the visitor can have live help via a chat with a customer service rep.
5. Free Articles
People love free stuff. Even if it's as simple as a collection of industry related articles. If you owned a diet and nutrition company, offering free recipes and articles on weight loss would boost your traffic by getting them to return to your site for more info. It's important to use only relevant material to your website services or products or you will just confuse or irritate your visitor.
You can either write the articles yourself or gather articles from article content sites. Make sure you always include the author's credits at the end so you are not stealing the articles. Here are a few good sites that offer articles on a huge variety of topics.
Article Central - A large directory of almost 4000 articles for webmasters. http://thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/
Constant Content - Download articles, tutorials, and product reviews for your web site. Everything you need to construct a finished website. You can request article subject matter and even get custom articles written just for your web site. http://www.constant-content.com/
EzineArticles.com - Free content for your ezine or website from a variety of popular categories. http://www.ezinearticles.com/
Another good way to gain exposure for your website and start gaining respect and credibility is to write your own articles and submit them to these kinds of sites. There is always a link to the author's website with their name at the end or beginning of each article. It is a great way to add traffic and potentially increase your sales.
6. Membership Sites
There are two kinds of membership sites, free and paid. Free membership sites are usually websites that are tailored to give you content based on your profile and interests. It changes constantly and most people that sign up for a site like this come back to see whats new they can read about.
If you are an expert in your field of expertise and have enough good growing and updated content, you should look into making a paid members version of your website. You could even have a joint venture and offer a wealth of information only available to paid subscriptions.
There are still more ways you can add content to your site, like cartoons, games, quotes or sayings of the day. With a good search on the internet you should be able to come up with lots of free content to make your website a place where your customers love to come back and visit.
Remember that most internet consumers, first and foremost, are looking for free information before they are looking to buy anything. Make your site filled with relevant information and they will be more likely to come back and buy from a site they trust.
Leah West
http://www.westmarketing-design.com Providing complete search engine optimized website design and internet marketing services for your small business success.
Sign up for my Free ezine at http://www.westmarketing-design.com
limo prices to midway Crystal Lake west of Randal .. Lockport Chicago limo O’HareAccording the National Association of Realtors(R) ("NAR") surveys completed between... Read More
Every business owner want to attract more orders and have... Read More
Ok, now if you've started reading this article thinking that... Read More
Are you tired of writing countless eMails to other webmasters... Read More
Professionals in tend to under-estimate the power of the web... Read More
If you are a local business that gets most of... Read More
You own a website and you want more traffic. More... Read More
Have you ever submitted your ad to an FFA page?... Read More
Google is the most popular and most used search engine... Read More
Market my website? Why should I have to spend time... Read More
If you've ever been to a popular forum hosted by... Read More
One of the great advantages of advertising and marketing on... Read More
Let's see here... as of today Google states it has... Read More
Do you know how your web site fits into the... Read More
Most website owners fail to differentiate between a directory and... Read More
When you design a website you should create it so... Read More
Here's ten simple yet POWERFUL ideas for you to reflect... Read More
The beauty of the Internet is that it allows you... Read More
Being a restaurant owner means you are always interested in... Read More
As an authorative hub a link from a DMOZ directory... Read More
Finding the successful keywords is crucial in order to get... Read More
Repetition is the key to getting your adverts and promotion... Read More
When we ran the contest back in 1998 we had... Read More
What is web-marketing? Why does your business need it?The best... Read More
There was a time when reciprocal linking was a number... Read More
taxi o'hare Auburn .."One in a million". What do I mean by that?... Read More
Ok. So you've got your website done and stocked with... Read More
I've collected some really cool free products for you that... Read More
We have a running joke in our office that one... Read More
When we ran the contest back in 1998 we had... Read More
With all the "How To" articles, and great advice available... Read More
When you build your website you need to have a... Read More
Free content builder. Articles are the best way to add... Read More
The answer to the first question is simple, the difference... Read More
If you are like most webmasters, your goal is to... Read More
You may already have thought about the following 3 ways... Read More
If you have a website promoting any product or service,... Read More
1. Directory Linking Create a directory of web sites on... Read More
My name is Barbara Mascio. I am the founder of... Read More
Good Ideas.They are the stuff that form the foundation of... Read More
The number one key to getting business in the real... Read More
Measuring and understanding your Website's success is a critical process... Read More
Directories are important to your ranking and success with Search... Read More
Would you like to prevent Internet users from visiting your... Read More
You can learn many things you didn't know about your... Read More
When you design a website you should create it so... Read More
Ezine publishes have large amount of loyal subscribers. If you... Read More
1. Directory Linking Create a directory of web sites on... Read More
Some "experts" say they don't exist. Apparently we have become... Read More
Every day, on line marketers are dreaming up new ways... Read More
Web Site Promotion |