One of the big challenges for any business on the web is attracting people to come back to their website over and over again. Well, I should say it’s a challenge for many businesses.
Too often businesses get so focused on getting new visitors from the search engines to come to their websites that they forget all about the potential of return visitors. As a result, these businesses end up leaving lots of money on the table.
The Repeat Customer Principle
It’s a reality of business that it is easier (and less expensive) to keep a customer who has already purchased than it is to acquire a new customer. Repeat customers are more loyal and more likely to tell others about the business and foster word of mouth referrals.
We can apply that same business principle to our website too. If we build habits and systems to do things to keep people coming back to our website, it will make our online marketing efforts much easier over time.
And that’s good for business!
With that in mind I’ve put together 9 ideas you can implement on your business website. Most of these ideas will be much easier to if you have a blog on your website. WordPress is an ideal platform for that. And you can even run your entire business website on WordPress too!
1. Consistent Activity
Assuming you have a blog as part of your business website, it is important to be consistent in posting articles (blog posts) to your site. People tend to be creatures of habit. Therefore posting content at regular intervals will help build the habit of visiting your website in your audience. And by extension it will cause your audience to grow more rapidly.
Too many sites will have a flurry of posts all bunched together and then go silent for weeks or months at a time.
Confession time: this is an area I struggle with myself. And I believe it is the single biggest reason there isn’t a bigger audience for SuccessCREEations at this point.
You will do much better when there is a consistency in activity over time. Pick a pace that works for you and stick with it. It’s OK if you start with only one or two posts a week. You can always add more frequent posts down the road.
If you find yourself struggling with this then perhaps it would be good idea for you to reduce your posting frequency. Whatever frequency you choose, commit to becoming consistent at that level. Consistent effort over time will yield bigger results.
2. Compelling Content
Produce the highest quality content you can. Give away some of your best information. Give people a reason to linger at your website.
Above all, keep it interesting!
I have a saying: Interesting Builds an Audience. Boring content is the kiss of death and will actually keep people from coming back to your site.
3. Stay on Topic
Some sites wander all over the place and post articles about whatever is on their minds. People will be much more likely to come back to your site time and time again when you stay on top rather than ranging all over the place.
Remember the bit about people being creatures of habit? When they know what to expect they will be much more likely to keep coming back.
Of course there will be some folks that won’t come back because your topic doesn’t interest them. But that’s OK. Those people are not likely to become customers anyway.
Staying on topic will help narrow your audience as it grows. That can become more profitable for you because your audience will be more concentrated and packed with potential buyers.
4. Good Search Function
Say an article catches your eye because it addresses a topic that you have a question about. But, even though you found it informative, when you finish it you still have some other questions. What do you do?
If you thought it was a good article chances are you looked for a search box on the website to see if there were any other articles on that same topic on the site.
Well put yourself in your reader’s shoes. Make it as easy as possible for them to find more of your great content.
Having a good search function on your website is a great way to make your content more discoverable.
5. Have Competitions
There is something about a good contest that gets people excited. People tend to keep checking to see what their status is, how they’re doing in comparison with everyone else. People like to win.
One potential benefit of having a contest depending on you structure it is that it can be a great source of content for your website. The key is to make the prize worth winning and the competition something that enough people can do so it will generate interest.
A well run contest can generate a ton of buzz for your company.
6. Email Newsletter
It is easy to fixate on your website and forget about other marketing tools that should be in your arsenal. An email newsletter is still a very powerful tool and should be a part of your new media marketing plan.
Subscribers to your newsletter are even more closely connected to your business than the casual website visitor. Not only that, but you can make it a habit in your newsletter to point people back to the very best content posted on your website. That will bring more people back to your site.
Make sure you have an opt-in box where people can sign up for your newsletter prominently displayed on most pages of your website.
7. Publish Polls or Surveys
Polls and surveys can be a great way to get people coming back to your website. People are naturally interested in seeing what other people think and they are interested in trends.
There are some tools out there like PollDaddy and Survey Monkey that make it easy to publish polls and surveys.
8. Add a Forum
Forums can keep people coming back to your website too. One big difference between forums and blogs is that any registered user can initiate a topic and start a new discussion on a forum. Blogs are author driven so topics are started internally.
Forums can be a challenge to get up and running. And they take more effort to moderate than blogs do.
But the payoff can be worth the effort because forums can become thriving communities in themselves. And if that thriving community is associated with your business then you have created a much bigger pool of potential customers.
9. Make It Fun
People like to have fun. That’s something that we can loose sight of in business. By adding to the fun factor of our websites we will encourage people to come back to our sites.
Something as simple as jazzing up your website design can raise your fun factor. Look for places where you can add humor. Or maybe you have an “off topic” section of your blog where you talk about subjects that are more fun from time to time.
Bottom Line
At the end of the day there are lots of things we can do to make our websites more appealing to attract repeat visitors.
What do you do on your website to keep people coming back to your website?
