Posted by Ray White on September 28, 2009 Comments (0)

You want to drive traffic to your web site, but you want visitors to come back, too. How do you keep your traffic coming back for more? Let me suggest a few ways that you can use to encourage return visits.

Post information-rich articles on your site

People search the internet for information. Your prospective clients want to know about your products and services. Current customers may have some questions that come up with the use of your service or product. Include articles with specifics or trouble-shooting tips. If you don’t consider yourself much of an author, include an excerpt from the packaging, or maybe ask one of your customers to write a short paragraph or two about using your product.

You can post articles related to your business as well. You can hire someone to write the articles, or you can go to any of the numerous article directories online and find some great free material to use. Usually, you just have to provide a link back to the original author. One great article directory is Rhino Articles.

Have contests

You can add fun to your web site with a contest. Make it as simple or as involved as you wish. Everybody loves winning. When your visitor enters the contest, you may also want to include a link to your newsletter (more on this later).

Provide coupons and discounts

Encourage repeat business with coupons and discounts for your previous customers.

If you have a shopping cart on your site, discounts are a breeze to give. The typical way discounts are given is by using a code. A code such as “10percentoff” or “valentine” allows customers with the code to receive the discount.

Host a forum

People love to have their say, and forums are a great place to express an opinion. If you have a forum on your site, visitors will have a reason to visit your website frequently, whether it be to ask a question when help is needed or to keep up on a conversation in the forum.

You can host your forum from your site, or choose to use a third party forum, whichever your prefer. Both have their pros and cons, it just comes down to what is best for your business.

Write a Blog

People buy from people they know, and blogs are a great way to get yourself known. Blogs are like online journals. You can be as professional or personal as you want on the blog. Again, if you don’t want to do the writing yourself, you can post articles related to your business.

There are quite a few free applications available that make blogging easy. Some come with free hosting, some will let you host on your own site. Decide for yourself how you want to do it.

Publish a Newsletter

A newsletter is a great way to remind your customers that it is time to come back and see what else you can do for them. Better yet, it gives you an excuse to collect email addresses and develop a list!

Include updates to your web site, products and services. Provide an interesting article. If you really want to be sneaky, include just the first paragraph of the article. Post the entire article on your site and include the link in the newsletter. Then your readers will HAVE to visit your site to get the rest of the article.

Once again, you do not have to write the articles yourself. You can outsource the writing to a paid writer or use the free article directories online.

These are just six simple things that you can do to encourage your visitors to come back to your site. You are limited only by your imagination and creativity. Go for it. You deserve it.