Getting Visitors to Return to Your Website

To attract people to your website and grow traffic.  That's the easy bit, the hard bit is getting them to come back continuously!  That's what we will be looking at today.

How can I get people to revisit my website?

To get people to keep coming back to your website, you need to give plenty of reasons why they should.  If you think about it, it's just common sense.  You wouldn't keep going to a shop every day if nothing had changed each time that you went.  You need to continually add to your site in a variety of different ways.
Add new blog posts/articles, tutorials, videos, pictures, interviews, competitions, news, events, etc.  Doing this regularly gives people an excuse to click on your site and catch up with what's new.  Not only that, but it shows to new visitors that your site is not dead, there is an active presence online. 

When just starting out with a brand new website, you should have an almost endless list of things that you need to add, so you have got more than enough to get you started.  A lot of people think that they need to add everything at once before publishing their site, when actually a single blog post is a great way of starting.  As long as you build upon that on a regular basis, then that is enough reason for people to revisit your website.

Techniques to bring traffic back to your website

Apart from regularly adding content that we have discussed through out this training course, there are a number of other ways to encourage people to come back to your site.

Email Marketing!

This is a great way of getting people back to your website.  The key is to build a large email list of your customers/visitors.  When people register to become a member, you get their email address.  When people sign up to your weekly newsletter, you get their email address.  The more ways there are to get someone's email address the better.

With an email list, you can build a brand, recommend products, promote any events/workshops that you may be holding and more importantly to can encourage people to keep returning to your website. 

Just don't go overboard with emails so that they are viewed as spam!  Nobody likes spam! 

Newsletter!

These are a great way to encourage people to return to your website.  Within your newsletter you can keep referring people back to your website.  You can automate the whole process as well, letting it run on auto pilot.  This 'FREE 7 Day Training Course' is totally automated!  I use AWeber to automatically send out these series of emails over the week.  It gives me the chance to refer you back to my website, how many times have you been back to my site over the course of the week?  See, it can work! 

RSS Feeds!

These are great for informing people about your latest updates.  Feeds update themselves automatically when you add to your blog.  People that have chosen to subscribe to your RSS Feed are automatically told about your new content, giving them incentive to check it out. 

These are so easy to set up and do everything automatically for you.  Google Feedburner is a great tool to use to do this.  This is something that you should definitely include on your website.

Be Friendly!

If someone takes the time to email you with a question, then put the effort into replying.  Even if you don't know the answer to the question asked, perhaps you could refer them to somebody that does, or be honest and say I don't know!  The fact that you have shown to actively respond to a visitors question can go along way.

If you are getting lots of emails about the same question, then that might be a good subject to write about in an upcoming blog post.  You could send emails back thanking the individual for the question and stating that you will be writing an in depth post outlining the answer for him.

Post comments on your own posts answering peoples questions, refer to people that have asked questions in videos, etc.  This all helps to build a community around your website.  Doing this sort of thing shows to your visitors that you aren't a faceless website that doesn't interact with its viewers, that you are willing to help if you can.

Network!

Get in contact with other people that are involved in your field of interest.  You may not get too many replies if you still have a small reputation, but that will change as you grow your online status.  You could offer to link to their website in return that they similarly link back to you. This can help your credibility and increase your reputation.

As the saying goes, "It's not what you know, it's who you know that matters!" 

Homework!!!

These are just some ways to get people to come back to your website.  Again, this is something that you have to continually work on, it won't just happen over night.  Get in the habit of adding articles/blog posts every few days, regularly tweeting, posting things on your social media sites, running competitions, making videos, etc. If you continually produce reasons for people to return to your site, then they will.  For today's homework I want you to continue with some of these methods.

1. Set up an RSS Feed with Google Feedburner.

2. Put a link to your new RSS Feed on your homepage

3. Write a new article/blog post for your site

Congratulations, your site is starting to take shape.  You now have more reasons for people to come to your site and keep returning.  Remember, the more traffic you get, the more money you will make!  Tomorrow we will be looking at things that help you manage and keep track of your website. 

All the best