Friday, April 24, 2009

4 ways to get repeat visits and repeat customers

Repeat customers are essential for the success of a business. Likewise, the success of an online business or website depends upon its ability to harness repeat visitors. Just as it is important to attract visitors to your site, it is essential to make them come back and add to your revenue. Visitors search for information on the Internet and catering to their requirements is exactly how you can make them see value in you and come back to your website. Here are some tips to make your visitors return to your site over and over again.

1) Regular content updates on the website
If you want your visitors to come back to the site again, you will have to give them a reason to come back. There cannot be a better reason than new and fresh content. Make sure you make regular content updates on your site. A great way to do this is by adding articles pages to your site where you can post articles related to your industry and about the benefits of the products and services you promote. Not only will your visitors make repeat visits but the regular updating of content will inform the search engines that your website is active and it will send out regular search engine crawlers to index it.

2) Start a blog
If regular content updates are essential for website success and repeat visits by customers, an excellent way to do that is by creating a blog. A blog allows you to make regular content updates without having to add or edit the pages of your site. Write posts that offer valuable and useful information to your audience and make sure to include links to your site.

3) Include opt-in newsletters and mailing lists on your site
Often it happens that visitors come to your site and like the contents. This is where you need to provide them with an option that could deliver them the website contents direct in their mail box. And if your website contents are really good, there is no reason why they would refuse. Invite your visitors to opt-in for your newsletters or sign themselves into your mailing lists. When you have access to their mailing address, you can send out constant reminders about anything new that has been happening on your website and inform them of new discounts and offers. This will give them not only a reason but also a pathway to come to your website.

4) Create user-friendly 404 error pages
While they are browsing, website users often request pages that have been moved or don't exist. That is when they are shown a 404 Error – page not found message. This message pops in by default and most visitors get perturbed by this abrupt intrusion and decide there is something wrong with the site and leave completely. However, with friendly 404 error pages (often known as custom 404 pages, or customized 404 pages), you can seek to retain estranged visitors and guide them back to your site. Include a brief message on the error page stating the cause of the error message and include a link back to the home page of the website so that visitors can get back on track.

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