Lesson #48 Tips for Increasing Return Visitors!
Written By Cyndalie

We work so hard for each and every click to our websites. We spend time and money on design, content, and elements to encourage a sale. We watch where our traffic comes from and where it goes. But what about increasing the number of return visitors to you site? Elements like branding your URL, advertising, increasing exposure with free listings, search engine, and link trades, are all a part of any good online advertising campaign, however once a user get's to your site, how do you keep them coming back on their own? In this lesson, we will hash out some ideas that you can utilize to do just that.

Offering a place on your home page that is highly visible where users can click to “Bookmark this Site” or “Add to Favorites” is the most obvious chance to increase returning visitors from Bookmarks. The problem is, most people do not bookmark adult sites they surf, such as pay sites and link sites. It is your job as a webmaster to give them a reason to come back. By offering a place on the main page of your site or an alternate area of your site that offers free daily pictures, stories, rotated free content and other elements of interest, such as a community board, news topics, links and shopping, if your visitors feel comfortable at your site, this offers a better chance of them book-marking it.

It is also a good idea, if you run a pay site or site with a member's only area, to include a bookmark opportunity for members to add the login page or main page to their favorites. This can help retention, so that a member does not “forget” where to go, and can also help with chargebacks by providing them an opportunity to easily find a link to your customer support area.

NetJumper is an excellent tool you can use for enormous book-marking opportunities. What NetJumper does is provide you the scripts and the software that allow you to create an organized folder of links, possibly an index of your site (sitemap) or categorized affiliate links in addition to your own links, that users can Add to their Favorites. The software will ask for permission to include the folder (1) which can contain an unlimited amount of links! The opportunities here, for webmasters and affiliate webmasters, are unbelievable. Check out the Linkzilla solution in the demo area at NetJumper.com to see how it works.

It is very easy to customize the icon that appears next to a bookmark, the same which also appears in the browsers location bar before the URL. This is called a Favicon and all you need to do is simply create a 16x16 pixel icon (Corel is a good tool) that you can save as named “favicon.ico”. Then upload your “favicon.ico” file up to the main directory of your web site, so that it could be accessible from “yourdomain.com/favicon.ico”. Reload or bookmark your site and it should appear. For a full walk through you may want to explore this article

Other ways to increase returning visitors is to offer an incentive. If they need to come back and check something daily or weekly, the user will become more familiar with your site and more likely to make a purchase from it. Some sites, albeit a pay site, link portal, TGP, or free site, prefer to run contests. By allowing your users to “Enter” in a weekly contest (say that gives away one month free access to a premier pay site) where they must submit their email address, you can provide an opportunity to both increase your opt-in emailer list and your returning visitors to your site. Use these wisely however, make the contest and the emailer separate so they must check back at the site to see if they won (prizes must be claimed or it rolls over). In the same respect you do not want to turn a user off to your site if they do not wish to receive email. Find a happy medium to see what works best with a site like your own.

Since it's football season, some sports sites offer software you can use at your site that powers a sports pool, such as a NFL Football Pool for as low as 20$. By offering modest prizes each week, in relation to your site, you can create a fun place for sports lovers to come back and make their picks each week! Check around, there are many types of services for many different sports.

Ultimately it will come down to the overall quality, features, and feel of your site that will keep them coming back. Before you start looking for new traffic sources, take a look at your own – starting with your own site.