We talk a lot about bringing traffic to your web site through SEO tactics and other marketing tools, using web graders to stay competitive, how to manage sales leads, and how to manage and monitor your data. It’s a big challenge to get people to your site. It’s another battle to keep people coming back. Businesses often focus on getting new people to their sites. Yet it takes a lot less effort and resources to grow your business from your existing customer base. So in addition to your online marketing efforts, what can you do with your web site content to encourage people to visit your site again?
1. Keep It Fresh
Customers want to see a vibrant and active web site. If the latest thing on your web site was posted last year, visitors will see no reason to return for new and exciting things. Don’t let your content get stale and don’t add it all at once in irregular fits and spurts. Be a consistent presence and resource. A blog is a great way to do this. It allows you to highlight your area of expertise, engage your audience with something in your niche (which is why they are at your site to begin with) and gives you an opportunity to point visitors to your site via other platforms. Let visitors subscribe via an RSS feed and they will be reminded to visit your site when you post new content.
2. Stick with What You Know
Visitors are on your site because of your area of expertise. So give them what they want and don’t water down your site with superfluous content. It’s like your mama used to say: “You can’t please everyone all of the time.” So don’t even cast that wide net. There will be visitors who come to your site and aren’t interested. They won’t likely become a customer anyway. Focus on reeling in your target audience and you will have more repeat visitors.
3. Make It Easy
Make your site easy to navigate, so your visitors can find what they need with little effort and quickly. Allow them to do searches on your articles, resources, forum and blog. Embed links to other related content on your site. The easier you make it for your visitors to find what they need, the longer they will stay on your site and the more likely they will be to become a repeat visitor and customer.
4. Give Visitors a Reason to Engage
Don’t assume that putting up a blog alone will compel people to comment and participate. You need to use multiple channels. Sending out a newsletter regularly will get people back to your site. Do a survey and publish the findings. Make a cool video or info graphic with a link to your site. Hold a contest. Host forums. And, not to be a broken record, put all of these channels for engagement need to be relevant and compelling to your target audience.
5. Connect with Social Media
I put this tip last, because it needs to be a constant current in everything you do on your site. Link your web site with your social media platforms. Show your latest tweets on the site. And have a “share this” or “tweet this” button on blog posts and other content so that it is easy for your visitors to share something that they like immediately. Tweet and post about your new content, resources or sales and provide a link. With relevant and engaging content, social media platforms offer you an opportunity to reach well beyond your current set of followers.