Strategies to keep your customers visiting your website.

Just like in the real world retaining your customers is a key to business success. The more visits your site gets the more chances are that someone will buy your product or services. As a result its important that your provide tools and strategies that will retain your customers, keep them coming back and spreading the word about your site.

A whats new page. Why not tell your customers whats new at your company i.e. the introduction of new product lines, industry news etc. It will save your customers time trawling your website for information. For added punch add the option for your customers to be added to a mailing list or subscribe to a newsletter so you can serve them new information that will act as a hook to pull your customers back.

Free stuff. We all love free stuff, there are even web sites dedicated to snooping out free offers. It’s a great way for increasing your web traffic and hooking customers to stay at your site. Possibly the best form of freebies are electronic forms because its very cheap to deliver products from download and needs practically no administration and work other than the initial setup.

You can also give away samples, my company does. It’s a great way for customers to try before buying your products. Include in your literature information about your website, possibly have an online questionnaire that your potential customers can provide feedback on.

Special offer Keep your customers coming back, daily, weekly, monthly etc with special offers on your site. For increased returns give your customers the opportunity to be signed up to your newsletter and distribute your special offers accordingly. For a bit of viral marketing add a tell a friend script to your special offer page and let your visitors spread the word.

Tip of the day Provide a useful tip of the day on your site and keep customers coming back daily for helpful advice.

Competitions Use competitions to generate interest in your site, you can use competitions to get customers to sign up to your newsletters or provide information that can be used for marketing purposes. Competitions can be used to generate additional interest in your site i.e. have a photo competition with customers using your product etc. There are many possibilities but, there is a great opportunity to increase your site popularity. If you allow your customers to enter the competition more than once you can guarantee returns. Remember to include a tell a friend button to capitalise on spreading the word.

Forum/chat rooms A popular forum or chat room is a great tool for generating return visits. How many times have you searched the internet for help on a subject and found the information on a forum or chat room? Moreover forums and chat rooms can be addictive.

Games Games are a great way to get repeat visits to your site. Good quality games can draw customers back to your site time and again. If they like what you have they will come back and if you have a button to tell their friends, you will most likely get even more visitors.

Publishing Instructions. Please this article in full with no amendments and copy my author instructions with links into your article.

Julian Addington-Barker is the owner of www.articlesafe.com, www.dogtraininginfo.co.uk and www.silversapling.co.uk