Theory Behind Getting and Keeping Web Site Visitors

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The method to making money on the Internet (without being an e-tailer) is no secret: get traffic and then monetize that traffic through advertising.

Such a smug, simplistic statement, offered by those who already have well trafficked sites, doesn’t give much insight into the process of actually getting the traffic.

As the next question to these web entrepreneurs – How do I get and keep traffic? – and you get similarly non-specific response: give visitors something they want.

But what do visitors want? That’s the true question, and the one that keep web developers building site after site after site in the hopes of launching the newest Internet success story.

In this article, I’m going to discuss a little bit about the theory behind generating and growing traffic. Contrary to what that seasoned old webmaster might tell you, it has nothing to do with SEO.

The secret to growing web site traffic is repeat traffic. Duh, you might be saying. What sort of secret is that?

A secret everyone knows, but not many people seem to actually consider. Most webmasters tend to focus on search engine optimization and link building, but word of mouth and ‘buzz’ is the best sort of marketing you can get. It’s the traditional ‘and they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on and so on….’

Consider: which would you rather have? A visitor who finds you in the search engine results, clicks, gets what he or she wants and never comes back? Or a visitor who heard from a friend who heard from a friend who visits your site, bookmarks it, and then tells his or her friends about it? That type visitor is much, much more valuable than the first.

If your site gets repeat traffic, then over time your traffic will keep going up. But what can you do to get repeat traffic?

Give visitors something they want on a recurring basis. That is, they have to want it more than once.

Examples:

1) A movie review site posts two new reviews every week. Visitors will return to read the new reviews.

2) An Internet marketing site offers up the results of online marketing experiments, one or two a month. Visitors will return to see the results of new experiments.

3) A coupon site posts new coupons and specials every day. Visitors return to check out the new coupons.

Regardless of the focus of your site, here are a additional things you can offer on your site to encourage your visitors to return:

Investment and Interaction in the community

Let the visitor help build the community. Doing so gives him or her an investment in it and keeps them coming back to contribute. That’s why forums work and why you find comment functionality on blogs and review sites. If you involve your visitors, you can keep them coming back, even if it’s just to see replies to their comment or post.

A useful service

If you provide some sort of service that visitors find useful, they will come back to use it. Search, calendar, price comparison, traffic tracking, free eCards, dating….. the list is endless. It can be hard, however, to get people to switch from whatever current service they are using. So if you go this route, you’re going to have to add something new or different to the service to encourage people to try it.

Unique Information

If you provide new information visitors are interested in on a regular basis (blogs!), they will come back to read it. Another way to make information unique is to aggregate it (pull together information on a single topic from multiple sites). Lastly, you can offer information that can’t be gotten elsewhere, but given the current state of the Internet, it could be hard to find that type of info.

There are certainly more things a user wants, but I consider these to be the main three.

Remembers, don’t build for the dollar, build the users. If you get enough users, the dollars will come on their own!

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Source by David L. Felts