How to Keep Online Visitors Coming Back to Your Website

You've built the ultimate website. The layout looks fantastic, it's easy to navigate, and you've got a nice selection of content for your readers to enjoy. You've promoted your site and the hits have been coming in, but suddenly there's a huge drop in your hits. What's going on and how do you keep traffic returning to your website?

First of all, to keep visitors returning to your website, you have to give them something to return to. Promotion and marketing is great, but if you don't give a reader a reason to return, why are they going to return? Studies show that repeat customers make you a profit as much, if not more so, than first time visitors.

Following are some tips and ideas that can keep traffic returning to your site and increase profits from your affiliate marketing and sales from your site.

Keep fresh and updated content on your website. New articles are a must to a content site. Visitors who return to your site want to see new content added for them to read. A good rule of thumb is to add one to four articles a week, perhaps more so, depending on the size and topic of your site.

You can write articles yourself or you can hire someone to write for you to your specifications. You can also look at article directories online and find free articles that pertain to your website. Often people will provide free articles in exchange for links back to their site, something that benefits both you and the author of the articles.

Offer a free download to your readers. Offering free downloadable ebooks is another way to keep traffic coming back to your site. Change the ebook each week that you are giving away so that the customer has something new to download. You can also offer free patterns if you have a craft or sewing site, free music samples if you have a music site, etc. The point is to offer something new on a regular basis.

Run a contest. People love to win things! Offering a contest on your site is a sure way to increase traffic and have visitors coming back. Offering a new contest on a regular basis will improve even on this idea. You can give away books, DVDs, CDs, ebooks, designer jewelry you created, handcrafted baby items, beauty samples, gift baskets, run writing contests, etc. Keeping a new contest going will ensure more repeat web traffic.

Offer special discounts and/or coupons on items. People love sales and bargains! Offering a regular sale or discount on something that you sell on your site can help with repeat web business. Changing the sales weekly or monthly will give readers something new to look for on your site, so they will visit to see what you are offering. Saving money is something that just about everyone wants to do, so if you offer something at a nice savings to the customer on a regular basis, chances are they will return to see what you have available.

Have a blog and a newsletter. Keep in touch on a personal level with your readers by means of a blog and a newsletter. Blogs have become very popular, and they are much more personal in nature. Newsletters offer the opportunity to tell customers what's new on the site, what areas you have updated, specials you have going, etc. Blogs and newsletters are great business tools in that they offer direct communication with your readers and customers, thereby bringing in repeat traffic. You can add links in your blog to your latest articles or contests. Offering a gift when they sign up for your newsletter helps to gain subscribers.

Host a forum or chat. Allow your customers a place to talk to you or to others interested in your site. Getting on a personal level with your readers shows the readers that you are real and are interested in their thoughts about your products or services. It also helps to bring them back to you site for repeat business.

Bringing repeat traffic back to your website isn't hard to do, but it does require that you keep your site updated and that you communicate with your readers. Keeping fresh content up in the form of articles and news and giving the reader something new to look forward to will not only bring back customers to your website, it will add more profit in your pocket.