When you look at your website analytics and see that your bounce rate is increasing day by day and also your number of new visitors reducing, what do you do, in the beginning you probably just think of it as a bad patch or a general trend, which will recover in due course, but when there is no signs of the bounce rating coming down and new visitors coming to your site, then you probably start to freak out and need to take action. As you’re now losing visitors and probably sales.
Let’s look at why your visitors are not staying on your site or returning back.
What are the main reasons why visitors are not staying on your site?
- Bored – They have becomes bored of your site.
- Not Required – The information on your site is no longer required.
- Lost – The visitor happen to came to your site accidently.
- Poor site – The site is not attractive and not functional.
- Competitors – It’s your competitors who are merely keeping an eye on what
You’re doing. - Better sites – Your visitors found a better site that offers them more.
You need to give visitors a good reason for being glued on and to keep returning to your site. A reason that will attract them and keep them loyal to your site, this all depends on the niche you are in and what you are offering online.
Service Example. If you’re offering a service such as consultation, web graphics, then the visitor will usually access your website during the period you are offering them the service. After they have accomplished what they needed, there isn’t any reason for them to keep coming back to your site. In this scenario your marketing needs to be good, which will give you a good turn around of visitors, so as one customer completes the course the next one comes in, so keeping the cycle moving, to ensure you always have new customers coming to your site.
Retailer example: If you have an online store, it’s slightly different to the above scenario, as your visitors will tend to come back for various products and offers that you have on your site, also the turn around cycle is much shorter then above. Not mentioning that some consultants offer a service, which requires visitors to return on a regular basis, but there will always be a window of time scale when that one customer will no longer need that service. Retailers can always have new offers, new products, which will attract new customer but also have repeat visitors coming back to your site.
So depending on the nature of your business, it depends how often your visitors keep coming to your site, and the number of new visitors arriving on a daily basis.
What can you do to keep your visitors coming back for more?
There are many ways one can keep your customers glued to your website, below are ways that I find works very well for my blogs, business, and clients.
Fresh Content
Keeping your site up to date with fresh content is one of the best ways to keep your customers on your site and attract them to keep coming back, you might have heard this over and over again, but it is what brings visitors to your site, if there was no content on your site, your site would be useless. It’s the text, images, and videos that you put on your website that makes it what it is, and brings in the visitors. By also keeping your site fresh and up to date, creates curiosity within your visitors, as they always want to know what you are up to and see if anything new is on your site. A perfect way of doing this is by setting up a blog on your site, which you update regularly, with news, events, and other promotions and offers that you may be running. Everyone loves a blog.
Good Design
Believe it or not, if you don’t have a good attractive design with easy navigation, so that customers can flow from page to page with an ease, they will not stay. Design and the look of your website plays’ an important part in keeping your customers on the site. Keeping your site simple and straight forward is the key, just look at Google’s home page.
Networking
Being active on social networking sites and interacting and staying in touch with your customers will always attract them to your site. Many of the times they don’t get to know about the offers that you run on your site but by mentioning it on your network platform, your followers and previous customers will always return to your site to check out any new offers you may have.
Run Competitions
If you lack in getting your visitors excited about your services and products, running a regular competitions for your customers and your reader can keep everyone in your network excited. Everyone likes to winthis will also encourage others to visit and explore your website.
Newsletters
From day one of your site start to build your mailing list, capturing customers email address, as this always comes in use on rainy days. On a regular basis you can send out to all on your mailing list the promotions, offers, news, tips and tricks encouraging them to visit your site.
Go that extra mile
Customers are always looking for best value for their money. If you offer them an excellent service and go out of your way to ensure that your customers are happy, they will always come back to your site for more. This will also encourage them to tell others about your site and service, which will bring you new visitors, as they say “the best form of advertising is word of mouth.”
Give something free
I saw my local Crispy Cream do this very well, every so often they have a Happy Hour, where they give out free doughnuts, and the queues are massive. There’s no reason why one can’t implement this technique online to attract new customers, and also to keep your existing customers coming back for more. You could have a period on your website once a day, week or month where you are giving away free samples or a gift with all orders ordered on your happy hour.
These are some of the ways I have tried and tested in bring customers to my sites.
Looking forward to read your tips and techniques of how you keep your customers coming back for more in the comments below.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Ways to Keep Your Customers Coming Back
