If you want to keep your website customers coming back, they need to be entertained, engaged, inspired and informed. Here’s how:

Whether you use search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC) or some visitor acquisition strategy, the reality is that getting new visitors to your site can be expensive.

You should of course have your site fully optimized to maximize the potential of any new visitors, but you should also have a strategy in place to encourage repeat visits. Rarely do e-commerce sales take place on a first visit; therefore it is not a bad idea to optimize for repeat visitors anyway.

So how do you keep potential customers coming back again and again?

Make Sure You Know Your Target Audience. Just as Google has shown us that relevance is what makes a site truly useful, relevance is also what generates conversions. To have relevance you must first know who your target audience is, what their problem is, and how your product or service can provide a solution. Relevance also requires focus.

Focus On Your Customer’s Problems. Assuming your site is already tightly focused to solve your customer’s problems, you can further endear them by implementing content based on the following tried and true concept: entertain, engage, inspire and inform your audience:

Entertain by providing thought provoking information in a light-hearted manner. Not all your content needs to revolve around your product or industry. Write about Zen or e-mail etiquette or any other useful topic which is relevant to your customers but is not product specific.

Engage a visitor with relevant information and fresh content on a regular basis. Date your content so that visitors can see a predictable flow of information. Provide solutions to relevant problems with a new twist or utilizing leading edge technology.

Inspire with real stories of success. Seeing how others succeed is uplifting, provides fresh ideas and makes everything seem possible. If you can manage to inspire someone, to make them feel upbeat after visiting your site, they will most likely keep coming back.

Inform (selflessly with useful information):

1. Become an expert.
2. Inform without a sales pitch.
3. Develop trust.
4. Provide free e-books or white papers.
5. Make sure you are very accessible via e-mail, chat or a social site.
6. A blog is a great way to inform and develop a community.

Visitors are always looking for sites which not only address their issues, but whose content is fresh and informative. Visitors who find more than two or three articles with relevant and useful information are very likely to bookmark your site and use it as a future source of information. Trust is an absolute prerequisite for any sort of conversion action; therefore any strategy which successfully develops it should be nurtured and encouraged.

If you enjoyed this article, you may also want to check out these others:

Design Your Email Newsletters with Pizazz
Using Social Media to Position Yourself as The Go To Expert
How to Get More Business by Using a QR Code on Your Business Cards
How to Stay Out of Spam Filters AND Run a Successful Email Marketing Campaign
4 Time-Saving Ways to Generate More Online Sales via Email
The Secret Source of Never-Ending Customers and Clients
How to Successfully Localize Your Business
Use Google+ And Improve Your Search Engine Rankings

This article is published by Will Sherwood | The Sherwood Group |Website Design | Graphic Design | Marketing Communications: The Sherwood Group has over 30 years of experience working with all sorts of companies, small and large. Our clients range from entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 firms, in nearly every business sector, from across the street to around the world (and yes, even Europe, China, and South America). Our goal is to create advertising,  graphic design, website design, and marketing communication that still looks fresh and relevant 10-15 years later. Our mission is to stir your imagination and leave your competition shaken and wondering,  Now what do we do?”  We are located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

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