Upperdog Blog

How to capture repeat web visitors

Upperdog
Upperdog Author
Websites
4 mins

Once you’ve started seeing visitors coming to your website, it’s time to see what you can do to get them to come back. Earning repeat visitors is something that’s massively overlooked in today’s online marketplace – but don’t fear as here are my tips to making it happen.

Please stay!

If someone has expressed interest in your website, be it for business or pleasure, there is every chance that they may be willing to express the same interest again, unless they were hugely turned off the first time around. If that did happen (shameless plug) check out the previous post in this series on ‘How to reduce your bounce rate’.

Trust is key

I’m sorry to be the one the break it to you, but this website game is a relationship, and what are all relationships built on? No…not that, the other thing…trust!

One way people will keep coming back to you is because they’ve had a good experience with your brand previously. I personally would even go so far as paying (slightly) more for a product if it was through a vendor I previously had a good experience with.

Since the dawn of the internet, trust is more important than ever. But getting someone’s trust who could be on the other side of the world is no easy feat. So how is it done?

Show some personality

Something that I’m a huge fan of these days is brand personality. Gone are the times where a company was a company…here’s our logo and here’s our slogan, and that’s all you got. Now with social media in full flow, people want to see the person behind the company, and that is the first point in my top 3 ways to boost returning visitors and website engagement.

 

Three tips to help with retuning visitors:

1. The thing people connect with better than anything is people. Give your website a name and a face – this will give people more of a reason to interact with you. By interacting with you they’re interacting with your brand, your ideas and your company. If you can create a character for your company, you’ll be fondly remembered and people will come back…just because they like you.

2. It still surprises me when people don’t allow comments on blog posts. If you’re that worried about negative comments and criticism then probably best you review what you’re writing. That said there will always be naysayers out there, but deal with them in a positive manner. This will start a debate, and if what you’ve written is good, it’s likely that others will stand by the content for you.

Again, the key thing here is interaction. People love to see responses from the business owner or content author. Even if they don’t have an opinion on this article, if they see you actively engaging others, they’ll be more likely to comment on a different article they feel they can offer an opinion on.

3. I’m sure you have at least a handful of sites (outside social networks) that you keep returning to often (even multiple times a day if you’re anything like me). I’m willing to bet that the reason you return to at least one of these sites is something along the lines of…‘I’ll just see if there’s anything new’. Ultimately this is because the site you keep returning to offers good content and is updated regularly.

This is the big, not-so-well kept secret. And if I’m the one informing you of this for the first time, please remember me when your site starts drawing in hundreds of thousands of visitors. If you can update your site regularly and the content is good, you’ll get returning visitors by the hundreds…then thousands…then maybe even a few more after that.

 

That concludes my introduction to getting returning visitors. Nothing hard or complicated here, the only thing you need to do is invest a little time doing the essentials – the basics of SEO will help too. If you can be witty and charming along with it – even better. You’ll be surprised at how many people want to talk to you about your niche for no other reason than it’s a shared interest.

P.s The best part…if you’re getting returning visitors…they’ll most likely drag along a whole bunch of new ones.

 

Pretty good, right?

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