We all know that the purpose of a website is to bring viewers to your site and then give them information, sell a product, or somehow cause the viewer to take some type of action. Of course, we all want to convert sales and make money, so the first step to doing that is to get a viewer to your website. This is easily achieved through marketing, but that’s not what this article will focus on. This article is going to be about how to bring the web surfer BACK to your site after they have viewed it the first time.
The more times a viewer comes to your website, the more likely that viewer will be to buy something, click on a pay per click ad, register for a service, request a quote – or whatever it is your site has to monetize it.
Traffic is important if you are monetizing your site through pay per click or pay per impression advertising. Some advertisers will not even consider your site unless it receives a ridiculously high number of page hits, and other advertisers want you to clearly show a steady flow of targeted traffic to your site.
So once you have actually marketed the site and have some traffic coming to it, your next step is to bring that traffic back as many times as possible. The best way to do that is to make your website interactive. What exactly is an interactive website? So glad you asked!
An interactive website is a website in which the user, the viewer of the site, your targeted traffic, has the ability to interact with the site in some way. You want to create a site where the user can DO something when they visit the site other than just reading information and clicking on links or ads.
Depending on the type of site you have, how to make your site interactive will differ. One thing almost any site can do to become interactive with the site users is to offer something for free – this can come in the form of a free download, a free ebook, a free newsletter subscription (which is a great way to build a base of customers), a free sample product for signing up for a newsletter, a free product itself for signing up for a newsletter – basically, you want to GIVE the website viewer something for their time and trouble for visiting, but it should be something that requires them to take some type of action on your site – generally, sign up for a newsletter so you can capture targeted traffic and contact them again in the future to bring them back to your site again and again.
Another way to make your site interactive is to update it regularly with new and fresh content and information. If a viewer comes to your site repeatedly and find the same thing over and over, they are not as easily compelled to return. Again, the goal is to bring the viewer BACK to your site and compel them to take some action by making the site interactive.
Informational content articles are great for adding new information to the site and keeping it fresh, but they don’t necessarily compel a viewer to come back and read often, because they require the reader to do nothing but read. One way to make content articles interactive for the viewer, which will likely bring them back again and again, is to allow your website viewer an opportunity to vote and/or comment on the articles you provide your website viewers.
Another way to put up new content that is interactive is to have a calendar of events on your website that pertains to the content of your site. You can make this calendar of events interactive for your website viewer by allowing them to submit a form or send an email to the site to request an event they know about be added to your calendar.
Adding a blog to your website is a great interactive tool for both you and your website viewers. A blog allows you to update regularly with new and fresh content and really mark yourself as an expert in your field, but it also personalizes the website viewing experience for the viewer by allowing them to comment back to you. This is a great interactive tool for you and your website viewers and allows them to interact and communicate with you and other viewers of your site in an environment you control.
If you want to open up your site and make it interactive among the all the viewers of your site, consider adding a user forum to your site. You can have topics of discussion in forum threads that pertain to your site and then add a general discussion forum as well, so your viewers will keep coming back to your site to talk, interact with you and with each other, and hopefully purchase something, click on something, or sign up for something while they are there.
Podcasts are a relatively new venture in video blogging and seem to be very popular. You can do personal podcasts that pertain to your site’s content, products, or services. You might also want to consider short “How-to” podcasts that give your viewers information about how to use the products or services your site offers. Podcasts can be a great marketing tools. If you sell a product, you can add podcasts that actually show the product you sell being used, which adds credibility to your product. To make a podcast interactive, simply give your viewers a way to vote or comment on the podcast, and you might even consider accepting podcast submissions from your website viewers as guests on your podcast.
Contests! Everyone loves to win something for free so why not add a contest to your site? You can determine how you want to run the contest, what the rules are, and what the prize will be, but the main point for a contest is to make it interactive for the viewer – give them something they want while getting the information (sign ups, email addresses, orders) that you need for marketing.
Product reviews and testimonials will lend credibility to your site and your products or services. To use this interactive tool, simply offer your website viewers a form or instructions on how to submit product reviews and testimonials for your site, product or service.
Think outside of the box! You can do the same things others are doing to drive traffic to your site and keep them coming back, but if you don’t offer something unique or in a unique way, your competition might just end up with your viewers instead!
You can find a lot of fun things to add to your site too, and maybe create a “Just for Fun” page with graphics for download, video games your viewers can play online (you can get code for free online games they play right on your site), fun and playful flash animations, or other fun and free stuff your viewers can enjoy using while they are also coming back to your site time and again to see what new things you have to offer.
As you can see, there are many ways to make your website interactive, and there are many more not even mentioned here. Don’t be afraid to try something new and see how it works. The main point is – offer your viewer the ability to DO something on your site to make it interactive, and the viewer of your website will likely return.
