How to keep website visitors on your site

With marketing savvy and the right amount of funds, it can be quite easy to get visitors to your website. However, a bigger problem most webmasters face is getting the visitor to stay. This is the whole point of making a website, now isn't it? Whether selling a product, your services, or informing the public, a website serves as an online connection between you and the visitor. Here are some tips, and the obvious facts that will help you keep your visitors.

1) Make you website accessible
Everyone gets on the Internet to find something. They don't find your website just because they felt like clicking your link. They clicked it because they thought they might be able to find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently.

Don't hide your navigation, don't make your text too small, and don't crunch your content in the corner of the page. The first two things your visitor should find are the navigation and content body. You should never sacrifice usability for design.

A simple tip is to follow the F pattern. According to various studies in eye movement, the majority of visitors to a website will look at your webpage in the shape of an F. This finding is hard to describe in text alone, so be sure to read up on Jacob Nielsen's article, F-shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content. This article goes much more in depth and provides graphical examples and explanation.

2) Content is king
Have you ever seen those 1-page, drawn-out web pages that clearly lack every design rule possible? Those websites are ugly, but provide a lot of content. They also have very high rankings in search engines.

A rule for webmasters is this: An impressive design will draw your average visitor in for a few minutes, but impressive content will draw them in for much longer, and give repeat visits. Like stated before, visitors are looking for specific information. If your website gives the visitor that information, they're going to want to stay and read it. If you have a lot of content, they're going to want to bookmark your website and come back the next time they need the same sort of information.

Another thing to consider is the quality of content. Is it written for the web? Web content needs to be written differently than content in a book or other form of print. It should be laid out in step-by-step format, and broken into smaller paragraphs. At the same time, it should provide keywords specific to your content, but not look unnatural.

Do an avid amount of research on web content writing, and be sure to write the best web content you can for your visitors. If your visitors find content on a different website that they can follow a lot easier, they will turn to that instead.

3) Bookmarking, and RSS, social networking
Reminding your visitors to bookmark is a great way to get return visitors. So many times have I forgotten to bookmark a site, and could not find it later. If you have a high quality and resourceful site, make it easier for the visitors who want to come back, to come back.

Also provide an RSS link if you use a blog, so for those who use RSS can view your updates on the reader of their choice. When a visitor uses these, chances are it's on their desktop or a reader they view everyday from another website. By doing this, you'll automatically inform the reader that you've updated with new content. They will come back to your website to read the new content, and in return growing the relationship between the website and the visitor.

Join websites like Del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Technorati and provide links for others to bookmark and share your articles. Not only will this get your website more unique visitors, but it will always be in your visitors favorites for those who shared your content. If you use Wordpress or something similar to run your website, there are usually widgets provided that let you easily provide these links for your visitors to automatically add your content to these sites.

4) Get your visitors involved
Everybody likes to feel like they're apart of something. Let your visitors be apart of your website. Provide contests, small job offerings, and make sure your visitors can leave a comment somewhere on your website.

By doing this, more visitors will not only come back to your site, but they're more likely to link to it as well. They'll be proud that they're involved.

5) Get a newsletter going
To some it may seem spammy, so only send to those who sign up for it. Don't trick your visitors into signing up for it either, such as putting it in a sign-up form and having the option already selected. If they were interested in your website enough to sign up for a newsletter, they'll be likely to come again when they're reminded of it via email.

It does take a lot of effort to create a newsletter however, so be sure you have ample time and motive to do it. Provide content in the newsletter thats quick and to the point, and that will draw the visitor back to your website. Newsletters should always be focused on what's new with the site, or what's been added. Reviews for old content might be a reminder of what they've already seen, and they won't be propelled into coming back.

6) Always update!
After you have the power to make visitors come back again, the next step is to keep updating. You don't want to lose the visitors after just a few visits. Keep the content fresh, and with the same amount of originality and quality.