It’s a great feeling when you start to receive a ton of traffic to your website. You’ve worked hard to drive all that traffic by optimizing your site for SEO, promoting yourself on social media and networking but is it really worth celebrating if all of those visitors check out your website but never return?
A successful website is one that has loyal visitors who return again and again. Your repeat visitors are you’re biggest fans and they’re the ones who will be sharing your link on social media the most and buying your products. In fact, shoppers make 9 visits to a site before they decide to buy, according to Digital Strategy Consulting. So the more return visitors you have, the quicker you’ll start to see your revenues rise.
So how can you get people to want to come back to your site time after time? Here are some tips that will show you how to increase repeat visitors to your site.
1. Create Useful Content
Keeping your website updated with fresh, quality content will turn your visitors into loyal readers and customers. Demand Metric has said that 80 percent of people appreciate learning about a company through custom content. By creating helpful content for your visitors you’re presenting your business to be a trusted authority in your industry, people will flock to your site to get answers to their burning questions.
If you’re offering engaging content, visitors will return to your site on a regular basis to see what great advice and tips you’re offering up next. And if you help them solve a problem for free with a blog post, they’ll be more likely to pay for your products or services in the future.
2. Build your Email List
An email list is a great way to get visitors to return back to your site and it can be a huge money-maker for your business too. Building an email list helps to form a community around your business. Anytime you have something to say, there’s a whole group of people at your fingertips that you can send your newsletter or announce a sale to.
Try adding an exit-intent popup to your site to grab the attention of users and entice them into subscribing to your email list.
Another great tactic to get more email subscribers is to offer content upgrades (AKA freebies) in exchange for their email address. Offering bonus free resources to visitors is something they won’t want to pass up.
3. Make your Website Easy to Use
No one is going to want to return to your site if they can’t find anything they’re looking for. That’s why easy-navigation is so important. Your website design, especially your home page, should have a clean and clutter-free design. Make it easy for your visitors to find exactly what they’re looking for.
Take a look at this feature on Keds homepage as an example, this super simple area helps visitors easily find the exact type of shoe they want. Your site should be this easy to navigate too, no matter what you’re selling.
Make sure your site is high-speed and mobile-friendly as well. If your pages aren’t loading fast enough or if a user isn’t able to view your site properly from their cell phone, they aren’t going to stick around to check out your website and they probably won’t return either.
4. Interact with your Visitors
Interacting with your visitors on your site is a great way to build meaningful relationships with them. By allowing people to comment on your blog and responding to them, people will keep returning for great conversations with you and it helps to build a community around your business.
Encourage visitors to comment on your blog posts by asking a question at the end or including a phrase like “Share your thoughts with us below!” Reply to your commenters with personalized responses and you’ll form a stronger connection with them. They’ll appreciate being noticed and be more inclined to comment on your next post too.
5. Be Active on Social Media
Promoting your content on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest can bring a lot of new traffic to your website but they can also encourage visitors to return to your website multiple times.
Display your social media icons in a prominent place on your website so that first-time visitors can follow you.
You can share content to your followers that will lead them back to your website and they’ll always be aware of any new promotions you’re offering. By actively sharing on social media, you can keep your business at the top of your follower’s minds.
You want your users to have a good experience on your website and make sure they have a reason to come back. By showing your first-time visitors what you have to offer and letting them know that they’re important to you, they’ll keep returning and soon instead of just calling them repeat visitors, you can call them customers too.
Syed Balkhi is an award-winning entrepreneur and online marketing expert. He is the co-founder of OptinMonster, WPBeginner, MonsterInsights, WPForms, and SeedProd.