Get users to return

Most of the other sections in this site deal with getting a user to visit your page for the first time, but this one has a different subject; how to get the user to return to your site in the future? The "Design & content" section offers some basic tips on how to achieve this - make a good design, don't stuff it with too much advertising and offer interesting content.

However, there are some other things that you can use to get the user to return. Perhaps the most important thing that makes the user come back is to update your site often. If the content of your site interests the user and he notices that you often add new articles or expand the old articles, he'll probably check by every now and then to see if you've added something.

If you do update often, you could consider starting an E-mail newsletter that visitors could subscribe. In it you could inform about updates, and perhaps write some short articles about things that are related to the topic of your site. You should keep in mind that while a newsletter is a great way to get people to return to your site (provided that you can get them to subscribe your newsletter when they visit your pages for the first time), it's also A LOT of work. Before starting one, think it over closely - do you have the energy to compile an interesting newsletter each month? If you decide to go on with the idea, remember to provide people with the opportunity to also unsubscribe from the newsletter.

If you're too lazy to start a newsletter, how about adding a discussion forum to your site? A well-run, active forum often creates a set of "regulars", who frequently visit the site. It can also attract new visitors, if the forum is known for it's high quality. Note that while a forum doesn't require nearly as much work as running a newsletter, it still doesn't run by itself. You're going to have to delete offensive and commercial postings and keep the forum on topic. It also isn't a bad idea to write messages now and then to keep the discussion active. A badly run forum can easily tarnish the reputation of the rest of the site. One of the biggest problems in establishing a forum is that you'll need to have some traffic before starting one, otherwise you'll end up talking to yourself. In addition to traffic, your site has to have a topic that calls for discussion; a page covering politics is usually suitable for a forum, a page covering what is currently stored in your freezer is not.

If you cannot spare the time to run a forum or a newsletter, perhaps you could hold a sweepstakes each month, one entry per person? If you can afford to cough up, let's say $100 for the prize, people just might return to enter the sweepstakes month after month. You can also get your site listed in the many places on the Internet that list sweepstakes. However, before starting a sweepstakes, you need to have your site "off the ground" so you can cover the prize money (or at least most of it) from your revenues.

In the end, remember that the best way to get the user to return is still having good content. Nothing beats content. Except Pamela Anderson Lee in a G-string :D.