I am fairly new to DP, and this is my first time posting a new thread, so forgive me if I have missed a similar one. I have been reading DP for a few months here, and I have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge on how to attract traffic, rise in the serps, approach the work, etc. It appears however, that most of the marketing tips focus on attracting new site visitors through search engines, backlinks, etc. But, the old rule of thumb in business is that it takes 3 times as much money to attract a new customer as to keep an existing customer. I don't know how much that maxim applies to the online world (and perhaps you could exchange time+effort+money for just money), but it must to a certain extent. The holy grail of a visitor retention strategy would seem to be something like DP - I visited the site once or twice and used one of the tools, stumbled upon the forums, and have since returned hundreds of times. Furthermore, many folks identify themselves and their philosophy on website mgt as "DPers," which is a remarkable statement of loyalty/retention. I know there is no way to get to such a status as a website quickly, but I thought it might be useful to brainstorm about how to lay the groundwork for great visitor retention up-front before starting a project. Many people on this board and elsewhere obviously go to great lengths to plan a backlink strategy, SEO strategy, etc. before starting a project, so why not a plan for visitor retention. From what I have gleaned on these boards and from my own experience, here are my plans so far - please comment with your thoughts and experience if appropriate. First, I will lay down some assumptions on the type of site we are talking about: i. Original content "real" website. Not made-for-adsense or copied or non-existent content. ii. Webmaster willing to put in the time to manage/develop the site. The strategy would have a goal of making $500/month on one site vs. $5/month on 100 thinly populated sites. iii. General good-faith white-hat type behavior. No spamming, tricks, etc. iv. A strategy for getting traffic in the first place is already in place.... i.e. we are just talking about the retention or visitor repeat strategy here. So - given that - here are my thoughts on a strategy: 1. (obviously) Interesting content and tools that are unique and updated frequently. 2. vBulletin forum that is closely managed. I think this is perhaps the most important thing -- but lets assume that building the forum will be tremendous focus of the retention strategy. 3. Integration of user authentication on site and forum. i.e. forum login works for the rest of the website and website shows custom material based on the user's registration informatoin. 4. Custom email "touch" marketing based on opt-in lists. I.E. once authenticated and logged on to your site, you could give your users multiple areas where they could suscribe to email messages on given things. This would include areas of interest on the general website or threads on forums. I don't think that users would necessarily read the emails, but they might, and it would keep your sight as top of mind. 5. RSS feeds - how important are these? If your target market is not techno-geeks, how many folks actually suscribe to RSS feeds and use them? 6. A little javascript button that says "bookmark this site." I don't know how useful this would be, but it may help a little. 7. Perhaps cross-promoting with another popular forum/entity. I.E. having another website with a vibrant community mention you on their forums and website and vice versa. Ideally this would be a site that has relevant, but not exactly the same focus (basically an adjacent market) to your site. 8. Provide a concrete date in the user's mind in your content about when they should visit back. I.E. after they use a given tool on the website, you could say "You should do this checkup at least quarterly" and have a checkbox that says "send me a reminder email." 9. Branding... anything and everything you can do to build brand equity for your site and sear your site into your visitor's minds like clothing retailers do with teenage kids. I apologize for the super-long post here, and I know most of this will vary based on the website, but here are a few questions that came up: what is the optimum touch frequency for emails? I wouldn't want to send so many as to annoy them, but enough to keep them visiting every once in a while. Also - I read a post somewhere back where it said that many web host servers are already on email blacklists, even for SMTP authenticated emails so to do any extensive email follow-up marketing, (plus my host only allows 200 emails per hour under the plan I am on), it looks like you would have to either use an email mgt service like aweber.com or get a dedicated or semi-dedicated server with a unique ip address and unlimited SMTP sending. I think I am leaning towards aweber because of the extra management hassle of dealing with bouncebacks and removing folks from the list, etc. Final two questions - are any of my above 9 ideas not worth the time/effort? And any other ideas on retention that have worked for you?
Wow - that's a real mouthful of a post and query, but I appreciate you're trying to get it all in so to speak. I think that you're simply exploring this issue is hallmark #1 - most worry about getting visitors and not cashing in on retaining them or getting them to return. Not too specific to anything you necessarily have above, but here's a snippet of my notes on this subject of visitor retention: Clear– Confused visitors are lost visitors; be sure not to confuse them, stating your points clearly and concisely. Help your website visitors find what they’re looking for without having to hunt for it. Content – it’s what is on your site that likely got the visitor there in the first place; they came because of the content, so make it readable, fitting, valuable, and well-written. Web visitors are not looking to be sold; they are looking to be informed. You have less than ten seconds to lure your visitor and convince them that your site’s content is what they’re looking for; don’t copycat, get creative. Consistent – don’t confuse your visitors with varying elements and formats; maintain an organized look and feel throughout your site. Easy navigation without major surprises will keep your visitors feeling comfortable with their surroundings, and after a few visits to your site, they will develop expectations of familiarity – don’t disappoint them. Convenient – your site needs to be easy to find, easy to use and easy to navigate. Finding information on your site should be equally easy, using a good hierarchy of file structures, and navigation; building in a site search, sitemap, and static menus can go a long way in this area. Credible – whether you’re a large business or a one person managed site, the look and feel of your site should be distinct, professional and logical. Be the expert in subject of your site and stick to that expertise. If you want to diversify, partner with other sites or launch new ones of your own and connect them through linking. Current - keep it up-to-date, of high quality, engaging, readable and on topic; give them a reason to come back for more in the future. Cogent – this employs both common uses of the word: appealing to the mind or to reason; convincing. Saving this “C†for last should bring your goals to successful culmination. To be appealing to need to have clarity, content, convenience, and to be convincing you’ll need to be current, consistent and credible. If you’ve successfully sailed the first six “C’s†along the way, the final “C†is your confirmatory conclusion for a job well done. Regarding your #8 - I think if you merely keep up refreshing and adding content, tools et al, you won't have to "implant" anything - they'll come back because they're excited to see what you've done next ... Good luck and welcome to DP!
Well I think the more you update your site the more dedicated viewers you will get. If a person knows you only update once a week or month they could easily forget about your site and simply never return. On the other hand if a person finds cool stuff everyday they will comeback that 2nd day and hopefully will make it a daily routine. Just my opinion
Whoo, Leon, This is the first of your posts I have seen and I wish I'd entered DP with such a rounded and provacative post. I hope you get the attention you deserve and not a lot of twaddle just because you are new here. I think WRmineo gave you a good reply but as the thrust of your post is retaining visitors I'd like to add something to WM's post that I have had a very positive experience with lately. I hope in the end, you can summarize all the advice you get and have a bulleted visitor retention thread which we will all bookmark This should be basic I know but oh what the hell, we get lazy. I experimented with reducing the size of the pages - download times, you know, and I increased return visitors by 20%. I also increased av. time on the site and av. page views. So I'd just say, don't get so swamped in all the other stuff (like I did) and forget the basics. Try and get your pages to load quickly to catch them before they have a chance to click off. This is something I am still working on, but the advances I have made already are clear.
Thanks e10 and wrmineo - I like the 7 c's. I think I might send them out when i finish my site to my buddies when I ask them to give me their comments... if my content can stand up to the 7 c's in their mind, it should serve as "sticky" content. I do notice that a lot of times things that I put together are completely clear and cogent in my mind, but then I show it to someone else and they are confused. The page size thing is excellent... I generally try to make sure my images and content don't get too bloated, but I had no idea page size could have that type of impact on return visits.
Awesome point e10! It's one thing to grab attention, but grabbing it quickly is key. I couldn't resist the "spin" on the 'Seven Seas' when writing that article
All - I found a pretty decent article here on website visitor retention. It is mostly targeted towards eCommerce site, but many of the concepts still apply to more conventional sites, and the systematic approach is helpful. I got this off scholar.google.com, which is a great resource if you are trying to get something that diggs a little deeper than the typical inch-deep articles that pop up in the front page of a normal google search: Well, it looks like I can't post live links yet, but if you go to scholar.google.com, you can search for "Ecommerce ‘Stickiness’ for Customer Retention" to get the article.