Ever wondered how millions of people spend so much time on sites like Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, YouTube, and other famous websites, when in reality, these websites aren’t exactly essential for our existence? What keeps the people hooked to these sites? Nowadays topics like this should be incorporated into marketing courses, because the Internet, particularly social media, is a very strategic platform to advertise and get yourself or your product/s out there. So, in your very own website, how do you keep your users coming back for more? Here are a few tips to help you get started:
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Create an appealing theme
The first thing that will capture your audience’s attention is the look of your website. Content comes in second. Usually, only when your website looks good enough and welcoming to the eyes will the user proceed to read your content. Use only two or three colors that complement each other for the overall look, and use different fonts purposefully, those that go well with each other. Capitalizing on a minimalist look will also be worth the try, because you know what they say: less is more.
Emphasize catchy headlines
Much like a newspaper, the headline is the next thing that will capture your users attention, after the overall look. You want headlines and titles that are witty enough to tickle their curiosity. For example, if you are writing an article on dieting, instead of “How to Lose Weight”, you can replace the title with something like “The 5 Secrets to Losing That Belly”.
Improve your writing
Be it writing for an advertisement or writing about your product itself, write your content in such a way that will keep your audience engaged and interested. Get your creative juices going, and pour your heart and soul into what you are doing. If you don’t feel you are confident enough with your writing skills, you can always hire someone to do it for you. Keep your content short and simple, too. Long paragraphs turn people off, unless you’re running a blog.
Include different kinds of media in your content
Video is definitely a more efficient way to condense paragraphs and paragraphs of content into your site. It is also a more creative way to keep your audience hooked. They would much rather watch someone talking or illustrations moving than read long paragraphs. You can also incorporate video and audio podcasts if the situation calls for it. Colorful posters to convey your thoughts can be useful, too.
Take advantage of in-site links
Have you ever been to a website and then the next thing you know, you have ten other tabs open containing different pages from that same website? That’s because they use in-site links. It’s a technique to keep you in the website by placing links in the page that are related to the link you are in. For example, Thought Catalog. It’s a blog where tons of different people contribute their thoughts on life, love, and relationships. And since articles like these are very, very relevant to anyone and everyone, I tend to stay on the site for almost an hour just reading different articles. I get links to other blog posts through the “Related Posts” section. Perhaps you could consider placing a section like this in your own website, too.
Encourage interaction
After all, how else would you gauge the effectiveness of your website if not through user feedback? Prompt your audience to post comments, make video or photo responses, and the like. You can even initiate contests and raffles, anything to motivate the users to post something on your website and to share your website on their own social media networks. Incentives should keep your users busy and interested. Not only do you keep your website busy, but you also gain another way to spread your website around: through your faithful users. Having a “recent comments” section in your website will also help other users generate their own opinions on your content and on other people’s comments.
Following these tips should effectively increase your website traffic for longer periods of time. The key here is posting content that will make your users feel welcome and enjoy being in your website, content that will make them feel like it is their pleasure to be in your site and to spread it to their friends and colleagues. Win them over; make them want to be in your site.
