Repeat Visitors: The Bread And Butter Of Any Web Business
February 12, 2007 – 10:02 amIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I consider any domain that makes a profit to be a “web business” for the sake of my argument. I would call any website where people have the intention of earning revenue a web business, and the main way the proprietor of such a web business would increase profits is by increasing page views and unique visitor counts.
One simply way to increase the daily visitor count is to make the website “sticky” enough that some people return often. People who visit daily will help lift your stats from the doldums quickly, and if you inspire them enough, they can help promote your website to their friends and contacts. If you can get a small army of people referring your website (just because they like you) you can grow a web business extremely fast. Building the foundation of your website to satisfy repeat visitors and customers is key to success.
The one-time visitors are great because they click on ads, but that’s all they do. Once they click on ad, they’re gone. If all of your visitors come from a search engine and leave on an ad, you’ll end up with decreased revenue in the end, especially if you suffer from a downturn in the search engines.
What keeps people coming back every day?
- You keep on delivering the goods - be it a product, service, or just updated information that you provide
- They use a part of your website for something (something useful to them)
- You have a deep archive of content
- You satisfy their emotional needs in some way
Every day you need to strive to increase both your new visitors and your repeat visitors. When the two rise in tandem, you start to see huge increases in traffic. Never neglect the old for the new when it comes to web visitors.
Can you think of ways to get people to stick around?
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5 Responses to “Repeat Visitors: The Bread And Butter Of Any Web Business”
Darren,
I was trying to get a link from someone and this is what they said.
Thanks for the offer of a reciprocal link. We would be happy to link back to your site, however we have discovered that Google does not recognise round links and so neither of our sites would be located by Google. What we have found beneficial is if we mention your site in one of our relevant articles. Does this sound acceptable?
Then I asked:
Anything is fine but can you explain this a little more?
Google does not recognise round links and so neither of our sites would be located by Google
Then I got this answer:
Thanks for your reply. We have thoroughly read and researched many books regarding search engine optimization, in particular Google, and have discovered that in general search engines do not like reciprocal linking. Neither site is recognised by Google, so we find it beneficial to both sites if there is a one way link to one of the sites, with a mention of the other site incorporated in a relevant article as a way of ‘giving back’ without using reciprocal linking.
Doe’s this make sence?
Bill
By Bill on Feb 13, 2007
Not to me. I think they’re talking about doing a type of “3 way link”, but in reality, I’d expect them to cheat on a link trade of any sort.
Chances are good you don’t need a ton of links to compete in most keywords these days. One or two related links seem to do a lot.
By Darren McLaughlin on Feb 13, 2007
Darren, nice article.
Bill (and Darren), Google does devalue links from sites not on the same topic as yours and where there’s visible pattern of artificially placed links. Naturally placed links are those from within the content (in articles, posts, etc) and those are the links that Google likes and what the company you contacted was talking about.
In essence, they were talking about driving you more targeted traffic through a link and even giving you a better link, than you asked for.
While I see a huge reason to link to from within content, I don’t see a reason to only link once. Yes, the amount of links on a page reduces the weight each of the links will pass, but if the links lead to many interesting parts of a website or multiple websites, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Cheers.
By Yuri on Feb 14, 2007
Thanks for the comment, Yuri.
Consider when they said to Bill “We have thoroughly read and researched many books regarding search engine optimization, in particular Google”
You know they’re lying. What BOOK did they read? LOL
By Darren McLaughlin on Feb 15, 2007
Well, there is a number of good SEO books on the market. Obviously, you may have heard about the SEO book. This one in particular covers this topic deep somewhere.
Google Webmaster Guidelines (or Matt Cutt’s blog) should be good things to read, too.
And the response isn’t so bad, after all. It is the decisions they make on reading the books don’t really answer the needs of the customers, but that’s another story.
The deal with them is that:
- each link gives more weight, if there are few links on a page
- and the link is also in the context (as I explained above)
So, they naturally decided to only link once per page and from the context, while the decision should have been based on what kinds of links their customers want. For example, they could use several links to more resources on the site they are linking to. Of course, linking from the articles isn’t disputed- it is a well acknowledged fact.
I don’t think we should bash the company and I certainly wasn’t trying to bash Bill here. Just need a little bit of perspective, that’s it.
By Yuri on Feb 16, 2007