How Do You Capture First Time Visitors?
When a visitor comes to your website for the first time, you have a wonderful opportunity to convert them from a casual surfer into a regular. If you handle things correctly, that visitor will add you to their RSS feed or bookmark your homepage. However, if you don’t know how to grab their attention, they will hit the back button or type in a different URL and never visit your website again.
In order to maximize the number of people that convert from visitors into regulars, here are a few tips for optimizing your blog or website:
Show Your Subscriptions: Whether its an email newsletter or RSS feed, if you have something that you want people to subscribe to, make sure it’s easy for them to find. If your feed icon or newsletter sign-up box is hidden underneath a big block of ads, chances are most of your visitors aren’t going to see your subscription options. Also, keep in mind who your target audience is. If they’re tech savvy, chances are the majority will understand RSS. However, if you have a general audience, you may be more successful by promoting a subscription through email.
Keep It Simple: Don’t scare people away with your design. If you have a ton of ads or too many elements crammed onto your page, people will be unable to find the content they want and end up leaving in frustration. When in doubt, remember that less is more.
Respond to comments and email: When someone takes the time to write a message to you, whether its a comment or email, you should take the time to respond. By showing that you care about your visitors, they will feel more attached to your blog or website and be much more likely to return.
Update Old Material: If you have old material that needs to be updated, edit it to reflect current times, add the current date to it and republish. If you have content that provides information that is timeless (but the date on it is old), remove the date from that content. This way people won’t necessarily assume that they are reading something out of date when they land on that page.
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