Attracting a visitor to your website once is good. It means that your marketing is strong enough – or your Google rank is high enough – that you stood out from the competition and snagged some traffic.
So what?
If you know anything at all about marketing, you know that it’s rare for a first-time visitor to a website to buy anything or even fill out a subscription form.
It’s what they do on their NEXT visit – and the one after that – that will determine whether you’ve gained a new customer.
Makes sense, but it never ceases to amaze me how many businesses don’t focus on repeat traffic. But, that’s about to change.
Here are 5 foolproof ways to get those first-time visitors BACK to your website so you can make some money.
I know, I just said it was asking a lot to get a first-time visitor to your site to subscribe to your mailing list. But I didn’t say it was impossible!
The key, of course, is to give them a compelling reason to subscribe. Here are some ways you can do that:
- Put your opt-in form above the fold. That way, they won’t need to scroll down to see it – and they’ll know what they’ll be getting if they decide to subscribe.
- Simplify your form. I get that it’s tempting to ask a new subscriber for extra information – but all you really need is their email address and maybe a first name if you want to personalize your emails. Anything else – whether it’s their phone number, mailing address, URL, or shoe size – is extra. You should think long and hard about adding fields to your form.
- Incentivize the opt-in. A compelling and useful lead magnet can do a lot to get someone to fill out that form.
- Write a killer headline and call to action. Instead of just “Subscribe to our newsletter,” try “Get new marketing tips every day” as a headline. And make the CTA just as exciting.
Once a potential customer’s on your mailing list, you can email them with reasons to come back to your website. Simple, right?
If people aren’t coming back to your website, it could be because they didn’t enjoy their experience the first time they visited. That means that prioritizing usability is one of the best ways to encourage repeat visits.
Some of the things to think about when it comes to usability are:
- Your site’s loading time
- Mobile responsiveness
- Clear and easy-to-use menus
- Text that’s broken up with white space, images, and formatting (sub headers, bullet points, numbers, etc.)
- Working internal and external links that make it easy to find related content
If it’s been a while since you’ve evaluated the usability of your site, now’s a good time to do it to make sure that you’re not frustrating visitors and discouraging them from returning to your site in the future.
Are people finding what they expect to find on your site? If a customer comes to you because they’re searching for art supplies, for example, think about what you can offer them that will add value to the products you sell. Can you provide a video tutorial on painting technique? A link to the website of an artist who uses that product?
The idea is to make sure that the content on your site – whatever it is – is directly relevant to the people you most want to attract. If you’re selling Human Resources software, have blog posts about topics that are relevant to HR professionals.
Because it’s rare for first-time visitors to convert, it’s essential to have a way to connect with them again even if they don’t opt-in to your mailing list. That’s where re-targeting comes in.
As you probably know, re-targeting is a kind of advertising that targets individual visitors to your site based on their behavior when they’re there. For example, you can:
- Display an ad for a product they viewed – or an alternative product.
- Let them know about a new blog post on a similar topic to an older post they viewed.
- Remind them of the lead magnet they passed up when they didn’t opt in.
- Encourage them to complete the checkout process if they added items to their cart.
- Re-targeting is something you can do on Google or on social media. Simply pick the actions you want to target and watch your conversion rate soar.
The final thing you can do is to make the content on your website solution-oriented. Most people who type a keyword into Google do so because they’re looking for answers. That means that if you want them to bookmark your site, you need to provide them with what they need.
Focusing on solutions can also help you improve your site’s rank for keywords in voice search. Given the increase in the use of “Ok Google” as well as virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, it makes sense to think about the questions that searchers are likely to ask when looking for sites like yours. Then, you can optimize your useful content for those questions.
Your solutions may come in any format you choose. You might create a blog post with a response to one question or produce a video or even a short webinar for another. The key is to focus on the visitor’s needs instead of promoting your company or brand. There’ll be time enough for that later.
