award winning web design & development

The more time people spend at your web site, the more time you’ll have to persuade them to buy your product or service. Below are ten powerful ways to keep visitors at your web site longer.

1. Provide your web site visitors with content they can’t read anywhere else. People will stay longer at your web site to read the original content.

2. Remind your web site visitors they can print out your content. They may browse around your online store while it’s printing.

3. Offer your web site visitors a freebie if they take the time to fill out your online survey. They’ll be at the site longer and might buy something afterwards.

4. Offer your visitors free software that they can download right from your web site. While they are waiting they might read your ad.

5. Provide a huge online directory of information that your visitors could search. The directory must contain information your visitors would want.

6. Make sure all your web pages load fast or your visitors will leave fast. Time is precious; they won’t waste it waiting for your site to load.

7. Tell your visitors what’s offered at your web site at the very beginning. If people are confused  about what’s being offered they may leave too early.

8. Publish your web site professionally. People will get turned off and leave if they see a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes.

9. Make your site text easy to read. Most people won’t strain their eyes trying to read text that is too small, light or bright.

10. Use headlines and sub headlines all over your your web site that will grab visitors attention. It will attract them to explore your web site longer.

There are millions of web sites trying to get listed in the top 20 spots of the major search engines.  That amounts to a lot of competition!  I say if you can’t get listed at the top, indirectly get to the top.

How do you do this?  Look up the top 20 web sites on the major search engines under the keywords and phrases people would find your web site. The key would be to then advertise on those web sites.

The most expensive way would be to buy ad space on those web sites.  If you don’t want to spend any money, you could use the ten strategies below. These strategies may not apply to every web site.

1. Participate on their discussion boards. You could post questions, answer other peoples questions, and join in on conversations. Just include your signature file and link at the end of your messages.

2. Ask the web site owner if they would like a free ebook to giveaway to their visitors. You could have them link to your web site or include your ad in the free ebook.

3. Submit content to their web site. You could write articles for their web site and include your resource box and link at the end of the article. If they publish it, you’ll indirectly be at the top of the search engines.

4. Write an excellent article review of their web site, products or services. Then publish the review on your web site. E-mail the web site owner and tell him or her about it. They may link to your web site so their visitors read it.

5. Ask the owner of the web site if they would want to trade advertising. If you don’t get as much traffic as they do, you could throw in some extra incentives.

6. Propose a cross promotion deal with the web site. You both could promote each others products or services together in one package deal. This means a mention and link back to your web site.

7. Give the web site a testimonial for their product or service. Include a little text link for your web site with the testimonial. You never know; it could end up on their ad copy.

8. Post your advertisement on their free classified ad section on their web site. You want to be sure you have an attractive headline so they will read your ad.

9. Post your text link on their free-for-all links page. You want to go back and post your link regularly so it stays towards the top.

10. Sign their guest books. You could leave a short compliment about their web site on their guest book. Just include your signature file and link at the end of your message.

1. Sell your product at a higher price. This increases the perceived value because people usually associate the higher priced product as being better.

2. Offer a free trial or sample of your product. This increases the perceived value because people think you’re confident in your product, so it must be good.

3. Include tons of testimonials on your ad copy. This increases the perceived value because you have actual proof of other people’s experiences with your product.

4. Load your ad copy full of benefits. This increases the perceived value because people think they are getting solutions to a number of problems.

5. Offer an affiliate program with your product. This increases the perceived value because people can also make money with your product.

6. Give people a strong guarantee. This increases the perceived value because it shows that you stand behind your products.

7. Package your product with a lot of bonuses. This increases the perceived value because people feel they are getting more for their money.

8. Get your product endorsed by a famous person. This increases the perceived value because people think that famous people wouldn’t want their name associated with a poor product.

9. Include the reprint/reproduction rights with your product. This increases the perceived value because people can start a business and make money.

10. Get the word out about your product and brand it. This increases the perceived value because people believe the brand name products have better quality.

Do you post to message boards, e-mail discussion lists, classified ads sites, FFA sites or newsgroups? People will usually read the subject line before they read your ad or message, so it’s important they get noticed. Below are ten simple, but powerful tips to get your ads or messages noticed.

1. Use extra white space creatively in your subject line. You can add extra blank spaces between your words or letters.

2. Combine capital letters with lower case letters. Use all capital letters in every other word or use a capital letter between every other lower case letter.

3. Add text symbols in your subject line. You could use them between words and letters. Start and end your subject with a text symbol. ( *, $, >,{,] )

4. Begin your subject line with the word “STOP!”. People have been trained their whole life to stop what they are doing when they see that word.

5. Ask people a question in your subject line. We all went to school and were repetitively branded to answer questions.

6. Use the word “FREE” in your subject line. Your offer should be attractive to your target audience. It could be free information, software, trials, etc.

7. Begin your subject line with an “online smile ”. People use smiles offline to gain people’s attention and to win their trust, why not use them online too.

8. Don’t use unbelievable claims in your subject line. People have or know some who has been ripped off and trained themselves to ignore those claims.

9. Don’t use all capital letters in your subject line. It is hard to read, looks unprofessional, and on the internet it’s considered a symbol for shouting.

10. Test different subject lines to see which ones draws the most traffic to your web site. Also, read the FAQ before posting a message or ad anywhere.

An online community could be a chat room, e-mail discussion list, discussion forum or other technologies that allow groups of people to communicate at your web site. When you have a popular online community it will increase your traffic and sales. Below are ten ways to attract people to participate in your online community.

1. Tell your visitors that you post a new, free offer every day, week or month in your online community. The free offers should be attractive to your target audience.

2. Regularly schedule experts or famous guests to participate in your online community. You could design it to be a virtual class or a question/answer session.

3. Post testimonials on your web site from people that have participated in your online community. The testimonials could be about what people have learned or liked while participating in it.

4. Don’t allow blatant ads in your online communities. If people decide to visit your online community and see a ton of ads they most likely won’t be back.

5. Post all the benefits of participating in your online community on your web site. You could write it like you’re writing an ad for a product you’re selling.

6. Submit your chat room, e-mail discussion list or discussion board to online community directories. You can find them by typing ” the community type” with the word “directory” in any search engine.

7. Create an e-zine just for people who participate in your online community. Allow them to subscribe for free. When they receive each issue, it will remind them to come back and participate in your community.

8. You (the owner of the online community) should participate regularly. Post information that will benefit the other people. This will show them you care about your online community members.

9. Have plenty of people to monitor your online community. They could remove postings that turn away people like profanity, spam and other off- subject postings.

10. Your online community should contain user friendly features, like a search option for archived discussions, easy posting or chatting options, email updates or digests, etc.