20 ways to increase website traffic and stickiness

Your website screams for attention? Below is a list of less-than-typical tips for construction traffic, viscosity, and return visits to your website.

1. Bookmark This Site - One of the simplest options and many webmasters neglect to use it. Make sure the button "add site" is published on every page. Remember to include a favicon (short for "favorite icon") so that the site stands out among the list of saved your site visitors.

2. The articles of the series - Extra feature stories or arguments too large to complete in an article can be transformed into a succession of pieces sent for a period of time. The story of a motorcycle trip from Boston to Los Angeles is an example. There should be a way for readers to subscribe to a free e-mail reminders when the next part of this article is posted. A better tactic would be to send the reader to the next episode before it is published on your site. This will encourage visitors to provide them with contact information that can be used for your eNews and sending e-mail (more on this later).

3. Discussion Forum - Give your visitors a place online to "meet" and share their wisdom. Most of the audience wants to interact and get involved. Involve the audience is like "American Idol" has become a great success. The blog would be ideal to have automated services for members (joining, update profile, resetting passwords, etc..) Discussion Forum work best when broken down into specific topics. Records shall be monitored as the last thing that you and your image is needed for someone to publish content inappropriate or illegal. You might also find some useful nuggets of information, or even someone who could do a good (free) moderator.

4. Promoting Topic Boards - Now that you have a discussion forum, there are thousands of "experts" who want to be included in the conversation. Cooking, dating, politics, sports, embroidery ... Whatever the subject, there are people who want to talk about it. Create promotions that focuses on topics specific to pinpoint audience targeting.

5. Live Chat - This feature is available from some web host. Instead of a blog "static", chat rooms, will offer visitors an interactive experience live. Chat rooms are a good location for publishing (and selling) advertising links. Find a chat feature that allows you to have a record of the discussions. While most of the conversations will be trivial cases we will discover more about your audience. Chat rooms can also be used for text-based events, such as an interview with a person of interest.

6. Webinar-This is an opportunity to draw an audience at a live event online. This may be a seminar-style format or create an interactive conversations, including text and / or telephone with the public. There are several companies that offer hosting services with different service levels.

7. Non-text Media - E 'became much easier (and cheaper) to add audio and video content to the Internet. Host a weekly online radio or video program. Find people of interest to be interviewed for the program should not be difficult since almost everyone is a little 'pitching, service, idea or commodity. With proper management and effort this could turn into a profit center. Better to make the files available for downloading media to the latest portable devices.

8. Cross Blog - Blog post / article about your company on other sites that reach the public. Use blogging to reference content published on its website. Cross post to other blogs that help build name recognition. Remember to take into consideration some of the micro-blog sites too.

9. Provide RSS Feeds - Really Simple Syndication is an easy way to make the content of your site available for others to publish. Feeds can be constituted by complete articles, only the titles, or information that is released for general distribution.

10. Create a toolbar - Google, Yahoo and other sites offer a toolbar free to keep their name in front of computer users all the time. There are several programming tools, some free - giving you the chance to create a custom toolbar for your web site.

11. Mine data traffic - Hopefully you're tracking how visitors are finding your website. Discover the keywords visitors are using to find your site. This would give you information to find other websites that receive traffic in the words of the research. Use this data to determine where to trade or buy links and advertising.

12. Off Topic Content - post information of interest to the public that is slightly different from that of the typical themes of your site. For example, easy to make recipes to impress a date on a sports website. Regular visitors will be because it is unusual for such information - builds stickiness. The search engines would pick on the information and expose your site to someone who otherwise would lose.

13. Press releases - periodically send a press release about your company. Contents for the issue can be about achievements of the company or its personnel, the company stages, or any other type of general information. There are many paid service and free press release sites on the Internet.

14. eNews and sending e-mail - First, make sure you are collecting data for mailing by your visitors. If you need more contacts there are companies that sell lists of e-mail that can be built by various demographic criteria. Subsequently, the content must be convincing to the recipient you want to click-thru to your site. Finally, send it. This task must be accomplished on a consistent basis, which will help build credibility. Make sure that whoever is responsible for the distribution is far from Can-Spam laws.

15. Referrals - encourage visitors to submit pages to their friends and associates. This is simply a link on the page that the visitor uses the default mail program to generate a message. Competitions or rewards for referrals can be created. Premiums may have an aesthetic quality, such as receiving a page or an article Featured. Online retailers can give credit for purchases. Of course, any prize with a monetary value would always get noticed. For eNews and sending e-mail, a "Forward to a Friend" is also recommended. Your site should have a page dedicated to the banners / buttons you create your team by allowing users to copy and embed on their blogs.

16. Offer something for free - There are dozens if not hundreds, of websites that roam the Internet looking for links to free articles. The "free offer" web sites have an extensive database of contacts that receive regular email alerts. Your article could be free access to unique information, some widgets or anything of perceived value. Stickers are cheap and do not break the bank with shipping. Sponsor a contest or sweepstakes may be an option. Check with your state attorney general's office for the laws regarding contests and sweepstakes. Remember to have the word "free" on your web pages and in the metafile. The objective is to obtain the free-offer portals to find and include a link to your website on their content.

17. Authors call for contributions - There are more writers than readers in the United States. All aspiring authors and frustrated looking for a place to get their material published. Many also add content to a by-line of credit instead of pay. The call for the submission may have a specific topic for the content ("left-handed article on Armenian meat cutters") or a broader focus ("articles targeting adults 18-24 years"). Promotions should have a closing date for the receipt of the content. You want to set aside time to actually read the articles for inappropriate content and to check grammar. We recommend that you create and post submittal guidelines for writers. Search the standards of other companies use in their rules of submission, unless you know what to include.

18. Being a member of the Online Communities - Social web sites such as MySpace, List cliff, LinkedIn, and Yelp, are gaining more and more visitors every day. Having a presence on the community portals would give your web site to a wider audience and, typically, is free. Take the time to search the member directory for people who would be interested in your website and send them a message. If you have video content, consider promoting your site on any number of video-based community.

19. Off-Line Advertising - It is likely that the same Internet audience you are targeting can be found in the real world. Since you already know your audience, think about what they read or where they would go, when not sitting at the computer. There are several ways to cheap or even free to advertise. For example, if your website caters quilting, find events local handicrafts to distribute fliers to your site. You can also collaborate with a brick and mortar business commerce web counter space for ads.

20. Spell It Out - Obviously the address of your site should be on your business card. Think of all instances during the week that the phone number is required. Include your web address everywhere you use a phone number or other contact information.

Always remember: To know where you're going you better know where you've been. Accurately monitor the activities of the site. Specific criteria to monitor the site's activity: total visits, unique hits, page, and the exit page. The statistics should include where visitors originate or how they found your site. You must know the traffic-building tactics that work to focus resources in appropriate areas.