Repeat Visits

By James Harvey Stout (deceased). This material is now in the public domain. The complete collection of Mr. Stout's writing is now at http://stout.mybravenet.com/public_html/h/ >

 

 

 

Jump to the following topics:

  1. Advantages and disadvantages.  
  2. We can use various types of material to encourage repeat visits.  
  3. We can present the material in various ways. 

Advantages and disadvantages.  

  1. Advantages.
    • According to many businesspeople, visitors usually don't make a purchase on their first visit to a website. They will need to return at least once before they buy anything.
    • Repeat visits are essential for the creation of a "community."
  2. Disadvantages.
    • When we have a large number of repeat visitors, we put more of a demand on our server; thus, the server might be slower for our customers.
    • Some of our visitors will require our time for email responses, etc. If these people are just visitors (and not customers), we might be wasting our time.

We can use various types of material to encourage repeat visits.  

  1. New material. For example, we might put up a "tip of the day," or a column, or holiday-oriented material, or news from our industry. This new material can be posted at regular intervals (e.g., daily or weekly), or at random intervals (e.g., whenever the important news occurs).  
  2. Material which needs to be used more than once. For example, people will return to refer to our directory of links, or our games, or our chat sessions, or our free services (e.g., a web page where the people can reduce the size of their gifs).
  3. Material which is too extensive to be read in one visit. People will come back to read the rest of the material.
  4. Material which requires a follow-up. For example, people will return to see the results of a survey, or the responses to their message on the discussion board, or the list of winners from a contest.

We can present the material in various ways.  

  1. We can have an entire page of various new material. Some websites have a "What's New" page.
  2. We can indicate new material by putting the date onto the new or changed webpages. There are javascripts which will automatically stamp a date onto pages when we change them.
  3. We can send announcements of the new material. These announcements can be presented in various ways:
    • Our own email mailing list. At our website, we can ask our visitors to register their email addresses, to be notified when we add new material.
    • Announcement services. These companies will check our website periodically to see whether there have been any changes. If we have changed specific pages, the companies will automatically send an email to the people who asked to be notified. There is no charge for this service; the service is financed by a small ad at the bottom of the email.

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