A lot of successful websites depend on returning visitors to make up the major part of their traffic. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The credibility issue just melts away. Hence, keep your visitors coming back to your site with the following methods:

1) Start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers – all of them are visitors to your site. As conversations build, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously, perhaps daily.

2) Start a web-log (blog)

Keep an online journal, more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results.

4) Hold puzzles, quizzes and, games

Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will visit your site if you provide a very interesting or addictive way of entertaining them. You could also hold competitions that reward the highest score winner to keep people continuously trying to win the prize.

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something new to read. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the one least done because of webmasters’ laziness. No one wants to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!