The main purpose of having a website is to show others something of our interest, whether it is just a piece of information, a product we sell or a discussion board about a particular topic. All of that though does not matter if those who suppose to follow, our visitors, are not pleased with the experience they had on our site. Here are some of the ideas that might help keep the visitors happier.

  1. Make sure your pages load fast; Optimize the graphics and other heavy elements to load quickly because there is nothing worse than waiting “forever” for a page to load. In such a case most of the visitors are going to leave as soon as possible.smiley mad

  2. Explain the content of your site and what is offered there, on your home page or as quickly as possible; If the first page is transparent and it is clear about the content there is a big chance that people will stay longer.

  3. Make material easy to read; Don’t make text too small or ugly big, don’t paint it too light or bright and pay special attention that the background color or graphics do not interfere with the text color or texture (white on yellow, pink on bright green, etc...).

  4. Include material that is difficult to find elsewhere; The original content will always make people stay longer; except if it has nothing to do with they are looking for.
  5. Create a simple but attractive navigation; Navigational menus must be easy to find and must be clearly understood. It is good idea to provide a navigation that links backward from the currently opened page (back in hierarchy).
  6. Use elements like headings to grab their attention quickly; Headlines and bolded text, if placed properly, will invite visitors to explore your site more. Do not over do it, especially with bolded text.
  7. Add inbound links so visitors can find specific topics easily; Inbound links are a great tool for not only fast  linking to specific topics inside your website but also for the search engine optimization (SEO) as it helps increasing the score of your site.
  8. Make sure your site looks and feels professional; Pay attention not only to a professional design and information but also try to minimize grammatical and spelling errors. Such things have history of driving visitors away very quickly. Use helping tools like Microsoft Word “Spelling and Grammar”.
  9. Ensure interactivity with your visitors via a simple contact info and surveys; That will provide a feedback directly from visitors which, by itself, is a useful piece of information and it will also make them feel cared about.
  10. Add a site map and search options so visitors can find a lot of information easily; A large archive of information might ensure that your visitors stay longer on site. Naturally they must be interested in the topics and you must have a large directory of topics available. smiley reading
  11. Offer freebies as much as possible; If your site has software or other material to download, offer as many freebies as possible, that will leave a good “feeling” with the visitors. You can add a free product if they will out a survey, register to your site or purchase another product.
  12. Offer software that can be downloaded directly from your site and a printing text option; That is another good practice that will keep people pleased about the site and possibilities but will also keep them waiting till the process is finished during which time they can look at the ads around the site.
  13. Don't copyright information easily so visitors can re-use it; Although protecting our information, graphics and so on, is something most of the site owners and designers care about, do not over do it. Leave most or some of material, which is downloadable (text, graphics, scripts...) free of copyrights if possible. That will attract people to visit your site often because they feel free to roam and gather information without a paranoia of being “prosecuted”. {img} They might even add you to their favorites. You have to stress out in the policies that you allow free download of material or, for instance, in exchange for a link to your site.