by Brenna Mae

Created on: December 07, 2008

With marketing savvy and the right amount of funds, it can be quite easy to get visitors to your website. However, a bigger problem most webmasters face is getting the visitor to stay. This is the whole point of making a website, now isn't it? Whether selling a product, your services, or informing the public, a website serves as an online connection between you and the visitor. Here are some tips, and the obvious facts that will help you keep your visitors.

1) Make you website accessible

Everyone gets on the Internet to find something. They don't find your website just because they felt like clicking your link. They clicked it because they thought they might be able to find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently.

Don't hide your navigation, don't make your text too small, and don't crunch your content in the corner of the page. The first two things your visitor should find are the navigation and content body. You should never sacrifice usability for design.

A simple tip is to follow the F pattern. According to various studies in eye movement, the majority of visitors to a website will look at your webpage in the shape of an F. This finding is hard to describe in text alone, so be sure to read up on Jacob Nielsen's article, F-shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content. This article goes much more in depth and provides graphical examples and explanation.

2) Content is king
Have you ever seen those 1-page, drawn-out web pages that clearly lack every design rule possible? Those websites are ugly, but provide a lot of content. They also have very high rankings in search engines.

A rule for webmasters is this: An impressive design will draw your average visitor in for a few minutes, but impressive content will draw them in for much longer, and give repeat visits. Like stated before, visitors are looking for specific information. If your website gives the visitor that information, they're going to want to stay and read it. If you have a lot of content, they're going to want to bookmark your website and come back the next time they need the same sort of information.

Another thing to consider is the quality of content. Is it written for the web? Web content needs to be written differently than content in a book or other form of print. It should be laid out in step-by-step format, and broken into smaller paragraphs. At the same time, it should provide keywords specific to your content, but not look unnatural. Do an avid amount of research on web content writing, and be

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