You may have visited thousands of websites already if you regularly surf internet. But how many of them do you really like to visit again and again? Many webmasters and web designers forget simple things and that might be very costly. You don't need to invest a big money or make great changes to your website to keep your visitors on your website. Just make sure that you follow these simple steps and take action to make the changes.
(1) Don't show full page ads to incoming visitors.
It is always anxious to see ads before visiting a website when it is the first time. If you display ads to incoming visitors that may be the last time they are visiting your website. So avoid that at all cost. If you have no options then think about displaying those ads to visitors who are leaving the site. That doesn't hurt a lot.
(2) Don't display signup forms or any other annoying things to incoming visitors.
Many people rarely spent more than 5 to 10 seconds in a web page when it is their first visit. If you annoy them by preventing their visit directly to your webpage then you are doing a really big mistake. No one wants to waste time on filling troublesome signup forms or giving away private information for unknown websites. There are millions of websites on internet. So why should they come to such messy sites?
(3) The website must be loaded very quickly
Don't forget that still about 80% of the internet surfers are using dialup connections. If your webpage is heavily equipped with graphics and Javascript visitor may change their idea about visiting your website. So if you want to keep your website visitors create a website that loads quickly.
(4) Create a professional looking website
So far you have done correctly. But if your website uses ugly colors and designs which look unprofessional, they will leave your site immediately. Don't use harshly colors like dark yellow, dark red, etc to your website's background which are painful for eyes to see. Use white, black or any other light color for the background and graphics unless they occupy only a small area. Don't overload with graphics. Always try to create a neat and attractive website with a professional look. People like to visit such websites frequently and tends to stay longer if the content also is good.
(5) Make sure visitor easily understands "about what your site is"?
If the website visitor gets confused to understand what type of website they have visited, that is not a god sign. He must be able to understand at the first sight what is the website is about. Web designer should be able to display the intention of the website soon and clearly. If the visitor understands soon what the designer is saying he may be able to keep the visitor at least a little bit longer.
(6) Let the user find what he is looking for.
User friendly navigation is a key factor to retain website visitors on your site. Categories and the menu must be clearly displayed on the top half of the webpage. They must be able to navigate between web pages and reach your content without any hassle. Use links to your homepage, to top of page (For lengthy articles or other content), etc to make the things easier. Content must be searchable too.
(7) Create a good content or give a valuable and unique service
Content is the single most important thing which keeps website visitors on your site longer. Visitors may forgive you for all your mistakes if you have a great content or provide a unique service them. Add good posts, quality articles, new images and great videos (If they are applicable to your site) regularly. Unique and quality content is happily accepted by not only your visitors but also search engines too making long term benefits in terms of search engine ranking.
(8) Give away freebies
Anyone loves to have free items. Free eBooks, free videos, etc make the visitor stays longer in your site and they will come back again and again to have more.
(9) Start a contest
Start a contest and give a valuable prize related to your niche. It doesn't need to be a costly item and eBooks, small cash prizes are more than enough. They are happy to visit such websites than those who are trying to steal their money greedily.
(10) Create a poll
Polls are becoming an important part of a website. If you can create a poll in your website users will visit regularly to see the result of the poll. Make it has a wide meaning to them. Also it must be interesting to participate.
(11) Build the friendship and trust with your website visitors
Create an "About" page and include your profile with an image of yours. Visitors always like to know about what type of person they are dealing with. Encourage them to comment on your site and reply quickly for them. Becoming a friend with your website visitor is very important to make them keep longer. Setup a dedicated email account for the website so that visitors can directly contact you.
(12) Setup an Auto responder
You may have seen in certain websites a box to enter your email to receive email updates about that particular website. You can setup a free auto responder like this and send weekly emails to your subscribed visitors with useful content. In this way you can build up a strong relationship with them.
(13) Add humorous content
Humor is something that everybody accepts. It doesn't hurt your content. Add some humorous images or words which users would like to see or read. This is also a good way to keep your visitors and make them happy.
It is very important to keep your hard earned website visitors on your site because it is very difficult to have a lot of new visitors for newly created websites. Always come up with novel ways to find what the user may expect and like to see in your website. Make your website more attractive. Develop a valuable and unique content which is hard to find in any other site. Then keeping visitors on your site won't be a mammoth task.