b.
Create an "award of the week" to allow your visitors to
write an opinion or design a logo.
c.
Feature a "guest speaker" once a week or month and allow
visitors to chat online about a topic.
d.
Make links to related sites, stock quotes, and news feeds.
e.
Schedule a "giveaway" of something free periodically and
announce the date or count down so visitors keep coming
back.
f.
Turn your visitors into an online marketing force. Go to
http://www.aitcom.net/virtual.htm and find the FREE
"WebPage Sender" under "Support". Download and install it.
Place a "send this page" to a friend link all over your site.
Visitors that click will get an email prompt and they can send
your web page to a friend or colleague. All the big sites on the
Internet have this feature.
3.
Give sponsors a reason to pay you. Along with the particular
product or service you're offering, your website has one other
potentially valuable commodity space. Visit virtually any site
and count the banners and buttons that adorn it. Some
represent paid space, others are trade outs between the host
and a vendor in a related field. For example, a site offering
coffee mugs might run banners touting different varieties of
coffee beans or teas, along with ads for pottery. These links
spur interactivity, which as we have discussed before, is the
key to a successful website. They can also become an
additional income source for you. Each product or service
(should have dedicated page) has a particular target market
that can be broken down by factors like age, income level,
hobbies or interests, educational level, etc. At the very least,
you know that someone who will buy mugs online is attracted
to the concept of ecommerce. What else would they be willing
to buy this way? The key is to understand who visits what
product or service and why.
Some useful tips are:
a.
Use your free AIT stats package at
http://www.aitcom.net/demo/webalizer/examplestats.html so
you can see who visits what and from where they come.