In my first article I covered layout, content and basic design for drawing visitors. In this article, I intend to cover the tools that make a good website a draw for repeat visitors.
One of the tools that is sure to draw people to your site, is a message board. Messageboards give visitors a forum to ask questions, voice opinions and vent. When visitors feel they have a forum with which to interact with you, it makes you more real to them than just cold static web pages. As far as threads go, it is always good to have threads that mirror your websites purpose (i.e. If you have a health website have threads that pertain to health like Excercise Tips, Exercise Equipment, Recipes, etc.,). It is also a good idea to have a humor thread for users to post jokes, tales, personal stories, etc., this develops community. When people make friends online (or anywhere for that matter) they want to visit their friends and hear from their friends. Your site can provide that venue.
Another tool that will help draw people to your site is games. Offering online games allows your users to escape for a few minutes and have a good time and relieve some stress. I use javascript and Shockwave games for my site. There are tons of games and game sites to choose from so you can taylor games to your site. Some will even allow you to host games on your site. This is the best idea by far, that way people remain on your site. Some game sites have affiliate programs, so if a person on your site decides that they like the game enough, they can purchase it and you'll get a commission. Making money from your site is something I will cover in another article.
A newsletter is another great tool for drawing visitors. Create a newsletter for your visitors (I use a autoresponder from GetResponse.com to send out my newsletter). They have to sign up for the newsletter by entering their information and their email address. This way everytime you send out your newsletter, you are reminding them of your site (and hopefully how fun and/or informative it has been to them).
Another tool that will actually help you GET visitors is a tell-a-friend script. Have a tell-a-friend script on your site so that your visitors can gush about you (and your site) to their friends (and they'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, ect.,).
Other tools that have proven good drawing tools (at least for me) are music and videos (provided your host provides you with the bandwidth). Providing music and videos holds your visitors attention and is entertaining. The videos don't have to be music videos, they can be informative videos, dramatic videos or funny videos.
And you know what's cool about all of the above. You can get them all for free as many webhosts have a lot of these tools available with your hosting package. Hosts like Probuildertool.com and VeryVipHosting.com offeronline site building and many of the aforementioned tools. Hosting only sites that offer similar tools include AFMU.com, Startlogic.com, and EasyCGI.com. As always, I hope this helps.
Yolanda McDonald is Business Systems Analyst in Baltimore, MD. She has 15 years of experience in programming, design and analysis on several platforms including Midrange, Client/Server and the Internet. You can find more of her articles at http://www.ymcdonald.com
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