Apart from the occasional visit by a passing surfer, a new store will remain empty unless its owners actively work to entice customers in to it. This can be an expensive, time-consuming process. And if that isn't bad enough, new Web store merchants will quickly discover that visitors are unlikely to buy on their first visit, particularly if the store carries high-priced items. Clearly, in order to get the best results from your marketing efforts, you need to maximise the conversion of first-time visitors in to repeat visitors and then on into customers. Here are several techniques you can try.
Newsletters are probably the most widely used method of encouraging repeat visits to a Web site.
A well-designed site should offer customers the ability to subscribe to a newsletter from most of its pages. You can increase the proportion of visitors who sign up for the newsletter by offering something of value within it, for example news of special promotions or discounts. Daily or weekly news items are also a good way of driving repeat visits. These however, are becoming so common on Web sites that it is difficult to differentiate your site unless the news you offer addresses an appropriate niche audience. Instead, identify and publish news stories that are often overlooked by the mainstream news services, and that are likely to be of interest to the type of visitor that you are trying to attract.