Attracting more repeat visitors to your website

Have you ever wondered what makes top websites stand out from others? In this article we look at some of the methods used by leading Web developers in the industry - methods that you can easily apply to your own site.

Provide sound navigation

Navigation is one of the most important aspects to get right in a website. If it has not been implemented well, visitors will soon give up and go somewhere else, usually never to return. Keep navigation consistent throughout the site - one common method is to place links at the top or on the left of the webpage. Ideally, links at the top should correspond to major categories, while links on the left should correspond to their respective sub-categories.

Observe aesthetics and useability

People judge your website based on its appearance within the first few seconds of visiting your site. There are several tricks you can use to help this be a favourable impression:

• Short and concise paragraphs exceeding no more than 150 words should be used wherever possible.
• The ideal size for an average webpage is generally considered to not exceed the height of two screens (or around 1200 pixels).
• Make sure that the width of your website's design never exceeds a width of 800 pixels (the average width of today's screens). Where ever possible, make your design versatile so that the page can easily be displayed on screens of all sizes.
• Never assume that people will navigate your website in a linear fashion. The content presented on each page should be able to be understood without an expectation that the visitor has read a "previous" page.
• Use large amounts of white space (this term refers to areas on your website without content) - it helps to make your site easier to as well as making lengthy text appear less.
• Check your site for spelling and grammar. Most good Web development software, such as the BestAddress HTML Editor, include an in built spell checker to make this process as easy for you as possible.
• Hyperlinks should always be descriptive. Stating "Click here to display the product's picture", for example, is far better than writing "Click here".
• Try to keep text hyperlinks no longer than 60 characters.
• Use background images appropriately - seams should not be visible when background images are tiled. The file size of the image should be small. Do not use CSS code that makes the background remain in one place. Instead, the background should scroll with the rest of the site.
• Resize large image files using a good quality image editor rather than relying on the height= and width= HTML attributes. Not only will the resizing be smoother, but the resulting file size will usually be smaller.
• Ensure that background colours and images do not clash with the foreground.
• Limit the cumulative page weight (the size of the HTML file itself together with the size of any accompanying graphics and other files) to under 150KB per webpage. People using slow modems do not want to wait for a long time for your page to load.
• Even though most computers today are capable of displaying a large range of colours, keep in mind that there is a discrepancy in the brightness and contrast amongst various computer operating systems. Therefore, using Web-Safe colour palettes is still recommended (in the BestAddress HTML Editor, it can be accessed from the Tools menu).

Update your site regularly

Internet users are always looking for up-to-date content. Frequently updated sites are also favoured by some search engines and can lead to a higher rank in search results.

Create an online community

People like to know that they are valued as individuals and seek a sense of belonging. The same is true online. Creating a sense of community online is a great way to encourage people to stay on your website longer and entice them to come back. Doing this could be as simple as providing a guest book or an online discussion forum (there are several free ones that can be downloaded off the Internet), or offering customisation for individual users. For the latter you might need experience programming in PHP or a similar language.

Offer what's expected and then extend with unique content

Stand out from other websites (and your competition) by providing useful content that is not available anywhere else. This way you will attract more visitors.

The suggestions we've supplied above are just the tip of the iceberg. The success of any website ultimately depends on its author's ability to make relevant information easily and readily available to the site's target audience. Optimising websites for is a huge field that is impossible to sum given the constraints of this article. However, the above tips are some of the most important, and when implemented well, should give you a big head start.

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