Free Bonus Tip
6) Always have an email capture offering a free newsletter, PDF download, or other information worth parting with their email address for. That way you can have some idea of who is coming to your site, and what they are interested in. You can also establish a permission-based relationship to contact them with other information, and special deals and offers.
Once you know more about your audience, you will be able to pitch your marketing efforts better, to boost your sales.

For a quick, easy to use autoresponder to set up your own email capture, email marketing program, ecourses and more, visit Aweber

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site.

This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters.

No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!

Just keep in mind that you should not rip your navigation apart. Change color schemes and art by all means, but don’t make it difficult to find what people are looking for.

The easiest way to add new content is through a blog. You can queue up the articles days, weeks, or even months in advance, and the system publishes them automatically. The most popular free blog software is WordPress, and once it is installed, you can literally get started blogging.

And read on for a free bonus tip:

4) Hold puzzles, quizzes and games

Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or entertaining way.

You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner, to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize. It does not have to be anything fancy, but people do love prizes and freebies.

One way to get them to go through your site is a site treasure hunt, where they have to find out the answers to 5 questions, answers which are naturally at your site. It is a great way to boost the page views at your site and educate visitors about your product.

3) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site.

They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website.

Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results.

There are several inexpensive services that can get you set up with a survey quickly and easily. Make sure you tally the results and see what way they are trending.

Try not to ask too many questions in one survey. Keep it simple.

You can save more complicated surveys for people who have actually made a purchase.

Remember, they are not a customer if they have not bought from you.

2) Start a web log (blog)

Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself and the company.

Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently.

You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person or people behind the website.

In addition, you will gain keywords, and visibility on blog search engines like Technorati. People will even be able to vote for your blog, and by participating on other blogs yourself, you can lead traffic back to your own site. Just don’t seem spammy or too overly commercial if you do decide to participate in other people’s blogs. Remember, keywords and information are the carrot to success.