Welcome to (fill-in-the-blank)!

That’s a sentence that’s like a billboard across the World Wide Web and one that Vincent Flanders says makes web pages that suck! While I think that’s a little too drastic, there are many better ways to make your website visitors feel welcome; one of the best is to show your website visitors that you want them to return often!

Keep Your Website Updates in Plain Sight

Frequently update your web content and make sure your visitors know that your website is frequently updated. Blogs are especially good ways to display updated content, since all of your posts are dated. On a traditional website, just putting a bolded “updated (date)” lets your visitors know that your website is open and active.

If you plan to do weekly or monthly updates of certain sections of your website, do add that information to your home page and other high traffic pages. If you’re worried about integrating it with your content, put it in a text box near your sidebar navigation and use a background color to increase its visibility.

Of course, the word “New” emphasized with color or bolded is also a way to let your visitors know that your website is alive and kickin’! However, don’t tell visitors, “Coming Soon!” Tell your visitors when soon is and make sure you stick to it!

On Site Bookmarking

Consider adding a “bookmark this page” script to your site. Make a bookmark invitation beginning with a simple block of javascript. Insert the following into the head of your html document or in an external script file:

Then in your page body where you want the bookmark to appear:

Replace "Add to Your Favorites" with any text you want to use for your bookmark link.

RSS Feeds & Social Bookmarking

Put your content into an RSS feed that your website visitors can put on their Google homepage or offer them tags to active social networking websites like Stumble Upon (my favorite!). Social networking websites not only help your visitors remember your page, but additionally give your site more exposure to other members of the site.

All in all, making your visitors feel welcome is one of the best forms of promoting your site and increasing your website traffic. Make your website visitors feel welcome by letting them know that you’re glad they visited your website. Show them that you want them to come back… and they will!

Technorati Profile

The “eye-candy” of your website is very similar to the “curb appeal” of a house. It looks good and it says “Come in - you’re welcome here!” Be sure that before you invite your visitors inside, you’ve finished your interior design as well as the view of your front door.

Writing good web content is all about giving your visitors an “easy chair”. Make them feel comfortable enough to stay awhile, come back again, and ‘bring’ a friend next time. One simple sentence will put you on the road to success.

“Every person is his own protagonist.”

Every person is the central character in his or her own life. Your visitors come to your website, not to see what you have, what you know, or what you can do, but to accomplish their own goals and fullfill their own needs.

How many times have you seen something similar to this on a homepage?

“Our company is the cutting edge resource for those in the (fill-in-the-blank) business, using state of the art technology to help our customers achieve their goals.”

Who cares?

The truth is that, people don’t care what you know, have, or can do except as how it directly provides a benefit to them.

Using your website presence as your sales presentation, it’s your job to show your customers that you understand that their success is your success and why; show them that your company is the best choice to provide solutions to their ‘unique’ problems and help achieve their goals.

Start by focusing on the unique needs of your target market. Take the “our” and “I” out of your website content and write for your customers using “you” and “your”.