On June 21, 2008, 649,954 new domains were created and 103,906,896 active domains were currently on the Internet. That is a lot of sites to browse! If you are lucky enough to get a visitor to your site, which is a challenge in itself, your second order of business should be figuring out how to get this visitor to come back. If you could get this visitor to refer a friend you would be in even better shape!



Below are a few tips on making this happen.

1. Give something of value to the surfer. Examples include valuable information, discounts, freebies, coupons, etc. The surfer will need to sign up to your monthly newsletter to receive these benefits of course. After a short time, you will have compiled a valuable list of addresses of ?opt in? contacts.

2. Don't place too many advertisements and banners on your pages. Do you really need that motorcycle link on your knitting website? I am no marketing guru but I think I can safely say you should probably get rid of it. Also, keep in mind that you should never have more affiliate links than actual content.

3. Call your surfers to action and ask them to ?Book Mark? or ?Add To Favorites.? Better yet, place a simple script on your page that enables them to simply click on a link or button. After you do so, check your traffic statistics. You might be surprised to see how many bookmarks you have racked up.

4. While you are asking your surfer to Book Mark the page, suggest that they ?Recommend this site to a Friend? and provide a tool that easily enables them to do so. As I mentioned above, a referral is one of the nicest compliments a surfer can pay to your site.

5. Make your site look decent! If your site looks like a 4-year-old put it together you will not attract, or retain, visitors. Try to have a consistent design and clean looking headers and footers.

6. Make it easy for a surfer to contact you with questions. An easy to find 'Contact Us' link should be on each and every page.

7. Speaking of potential questions...do you need a FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) page? If you are selling a product or service you definitely need this. Topics you should cover include shipping and return policies privacy, additional contact information, etc.

8. Make sure there are no script errors, spelling mistakes, missing images, broken links, etc. on your pages. This will make you look unprofessional and like an amateur. Surfers will move on to one of the other million plus sites that are out there.

9. Periodically update your content. Static pages may not be listed on the search engines after awhile. Also, if there is no new content why would the surfer want to come back?

10. Do not SPAM your newsletter subscribers. An email once a month discussing changes to your site, or promotions that might be of interest to your surfers, is an acceptable plan of action.

Building a successful site takes plenty of work - and maintenance. Follow the above simple tips to help your sites thrive.