Essentials of Web Design Part 2
In my first article I told covered layout, content and basic design
for drawing visitors. In this article, I intend to cover the tools
that make a good website a draw for repeat visitors.
One of the tools that is sure to draw people to your site, is a
message board. Messageboards give visitors a forum to ask questions,
voice opinions and vent. When visitors feel they have a forum with
which to interact with you, it makes you more real to them than just
cold static web pages. As far as threads go, it is always good to
have threads that mirror your websites purpose (i.e. If you have a
health website have threads that pertain to health like Excercise
Tips, Exercise Equipment, Recipes, etc.,). It is also a good idea
to have a humor thread for users to post jokes, tales, personal
stories, etc., this develops community. When people make friends
online (or anywhere for that matter) they want to visit their friends
and hear from their friends. Your site can provide that venue.
Another tool that will help draw people to your site is games.
Offering online games allows your users to escape for a few minutes
and have a good time and relieve some stress. I use ArcadeTown for
my games but the games are great they are flash/shockwave based and
are a lot of fun. Plus, there are tons of games to choose from so
you can taylor games to your site.
A newsletter is another great tool for drawing visitors. Create a
newsletter for your visitors (I use a autoresponder from
GetResponse.com to send out my newsletter). They have to sign up for
the newsletter by entering their information and their email address.
This way everytime you send out your newsletter, you are reminding
them of your site (and hopefully how fun and/or informative it has
been to them).
Another tool that will actually help you GET visitors is a tell-a-friend
script. Have a tell-a-friend script on your site so that your visitors
can gush about you (and your site) to their friends (and they'll tell
two friends, and they'll tell two friends, ect.,).
Other tools that have proven good drawing tools (at least for me) are
music and videos (provided your host provides you with the bandwidth).
Providing music and videos holds your visitors attention and is
entertaining. The videos don't have to be music videos, they can be
informative videos, dramatic videos or funny videos.
And you know what's cool about all of the above. You can get them
all for free.
