#10: Lock them in
Getting someones attention is hard these days. Just keeping up with friends that live in the same city is difficult, let alone the ones all over the world. If we didn’t have Facebook I’d be screwed!
So the trick is once you have their attention to lock them in. Make sure they can’t leave without knowing more. My friend Mary (who I make fun of because I know she’s reading this) has been a great example of this over the last few months.
By having ‘guy dramas’ in her life, she had me completely locked in. We were seeing each other at least once a week to get the latest stories and debate the next course of action. But now the guy dramas have finished and my own dramas have taken precedence again.
Luckily she’s a lovely person so she doesn’t always have to resort to drama to get us to hang out…because no one likes a drama queen.
So how does this relate to your website? Make it gripping, make it fascinating, and tell a great story to keep visitors hooked.
Why
I really don’t think I need to point out why you should have interesting content on your website that keeps peoples attention. I’m sure we all realise that…but are we doing it?
How
The easiest way is to make sure there’s always something to come back for. Promises of more great content and a consistency around your distribution can help that. You should think about this as you create content. If you create X, what is the logical Y that people would come back for.
I’ve done this with my 7 Steps for Website Success. It was pretty obvious that more steps were coming and so people were actively checking the Members Only Area for it. (BTW I’ve finally finished them all! On to the next project mwhuaa.)
I’m now attempting the same thing with my blog posts. By logically ordering them and making that clear with the numbering I’m trying to show that there’s more useful content coming. I also try to do one every day so you know it’s here to read.
So what content can you use to suck visitors in and release it in just the right fashion to make visitors come back for more. And do you have enough quality content on your website so visitors are already browsing for hours when they first arrive?
Homework
Assess how much content you have on your website…it’s not enough. Make a commitment to create new, relevant content for your visitors as often as possible. And make sure it’s gripping enough to come back for juicy seconds.
