One of the most effective ways to drive traffic and grow your business through your website is to effect an increase in return rates of visitors. This can be done through user profiling and mapping the responsiveness and interactivity of your website against their behaviour and objectives.

This may sound complex for the average small business with a fairly straight-forward website but in reality it can be achieved in simple terms by tracking, measuring and putting yourself into the shoes of your customers to understand how and why they use your website and how to increase your revenue.

By treating visitors differently and understanding and respecting the way they use your site you can expect to see an increase in traffic with the net result of increasing revenue through increased trust and brand preference.

Each time you register a unique user you should be asking yourself if this user has visited your website before? If they have then they are a returning visitor and they already have some knowledge about your website and a preconception of what to expect. By treating them differently and bypassing much of the introductory or instructional language you can channel them towards what you would like them to do next whilst saving the user both time and repetition and avoiding attrition.

If a user has found your site through a search engine such as Yahoo or Google then the chances are they may have used a keyword to locate your website as a relevant destination to meet their needs. By using this information and offering them the most targeted content for their requirements at the first opportunity you will reward the visitor in the sense that they have found the site they sought. You will benefit by increased browsing time across your pages and have a higher percentage chance of making a sale. Increase the prominence of the functionality on your site to assist with search and enable users to find exactly what they want to find with ease. Next time they visit it is possible to then show these searchers relevant content based on their last search.

Building up profile information on users and rewarding them for participation and interaction on your site will pay dividends in terms of the time spent and the frequency of use. It is vital if you are to develop a robust online community and especially if you intend your website as the destination of choice when there is so much clutter to cut through on the web. Frequent consumers deserve recognition and reward as these are the most valuable visitors possible. Engaging them more effectively will pay off as will recognition of those who may have bought infrequently by encouraging them to buy again with compelling offers, cross-sell and up-sell.

User generated content, the functionality to personalise and improve user profiles as well as the opportunity for participation in discussion threads or to rate and review products and content will also attract users, build your return rate and keep browsers on your site for longer through sticky content. Don´t over-do this however – once registered users would rather avoid these pages again and the real estate can be filled with another promotion or call to action.

This registration information can of course be highly valuable depending on your site objectives and can be used to instigate filtration down different paths depending on the type of behaviour and interaction you are trying to generate.

It is possible to drill down deeper into this registration data and treat users differently depending on sex, profession, location and any other preferences they may state. Offers and promotions can be most effective when they are tailored to resonate with the consumer in this way.

Web 2.0 users are a savvy bunch – they know more and expect more from the way they use their favourite websites. Online spending is on an upward trajectory and competition for the consumer pound is fierce. The battle-lines are being drawn over user identification and interactivity.

To discover how Incisive Edge will increase revenue for your company email growth@incisive-edge.com or call 0843 289 7884.