We sometimes get so wrapped up advertising and website promotion that we forget that thier are other effective methods of generating sales that require less time, effort, and money.

What type of program do you have in place for your blog, website, articles, etc for existing visitors and customers to get them to come back to your site once they are done. I have noticed very many that have none whatsoever.

This is possibly the most overlooked sales technique for websites. The entire point is to make a profit. With websites we do this by increasing conversions. Many visitors will find a link to your site they may be interested in what you have to offer, but if they don't purchase at that exact moment and move on to another site. That visitor is gone forever, there not likely going to remember the address to your site.

Advertsing and seeking new customers is a very costly method of website advertising. If you are not focusing hard on the visitors and customers that you already have, than you are not achieving the best conversions ratio that you can. Once a visitor is on your site you should have some sort of method to entice the vistor to bookmark your site or give up their email address.

Normally websites offer something free as a way to get a visitors email address. This can be a free newsletter or free software that is related to your sites main theme. You can easily hire a freelancer for just a couple of bucks a week to write a informative newsletter.

 Once you have the customers email address you can simply send out your free newsletter with a link back to your site, or you can send special offers or discounts through email to entice them to return and make a purchase.

It costs little or nothing keep a current visitor and a current customer returning to your site. Many cutomers only make a purchase after they are well informed about a product or service. Simply creating a line of communication and keeping a file that specifies each visitors individual needs can be the difference making the sale.

Another important fact you should keep in mind is that internet shoppers are very parranoid. The number one concern of the internet shopper is that they will have thier financial information stolen, or they will be charged and never recieve the product or service they paid for. Simply sending a visitor a freindly email is often times enough to make them feel safe with your site.

In day to day life, most people have one grocery store, one gas station, one mechanic, and etc. This is due in part to how convienient these places are in a persons regular routine. On average the next reason they use these same stores are customer service, followed by the value of thier purchase.

You can use this same information with your internet business to pick up returning customers. As a matter of fact, I'm not so sure that it's not easier to do this with internet business.

You know what type of product or service you have and you should have a good idea of what type of people on average are in need of your product or service. You can keep reports of your visitors surfing patterns, and this will teach you what areas your site needs to improve on, and what you should be telling your customers when you contact them. For example: If your average customer is clicking is leaving your site after viewing a certain product, you know to send emails with more information on that product and why it is a better value on your site.

Other sources of increasing return visitors

There are many tecniques that you can use to increase the amount of returning visitors to your site. You will need to do some research and look at your competitor sites to see what methods they are using.

Some sites offer free email address's and free memberships that allows a better value for returning customers. Other's simply include a button to bookmark the page, anythings better nothing.

One last thing I recommend is to keep a record of what specific products your returning customers are purchasing. For example if the average customer purchases a camera on thier first visit, and purchases a camera case on the next visit, than you should be emailing all of your camera customers a discount or special offer for camera cases.