Bread & Butter Pixels

Studies show that the web is a means of instant gratification. People typically find what they need, take it and leave. You have all but a few seconds to capture people’s attention. How can you do this?

Content is king. It is the key reason that people come to your site and why they will return.

• Offer them useful information and lots of it - Too much is never enough. Also, you need to make sure it is well organized and easy to find and navigate.
• Keep the website up-to-date – Show the currency of content that is frequently updated. Point out the popular pages. People will return if they know that information is kept current and will always be curious about the opinions and way other website users interact with you.
• Use a blog - Add news as much as possible, but a blog is even better, as it offers a more informal, conversational style which can create a more personal relationship with your audience and have them return for more.
• Randomise or Cycle – Sample different new and interesting bits of info each time a user visits the site and they are less likely to get bored with it. It can have the secondary benefit of making it easier for users to digest a large number of product or service offerings. When using randomized or cycling content, take care not to detract from or compromise the integrity of your pages. Perfect for this type is imagery, customer testimonials, featured products and services or interesting quotes.
• Show users what’s hot – Give a list of new or popular pages/content.

People are social animals. Users like to interact, comment and have their say. Give them an outlet and they will return for more.

• Enable people to comment on your blog entries. It is a good way to encourage contribution, and this adds to your search engine result.
• Encourage feedback on pages. Enable visitors to rate pages or submit feedback easily. You don’t have the publish the feedback, but it can provide some great info on usage patterns.
• Encourage feedback on issues by hosting a web poll or petition.<.li>
• Build a community with features such as online discussion forums, which create a real attraction for return visitors. However, you’ll need to kickstart your discussions and also get involved in them, because people tend to avoid empty forums and only stay on busy, active forums.
• Encourage social bookmarking. Use links for sites such as Digg, to enable people to easily tag your pages on hotlists and shared bookmarks.

Not many website offer an “application”, but those that do hold the secret for capturing return visitors. If your website is “useful”, that is, if it offers something a little more than information, then people will return. It could be an online database, directory or interactive online application such as a useful online calculator. For example, the Moen Glass website gets a high number of return visitors, as it enables its customers to generate quotes online. This can be more convenient, quicker and easier than dealing with reps and is very popular with the company’s regular clients.

At Bread and Butter Pixels, we create dynamic sites using CMS Made Simple, which utilizes:

• PHP Scripting Language
• MySQL Databases
• CSS Styling
• Template Layouts