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Did your website make it to the visitor’s favorite list?
from: Jon St. George - Designs-By-Jon.comAgreed that you have designed a great website and have been receiving a steady flow of clicks but if you want that viewers who once visited your website should become regular users of your website, you've got to get them to add your website to their favorites/bookmark list. That's the menu where they can save the websites that they want to revisit again. A viewer would just have to click on the webpage’s name in his/her favorite list to reach/access your website. Getting your website added to a user's favorites list is like getting an ad for your website right there in their browser's menu. But how do you do that?
Create an ‘Add to favorite’ option
The option to add a website to the favorites menu is not always easily accessible for the viewers, and most web designers don't think much about it. You'll get many more people adding your website to their favorites list if the webpage offers them a quick and easy 'Add this Site to my Favorites' link at the top of the page. Even if they don't actually use the link, it still draws attention to the browser's favorite’s function and makes the user think about it, increasing the likelihood of them adding the site to their favorites list. Eventually, whether a user adds your website to his favorite list will depend on the user’s interest, usage and the content of your website. He’ll add your website to his favorite list only if he finds the content/data at your website relevant to what he is looking for.
Watch out for the Title
Once your site is in people's favorite list, it's not going to create much (repeat) views if the viewers can't easily locate it again when they browse their favorite list. You need to make sure that the name and purpose of your site is clearly stated in its title, as that's all they'll have to remember when they're looking at their favorite list. Make it long enough to be specific without being overly lengthy.
How to track the visitors who have added your website to their favorite list
It can be difficult to know who's visiting your site using a favorite link they saved. Usually, you would look at the referrer to see where they came from but when the users use a favorite link; this approach would not yield results. Even when the users type the web address in the address bar, a look at referrer would not help. There's no way of telling which of those two things they did unless you send people who use your bookmark link to a special address.
Your site as homepage
How nice it would be if every time a person opens his web browser, your site appears on the desktop. Add a option which allows the viewer to add your site as “Open as Homepage”. But don’t expect much from this route as currently this is predominantly held by Yahoo, Google, Hotmail, MSN and other big players.
Update your site regularly
As mentioned earlier only content can bring the visitors back again and again. Updating your site regularly with new data (and relevant data) will be one of the main reasons for someone to not just add your sites to the favorite list but also visit it regularly.
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