Building a Web Site For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Keeping Them Coming Back

Practically every human endeavor depends on repeat customers. Even if you’re not selling anything, the number and frequency of return visits are generally good indicators of success or failure.

If you’re going to make your site into a place that people want to visit again and again, you need to think from two perspectives. You have to wear your developer’s hat, of course, but you also need to look at your site from a visitor’s perspective. Put aside your awareness of the site’s structure and mechanics; approach the site as though you just stumbled across it and have never seen it before.

Ask others whose judgment you trust to visit and critique your site. You don’t have to change things to suit them, but getting outside perspectives on your work never hurts.

Creating a comfortable site

Keeping visitors around for even a little while, let alone making them want to return, depends on the level of comfort that you provide. If visitors aren’t comfortable moving around your site to begin with, what makes you think that they’ll add it to their favorites list and come back for a return engagement? In creating comfort in your Web site, you need to consider the following questions:

✓	Does the site maintain a consistent layout from page to page? If not, you’ll create stress and annoyance for your visitors.
✓	Is the type and style of content consistent over time? This ...