Treat returning visitors differently
Tuesday September 30, 2008
I love this idea! Seth Godin suggests that we should cookie our users, so when they return they get something different than new users. I've seen something like this on some sites, where they look at the referrer and if you're coming from Google or another search engine, they post a message along the lines of "Hey Googler, did you know you can find more about this topic here on my site?" or some such nonsense. I don't really see why I would want to call out that I know they got to my site from Google, but the advantage of showing a visitor from a search engine that you have lots more content on the same topic could be invaluable.
Some Ways You Could Use the "Return Visitor" Cookie
Since they have come back to your site, they are clearly finding something they like, so why not encourage them to subscribe?
- Point out your RSS feed
- Suggest they subscribe to your newsletter
You could also suggest that they delve more deeply. Returning visitors show that they like your writing (or at least what comes up in the search engines), so they're more likely to stick around if you show them other content.
- Related articles
For someone without the cookie (ie. possibly a new customer) you could show things that most new readers like to see.
- FAQ
- Most popular articles
- Introductory articles
And best of all, if you use Wordpress, there's a plugin to set this up for you. So it's a lot easier than doing it from scratch. Cool!
Comments
I like this idea and will be developing unique, and useful features for our website based on a returning visitor status.
It’s great that you’re mentioning this! I’ve used this method before. It’s been quite successful as a method of newsletter subscription for a couple of sites I was involved in. The conversion rate of a second time visitor was around 1 in 50 and third time visitor was 1 in 15. We used different messages for first, second, and third time visitors. Just an experience to share. Hope someone finds it useful!