Tips to get more returning visitors?

[Nick Jachelson]

Although I think my site is doing OK, only 12% of my visitors are returning visitors. I think I could do better than that, but I'm not sure how to go about it.

I read somewhere that a forum or a blog is a good idea, but I really don't want to go in that direction. Some of my content is a bit controvercial, and the last thing I want is to have to deal with a flame war that will definatelly ensue if the visitors are allowed to have a discussion.

Should I have a "Bookmark this page" javascript link or something similar? What other tricks can I use?

[Dijkgraaf]

No tricks.

Just plenty of new contents in which they are interested in.

[Clinton Labombard]

Yeah, that bookmark 'trick' isn't much of a trick. It's all in the content.

Add images where they make sense, use lead-ins to new content and make sure it's the first thing your visitors see. Make sure it's easy to get to the older content so as the older content fills up new visitors will dive through it to read more. Add special stuff to surprise them... just use your imagination.

[truezeta]

Continue to add good content. The bookmark would be fine, I think. The bookmark tag usually helps to jog my memory after my mind has temporarily gone numb from too much surfing.

If you do a blog, there is an option to monitor comments. That would probably be less overwhelming then a forum.

[Lexur]

Don't forget to add a favicon.ico in your root folder to make your bookmarks something "tasteful".