Web user’s behaviour depends on two main groups of variables:
the user-related one and the website-related one.

A) User-related Behavior Variables

Though people react very differently at various stimuli, we can
identify some peculiarities specific to web surfers. The
behaviour is much like yours. Have you considered watching your
own actions while surfing on the web? This might help if you
want to improve your site’s appeal to readers, especially if you
sell something or if you want your visitors to click on your
ads.

Several groups of variables that influence users’ behaviour can
be identified:

* Components of the mental processes involved while searching
and browsing on the Internet: attention, awareness, language,
mental imagery etc.

* The behavior of websurfers is influenced also by their
subjective approach to matters, determined by temperamental
characteristics, such as mood, patience and their purpose and
degree of interest.

* Also, users act differently varying with how used they are to
web surfing.

Let’s see how we can tweak our websites to turn these to our
advantage (and turn visitors into “clickers”):

1. Mental processes

Attention – The web designer keeps the tools to direct
readers’ attention. A simple design, without unnecessary loading
will prevent the reader from being distracted by unimportant
elements. The ads placement must be done strategically, in a
place impossible to overlook (recommended in the first
paragraph, usually in the upper-left area). Pictures and
graphics are considered attention-grabbers and will also be
considered when choosing your ads’ placement.

Awareness – This is a very debated topic. Opinions differ
on readers’ ads awareness. Some sustain that the more blended
into content, the better, others say that this formatting will
induce the readers the feeling of being “tricked” into clicking
on ads, which they resent. I incline to say that blend-in ads
work only for very well targeted ads, coming naturally as if
belonging to the content. Positioning ads outside the content
area would be effective mostly with advertising that builds
brand awareness, based on image impressions.

Mental Imagery – Again, a pleasant, uncluttered design, a
balanced look of the page contribute to a positive perception of
the page from the part of the reader and to a more open state of
mind. A professional layout is important. It inspires
confidence, people don’t want to purchase from a just any
backyard business.

2. Subjectiveness

Patience – A golden rule: don’t abuse your readers’
patience (for they usually don’t have one)! Web pages must load
quickly, ads must not be placed in readers’ way and should be
kept to a reasonable number.

Purpose and Mood – Are more related to the topic of your
site and the type of content you publish. The idea is that
users’ purpose and mood can be influenced by copy.

Degree of Interest – Besides relevant, good content, that
answers questions, the reader’s interest is influenced by
involvement and interaction. Keep your reader involved,
integrate your ads into an interaction environment: these will
work wonders on your CTR.

3. User’s Degree of Acquaintace with Web Surfing

Net savvy users have developed certain immunities, such as
ad-blindness. These are less likely to click on any ads.
Customizing ads for this type of readers means harder work; the
result must be ads of high relevance (and remarkable ad texts!),
with an aspect as close to the rest of the page as possible, as
if they were a natural continuation of your ideas. Important!
avoid default formats.

B) Site-related Variables

The type of the site and the topic attract visitors with
different interests with different behavioral patterns.

1. Site Type — Readers vs Browsers

Whether the visitor is a “reader” or a “scanner/browser” depends
also on the site type — content and topic. Generally, readers
are regular visitors while “scanners” are the ones who look for
information and will not spend too much time on the same site.
Site topic and content are most times factors in bringing more
“uniques” or more regular visitors. Though not as a rule, these
apply to many sites:

Sites Attracting Unique Visitors – These are mostly
commercial sites, content sites. Statistics say that unique
visitors are more likely to be your clickers, for regular
readers are more used to your pages’ look and your ads.
Contextual advertising works well with these sites. If you’re
headed for unique visitors, make your site “SE-friendly”. They
come mostly from search engines and are said to be
“pre-qualified” clickers. So, your efforts should be directed
towards keywords and keyword phrases optimization. The ideal
would be to go beyond the technicalities, that is finding out
what are the most searched for keywords in your area of
preoccupations and try to find out why these are popular, try to
find a behavioral pattern. This can be achieved by statistics
and analysis. Find out some niches in your area and the users’
behaviour within them — that is, lists of searches and then see
what is it customers want. This will solve your puzzle and give
you exact hints towards what works best for your site. Keep in
mind: unique visitors are mostly “browsers”. Use ad placement
and ad customization techniques that apply best for this type of
users.

Sites with Regular Visitors – These are mostly forums,
blogs and news sections (though news are somewhere in between).
If you own sites with many bookmarks, that attract especially
repeat visitors, then either you will be very imaginative in
customizing your ads and finding new ways to interest your
readers into clicking or if not the case, better use CPM based
advertising. Brand bulding/reinforcement advertising works
better in this case.

2. Site Theme Relates to Visitor’s Mood and Purpose

Commercial Sites – Sites selling and promoting products
are more suitable for CPC advertising. By their specific, this
type of site will attract visitors looking for a specific
product/service/business opportunity. Thus, users are more in a
buying mood, are looking for a way to spend their money
profitably. These are clickers.

Content Sites, Blogs, Forums – Unless you market specific
products, your readers will land on your page without the
express purpose of buying something. However, you can influence
your reader’s mood and needs thru witty, sales-directed
copywriting. You just need to know some basic things that sell.
One is that people are more likely to buy from persons they
know, like and trust.

So, what will help you build these? Good content and structure.
Especially with content sites, these are fundamental issues to
focus on (unlike commercial sites that focus more on products).
Good content, profesionally written and formatted for the web,
containing information that is of high interest and relevance
for the reader, within an easily manageable structure and good
targeting on a specific theme are imperatives. On one hand these
mean bulding confidence, the first step in selling. On the other
hand they will attract well-targeted ads, more likely to
interest your reader.

Great content will give you credit to your reader. Once you’ve
gained trust, it’s easy to direct your readers: you just give
recommendations and the results will appear. (Avoid being too
explicit in recommendations, though — for example, directing
readers towards clicking on ads is against AdSense Program
Policies.)

With blogs and forums, it is a different story. Not all forums
and blogs are accepted for AdSense (or even if accepted, they
must be also profitable). Only genuine, specifically-themed
blogs and forums, with highly interesting content are suitable.
These conditions being fulfilled, forums and blogs are perfect
as a source of advertising money — they have what is very
difficult for others to achieve: reader’s trust, liking and
involvement.

Branding is the process, nay, the art, of stamping a seal of professionalism and reliability on products or services that are related to you. It’s the core of every business and the heart of every successful trade. Donald Trump has made a living out of branding. He has established for himself a reputation for producing quality goods. Since his name has been attached to this perception, he has extended the same to all his products.

Today, people choose his offerings because of the Trump name. The same principle can be applied online. Brand yourself as an expert in a certain field and people would go to you whenever they’ll have needs relevant to your specialization. It’s the best advertisement there is: a public perception of your expertise.

The Internet has taken this a step further with the formulation of a strategy called viral branding. The trick here is to allow the spread of your expertise is such a way that the number of people who would view you as a bankable provider would grow exponentially.

Contrary to popular belief, this is quite easy to pull off. Here are some ways to brand yourself and allow the word to spread like wildfire. Soon enough, your reputation would be synonymous with excellence.

Write about something you know by heart. Words convey your expertise, so you better use this avenue well.

Write an e-book, or a special report, or an article even. Make sure it is informative and helpful for anyone who chances upon it.

If you don’t have the time to write, hire a ghostwriter. There are a lot of them on the net. Some charge high, while there are those who have reasonable rates. Find someone you could trust, and who would be able to present the topic you have in mind in the most interesting way possible.

If you have written, or have caused the writing, of an e-book or a special report, you have to distribute it with enough incentive for the reader to spread it in his network. Usually, a quality work would do the trick. But to be sure, give it away for free, or bundle it with other products. Explicitly state that the reader can give it away to his friends and family members. This would make your work go viral.

If you have written, or have caused the writing, of an article, submit it to as many free articles sites on the web, with your name and website prominently displayed in the resource box. Encourage the readers to republish the article for as long as they maintain the resource box.

Publish your own eZine. An eZine, or electronic magazine, would be a consistent venue you could use to show your subscribers your reliable business plan. Encourage them to ask questions, and answer these queries in your eZine. One person’s question would then become everyone’s concern, and broadcasting your answer to all of them could only reinforce your good reputation.

Provide excellent after purchase service. No matter how good your product is, the buyer won’t remember your name unless you give him something extra. A good post-purchase service, i.e. technical support, eligibility for freebies, etc., would assure you that your clients will remember you instead of merely remembering the product.

Establish relationships. Treat people well and chances are they will treat you just as nice. Every online acquaintance is one person more to your network, and that one person has a separate network of hundreds more. Having good relationships with the people you deal with is the best way of getting the word out that your name means good business.

Paul Duxbury runs a number of successful membership sites alongside his other income generating websites. He has recently launched http://www.web-success.co.uk which provides free information on running an online or home based business.

Like all webmasters, the reason you created your website in the first place is so that people (visitors) can see what you have to offer. Maybe you simply wish to share your thoughts and opinions on a weblog. Perhaps you want to use your website as a “billboard” for your brick-and-mortar business. Or maybe you want to sell tons of widgets and make a living on the Internet.

Whatever your motivation for building your site, you won’t achieve your goals without building a steady flow of traffic to it! There is one “best” thing you can do that will help you increase the flow of visitors to your site (and keep them coming back time and again): Add new content on a regular basis.

How does adding new content help build traffic? Here are three ways:

1 – More content helps boost your search engine rankings, and higher search engine rankings mean more visitors will “find” your website when they search for what you’re offering. In general, larger sites fare better in the search engines than smaller sites, for various reasons.

2 – More content (meaning more pages) provides more “roads” into your site from the search engines. Having hundreds or thousands of pages means there are hundreds or thousands of varied search terms that your site will come up for in the search results. This means instead of your site being “found” when just two or three relevant searches are made, it will be found under hundreds or thousands of search terms!

3 – Fresh content will keep your current visitors coming back to your site to see “what’s new”. Any business owner will tell you it’s cheaper to keep a customer you already have than it is to
acquire a new one. The same principle applies on the web.

Adding fresh content on a regular basis is the true secret to expanding your traffic levels. You’ll receive more and more new visitors all the time, and they’ll keep coming back!

So how do you go about adding new content? First of all, set a goal of adding at least two new articles to your website each and every day. Two articles per day isn’t much really, but it adds up to 730 new pages per year. That’s at least 730 new “roads” into your site from the search engines!

So where do I get the content to add to my site? The best place to find new content is inside your head – write articles about a topic that’s related to the overall theme of your site. Spend a few minutes a day doing some research on the web. Remember, Google is your friend. Just be sure you don’t plagiarize (copy) someone else’s work. Not only is it unethical, it’s quite dangerous for the long-term survival and success of your website!

The process is really quite simple: Research, read, and learn. Then write an article of your own explaining what you have learned. That’s it! You don’t have to be a great writer who produces polished novels, you simply have to be able to get your points across.

If you simply cannot write (or have no desire to try), there are thousands of high-quality articles available on the web on virtually ANY topic that are free for the taking. All that’s
usually required is a link back to the author’s site in a short “bio” section at the end of the article.

There are many websites on the Internet that offer tons of these “free content” articles. Just do a Google search for “free content”.

Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Directory & Informational Resources http://www.rlrouse.com, your one-stop resource for interesting and useful information on virtually any topic. Visit his Webmaster/SEO Weblog http://www.rlrouse.com/blog for lots of great traffic-building articles.

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