Lester Wunderman wrote, “Manufacturers, distributors and retailers, in fact all who advertise, are beginning to recognize that they must focus increasingly on making customers rather than just making sales.”

This is the essence of building your own web traffic. It’s the same as building your business. Getting repeat web visitors is the same, in concept, as getting repeat customers.

There are several methods you can use to build repeat traffic to your website. With each of these methods, to get the most out of it, you need to provide value to your visitors. A customer who feels they got a good deal from your business is more likely to buy again. And a visitor who feels they found valuable information at your website is more likely to return. And you use web copy to convert visitors into subscribers, as you might say “Come again!” to a happy customer.

All successful business owners understand this. Ironically, when it comes to the web, many become afraid to do the same thing online. When a prospect walks into their store, they’ll gladly give any advice he needs to make a purchase decision. But when a prospect comes to their website, they don’t want to tell them anything, because they fear the prospect will find out everything he needs to know and won’t take the next step towards a purchase decision.

The opposite is actually true. If you give a prospect valuable information that he can act on immediately, he can then trust you to deliver more value in the future. He’ll be more likely to come back to your website. And he’ll be more likely to buy from you. The first rule of the web is this: When someone visits your site, they’re looking for information. The best thing you can do is to give them exactly what they want… And then offer them even more. Good content brings visitors in, gets them to bring their friends, and gets them to come back.

So how do you actually implement this strategy? One method, becoming ever more popular, is to use a blog, because a blog allows visitors to subscribe to the blog’s feed. And they can even comment on your blog posts, which not only gives you valuable feedback but also encourages visitors to return to read the comments. A blog doesn’t just talk to your customers. A blog opens a dialogue with them. It builds relationships. And as a bonus, you’ll eventually get extra traffic and subscribers that you didn’t even know existed, because search engines love blogs.

But for even better results, you can use opt-in email lists. Use can use email instead of a blog, or to supplement a blog.

Never use spam lists. Always get explicit permission from people to send them email. Just as you keep a customer list of people who have bought from you, keep an email list of people who ask you to email them content. And then send them valuable content. Offer them a free report or white paper. Let them sign up for your weekly “tips” email or free e-newsletter. Or offer a course or informational series by email.

The way to send these emails is with an autoresponder. What I’m talking about is much more powerful than the simple “autoresponder” email feature you get through your hosting provider. That simple feature will allow someone to send email to, for example, info@mydomain.com, and the computer will automatically send them back an informational email. What I mean by “autoresponder” is a service that:

• … allows a visitor to sign-up via a simple web form, because this makes it easy for him to sign up, hence more likely he’ll do it.
• … allows him to unsubscribe just as easily, because this establishes trust. This is your money-back guarantee, as it were, that you will continue to send only valuable information.
• … automatically sends him a pre-programmed series of personalized emails, spanning over days, weeks, or even months. Because permission ages poorly. You want to make him feel good immediately about his decision to give you his email address.
• … tracks which visitors sign up for which email lists and from which forms, because this allows you to send different content to different people, depending on specifically what they’re interested in.
• … allows you to send personalized follow-up email messages to each list, so that you can send your subscribers timely ongoing content.
• … allows you to send two different emails to random samples of a list, so that you can measure which email gets better results.
• … knows the CAN-SPAM Act and has features that help you comply with it.
• … works with ISP’s around the Internet to make sure your legitimate emails are not being blocked as spam.

I use AWeber Communications, the leading email autoresponder service, for all my email lists, because they offer these advantages.