These are wasted visitors, and you must do everything possible to reduce waste, or you'll simply miss out on a great amount of profits.

Luckily, there are a couple of effective tactics you can employ to prevent visitors turning their backs on your site. I've outlined ten of them in this article. The basic strategy is two-fold: 1) Trying to keep people on your site 2) Getting them to subscribe to your mailing list.

Here we go:

1. Make it a priority to collect opt-in email addresses

Your number one marketing priority on Web should be to build your opt-in mailing list. This is where most of your customers will come from. And best thing is, once they're on your list you can sell to them over and over. Include a subscription form for your ezine on EVERY page of your Web site (check out my own site for an example of this - pay attention to left hand margin).

2. Put up testimonials

Put up a couple of shining testimonials right on your homepage. Interject your homepage copy with a couple of these testimonials. Add names and email addresses of persons who wrote testimonial to boost credibility (ask them first though). Remember: NEVER fake a testimonial! Not only is it unethical, but it'll show through. And if I'm not mistaken, it is also an illegal practice.

3. Don't link out on your homepage

Keep ALL links on your homepage internal. In other words, don't give visitors a way out so they wont leave as soon as they arrive.

4. Make your headline stand out

Your homepage headline should be in large font type, and very attention grabbing, while at same time hype-free. Study some great sales letters you've come across on Web. You'll soon realize that one of things they all have in common is a headline that just makes you WANT to know more about whatever product/service is being offered.

5. Work on your copy

That's not really important anyway. What IS important is that Ed, talking horse, was quite a phenomenon back in 60's. Ed talked, reasoned and displayed traits unlike any of his animal brethren.

There is a lesson here, of course. Millions of people watched Mr. Ed every week just because he WAS different. And that leads us right smack-dab into a discussion about your banner advertising campaigns.

Those poor maligned banners. Once darlings of Internet advertisers, they've really been getting bad-rapped lately due to their failure to lure web surfers into clicking-thru and creating sales. But is it fault of banners or have they become so ubiquitous that surfer hardly notices them? Why don't we make those banners so inviting and entertaining that users won't be able to click fast enough?

I think that content providers are too focused on consumers as "sets of eyeballs." We need to look at these people first as users and, secondly, as members of our online audience. And audiences have come to expect advertising wrapped in a very entertaining package. An essential part of that package is streaming audio.

Streaming audio has become a whole new industry for Web. As more and more people listen to music online and web-based radio, advertisers are taking notice. These listeners, fondly called "streamies," are devoted Internet users and active online shoppers. They are a valuable audience as they're 70 percent more likely to have made an online purchase than a non-streamie. Arbitron Internet Information Services says that streamies are quite ready to accept web advertising in exchange for free programming, and they're more receptive and influential targets.

How can we begin to use these statistics to leverage effectiveness of banner ads?