If you own a website, keep up with the competition by adding an online guest book. This simple addition could be instrumental in driving traffic to your site, so get to know the benefits of online guestbooks. Most serious businesses have a guestbook for a website because they want to get to know their site visitors. Communication with clients is a great way to increase profitability. Having some idea of what your customers want via their guest book feedback is just one of the many web site guest books applications and uses.

There are several reasons to add an online guest book to your site. The following are a few good uses for website guestbook software:

1. Guestbooks for web pages allow you to see the geographical locations of your visitors.
   
2. Website guestbook software can build a community in which visitors can post their thoughts.
   
3. An online guest book generates feedback, which is valuable to your business.
   

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Use a website guestbook to find out where your online visitors come from

Simple curiosity of where your site visitors are located is a good reason to add a guest book to your website. In fact, some guest books that record geographical location also create a map for you and your visitors to see how wide a reach your site has. Learning where your online guests are located can help you target your business marketing and advertising efforts to specific geographic regions.

I recommend: Bravenet Web Services provides a free map that shows where your visitors are posting from. MyGuestmap.com uses Google maps to show where your site visitors are located, and allows you to customize maps with visitor pictures.

Use online guestbooks to build a sense of community on your site

If your goal is for visitors to feel welcome at your website, having a thriving guest book can help. Simply add Internet guestbook software and ask that visitors respond to questions or ask their own in the guest book area. Once they feel comfortable using it, your online guests will likely return to your site to obtain the answers or respond to other guest book users.

I recommend: Build a sense of community with your site visitors by purchasing a guestbook for websites from Network Solutions. SunshineGuestbooks.com offers a website guestbook code that is easy to use, allowing you to create a guestbook that encourages visitors to post information.

Apply the feedback from web page guestbooks to your website

If you want to make sure your readers like the job you are doing, a website guest book can tell you. Site visitors can tell you if they like a new design, a recent article or have advice for you.

I recommend: A customized guestbook from Website Toolbox encourages visitors to leave feedback on your site. Smartgb.com offers the ability for you to receive site feedback with a free Internet business guestbook.

Guestbooks for web pages are a great way to receive feedback from website visitors. If you have a site, you probably understand the importance of finding new ways to improve it and thus attract more visitors.

Although most guestbooks do not require visitors to create an account, they can collect both e-mail addresses and IP addresses, letting the webmaster know the geographical whereabouts of most of their visitors.

Online guestbooks can vary in looks, price, and features, but their purpose typically remains the same in that they strive to:

1. Provide feedback for the webmaster so he can make improvements in content, design or usefulness of the site;

2. Display geographical locations of website guestbook visitors;

3. Enhance your site with an interactive feature, which many visitors appreciate.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Add a free online guest book to your website

If you just want a simple guestbook to enhance your site and provide feedback opportunities, go with one of the many free guestbooks available online. While many of them look plain and will fit in with any site design, there are some unique-looking books out there. Most are easy to add to your website, as you simply enter the website guestbook code provided, making Internet guestbooks easy to obtain.

I recommend: True to its name, Website Goodies offers many free features, such as a free embeddable guestbook, and even includes minimal customization, much like a-free-guestbook.com provides. Its custom features include emoticons, different design templates and background colors, and the ability to play music while people sign the guestbook.

Buy a customized guestbook from a web design company

If you desire a custom guestbook and are willing to pay, many web design companies offer a uniquely designed book. Usually, you can either purchase an entire new design, or buy just the guestbook a la carte.

I recommend: Purchase a new site design with a customized guestbook included from Veinotte.com or Webflo Studios, or just buy a custom guestbook separately from Novel Website Design.

Use the guestbook for your website as a visual resource

Recently developed guestbooks offer the ability to see where your guests are coming from geographically. Such books are often called a guestmap, and many web site guest books are spiced up by such a gadget. Make your site a little more fun and unique by offering this customized guestbook for a website.

I recommend: MyGuestmap offers a free map to those who sign up, as does Bravenet. Such maps include customizable images and the ability to zoom in and out of the map at will.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Be sure to make your guestbook immediately visible and accessible to visitors to your site. Many guestbooks for web pages go unnoticed because there is no direct link to them on the homepage, rendering them useless.
• •  Take advantage of the custom options of free guestbooks, as personalized guestbooks are more likely to catch the attention of visitors. Even subtle changes such as different font or background colors can set your guestbook apart from others.

Working with website guest books is relatively easy. Even someone with minimal coding skills can set up a basic website guestbook. Not only are guestbooks for web pages quick and easy to install, but they allow customers an easy way to communicate with you. They also make your site more interactive, and a website that's interactive and constantly changing is much more likely to bring readers back again and again.

There are two simple ways to obtain appropriate website guestbook code. Which you use depends on your budget, your skill level and your need for something entirely customized. Before you begin shopping for web page guestbooks, consider the following:

1. Free HTML code for an online guest book is easy to find on the Internet.

2. Code for Internet guestbooks is easy to install; almost anyone can do it.

3. A website designer can create fully personalized guestbooks for you.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find Internet business guestbook coding for free

If you're looking for a guestbook for website projects, it's easy to find with a simple online search. Look for coding that comes with a sample of what the finished product looks like. Ideally, the code will also come with simple instructions on how to make at least minor changes like color choices and variant layouts.

I recommend: Matt's Script Archive provides free code to make your own guest books. Boutell.com also offers free guest book code, plus links to other websites with guest book coding. Annex Technologies is one of many website guest book providers. It offers a technical support for those unsure about how to use coding.

Install your website guestbook code

All you need to install your guest book code is a basic knowledge of website HTML. You might not even need that if you're using website creation software such as Dreamweaver. Simply copy the guest book code, open up your website HTML page and paste the guest book code where you want it to appear on your finished website.

I recommend: "How to Install a Guest Book on Your Website" at eHow takes you step by step through this easy process. 2CreateAWebSite.com also walks you through the process in four simple steps.

Purchase a fully customized guestbook

If you have special requirements or need a guest book that carefully matches the rest of your website, you can hire a website designer to create and install your guest book code. Some designers allow you to purchase just the guest book coding and installation, while others include customized guest books in their website design packages.

I recommend: Novel Website Design allows you to purchase a customized guest book at an affordable price. Nearly every business offering website design will also design and install a custom guest book, including Reall Graphics.

For any business that is focused on growing its web presence through a well made, high-featured website, a web guest book can be a good option for attracting customers through the idea of "comment-based word of mouth." Just as public news businesses (for example newspapers) use forums as an interest-generating mechanism, other businesses can use guest books to facilitate chat among customers, better web presence, and better tracking for internal purposes. Looking at some key terms for website guest books will help business leaders contemplate the possibilities.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Webmaster

Although the role is still very much in demand, according to some, the 'webmaster' is a somewhat outdated term. A webmaster is the person responsible for coding a website. In some businesses, the founder or operator is their own webmaster, while in other cases this job is outsourced. The webmaster will have jurisdiction over installing and maintaining an online guest book.

I recommend: See more on just what a webmaster is at WiseGeek.

Page views

Page views are independent events consisting of a computer user anywhere on the net clicking into your website. Many businesses using website guest books want to see 'the numbers' on how many are visiting the site routinely, and page view tracking is often a basic part of a guest book.

I recommend: Learn more about tracking page views at SiteTracker.

IP address

Simply speaking, an IP address is a number assigned to a specific Internet-connected computer for the purposes of identifying and controlling web traffic. A website guest book can contain tools for catching and collecting IP addresses of visitors.

I recommend: See more on the IP address at What is My IP.

RSS

RSS is a technology that allows web users to get notice of updates to a website. A website guest book may be part of a greater strategy including RSS for getting 'return customers' to a business website.

I recommend: Find out more about RSS at Problogger.

Guestmap

There seem to be two main types of guest maps available for websites. One is similar to a guestbook, with visuals and in-page mapping, where guests can leave their messages in specific visual locations. Another kind of guest map would be the 'locational guest map' where a regional or global map would be updated with the numbers according to the locations of users via IP address.

I recommend: See more on the common visual guestmap for websites at Brain Error.

CSS

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is among the newest in coding innovations for website styling. CSS improves on the old 'hand-coding' HTML methods for adding functions and visuals to websites. Guestbook style can be enhanced with this kind of tool.

I recommend: Get a detailed introduction to CSS from W3CSchools, the authoritative council on developing this powerful new styling software language.