Five Nifty Ways to Make Your Site Sticky! 'Stickiness' is one of the most overlooked aspects of site promotion. Webmasters, jump thru hoops to optimize their sites for the search engines, work like mad to find the right keywords, and double over backwards to build links. The mere mention of PR Rankings can have them frothing at the mouth! Yet, many webmasters ignore the one factor that can greatly improve 'all of the above'. That factor is 'stickiness'! Does your site stick to your visitors. Do you make a good impression. Will they remember your site. And most of all, will they come back? How sticky is your site? Will your visitors spend 30 seconds (if you're lucky) on your site and then quickly surf on. Never to be seen again! If that's your scenario -- you're missing a key element in your site's construction. The one factor that can really determine the extent of your site's success. That factor is 'stickiness' -- how effective you are at getting your visitors not only to remember your site, but actually getting those visitors coming back for more. Here's how you can greatly improve the 'stickiness' of your site. Most of these steps are easy to implement - and only takes a few minutes of your time. 1. Add to MyYahoo Button. Place this button on all your key pages. There are over 30 million people using the 'MyYahoo' sites and growing. Visitors can add your RSS feed url to their 'MyYahoo' sites and your site's content will instantly be updated when they open their Yahoo page. Don't have a RSS Feed for your site - you can get a free one from sites like eBlogger. Just make a blog about your site's updates or publish your ezine in a blog. Then place this feed and blog on your site. 2. RSS Button or Logo. This is the orange 'xml' or 'rss' button that you see on sites that are ahead of the game. Visitors can grab the rss feed and place it in their feed readers or aggregators. Your site's content will be instantly transmitted to these visitors and they can read them and visit your site for more information. You can input 'full contents' into these feeds or just place a headline and a teaser. Thus, drawing visitors back to your site. 3. Bookmark. Simple, but many people forget to remind visitors to bookmark their site. Make it easy to bookmark your site. Have a bookmark button on all the pages of your site. Just get a script and place a bookmark button on your site. Just do it! You can get a free script from Michael Bloch: -- WWW.TAMINGTHEBEAST.NET -- 4. Build an Opt-in List. One of the most essential ways to make your site sticky. You MUST have your own ezine or opt-in list. Place a sign-up form on all your web pages. Capture your visitor's contact information. Make them your subscribers. Make them an offer their can't refuse! A free ecourse to introduce yourself to your visitors. A free ebook/software/contest - whatever it takes to get your visitor's email for further follow-up. Then send out monthly/weekly/daily emails to your list offering helpful information. Bring your subscribers back to your site for any updates, promotions, information, etc. that you offer on or thru your site. 5. Content. Don't forget the obvious factor. You must have great, helpful, entertaining, useful...CONTENT! Without great content -- the reason people are on your site in the first place -- all the above 'stickiness' factors are useless! Content is the reason we go back to a site. If you don't have good content on your site -- all the tricks in the world won't help you get your visitors back to your site. Make sure your visitors have a good reason to come back to your site -- provide great content and information. Then implement all the nifty ways mentioned above and you will be on your way to making your site sticky. Keep them coming back for more and you will reap the rewards. Titus Hoskins |
