How To Make Your Site Sticky How to make your site more atractable

[pilgrim_of_mini-monkeys 0]

These are some basic ways in which you can make your site sticky.

 

What is sticky?

A sticky website is one that a visitor will keep coming back to, expecting to find out if there has been an update. It is the fascination of the visitor that this site is constantly changing that draws them near.

 

Here are the useful tips.

 

How much text-imagery should I have on my site?

Generally it should be 70% text or space and 30% imagery. Remember that the site layout (table borders, backgrounds, etc) count as 10% in total (no matter how much or little) of imagery.

 

1) Simplify: Sticky sites are 'top-heavy'. That's to say, visitors should be able to get their daily dose from the very first page that they see, leaving the business of site navigation for those who want to trawl the archives. Lose the Flash intros, thin out the page furntiture (images, text etc) and don't drip-feed content. Treat your front page as it is the only one visitors will ever look at (this rule doesn't always apply).

 

2) Think like a blog: A little bit of new content every day makes for a stickier site than a lot of content once a month. Get into the habit of updating frequently and visitors are more likely to make your site a destination on their daily circuit of the web. If updating is a hassle, install a weblog publishing tool to take the strain.

 

3) Link like a blog: Outbound links generate inbound links. Maintain a list of favourite sites on your front page, including links in your regular updates and share your broswer bookmarks. Even if you don't provide the most important content, you're likely to get regular traffic.

 

4) Add interactivity: If syndicated content fits into your site format, pick out the feeds that suite your subject matter and include them in a sidebar so thy don't overwhelm your own content. Look for interactive content that can be fine-tuned to your site - polls and survey's are a good choice.

 

5) Build a community: Try to establish some community grounds with other sites that interest you or you think will bring you more traffic.

 

Here are some places to get some resources to help you in your sticky ways:

 

1) Pollmonkey

2) Miniclip

3) Bravenet

4) Technorati

5) Feedroll

6) Metatalk

 

Three of the best sticky sites:

 

1) BBC

2) Metafilter

3) B3ta

(adapted from Xisto and webmaster-talk by me (twitch) )

 

 

Notice from dundun2007:

Put text in quotes as requested

Edited June 14, 2005 by dundun2007 (see edit history)

[OpaQue 15]

pilgrim_of_mini-monkeys, Thankyou for your post. However, Whenever you copy anything from other sites, or you publish any thing on this site which has a presence somewhere else on internet, we request you to please QUOTE it.

[pilgrim_of_mini-monkeys 0]

Yeah sorry, didn't know that little hitch. If you would put it into quote tags for me, I'll be delighted .Thanks,--mik

[rvovk 0]

You always get me thinking how to improve my site and some I did in the past. Very nice article no matter if it is copied or not. Thanx man.

[Becca 0]

Original content is always good aswell. Not the usual 'games, downloads, reviews' blah blah blah. Because nearly everyones site has that . There needs to be something unique and different in which someone would remember that and go 'oh yeh that's the site with that cool gadget' or something.

[thebluekirby 0]

Yes, exactly what Becca said ^__^ but this is a good tuturial!! now i have a good idea of what to add in my site thanks a whole lot!!

[NeXDesigns 0]

good guide m8, thanks for sharing, a few of those things i already know but the rest is very helpful, thanks m8

[wariorpk 0]

This is a good tutorial. All of your ideas are basically what most people look for when they are going to a site. I'm gonna have to use this guide for my site. I also recommend PHP Nuke if you don't have time to update your site. It's a preinstalled script and you can update it online so its a fast, easy update.

[lordofthesabbath 0]

Very good tutorial, i gotta put the news as the first page now! Thanks again!

[Adamrosso 0]

Great tutorial/guide. This will defantly come in handy. Thanks for submitting =)