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

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

1) 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

If anyone has any more to add, just send me a PM with the rule/ example/ resource.

Hey I think your right you have given me an idea

if your site is boring users will never come back to it you have to make it fun.

I think the greatest challenege of website design is to make it "STICKY" like you said. So thanks for all this information on how to do so. I will have a look and apply it to my website, which is rather lacking at the moment.

I dont think the layout has alot to do with the "STICKY" but the content or treating your home page as the only page on your site is a must. thats the way i have always been. I always have a bulletin board in the middle of my site in my mind its a must, containing all the news , the updates in detail with links to make it easy ,"some times even thumbnails is it calls for it". Also the community idea has got to be a plus. some where on my site rather on the top bottom or in a rotater i love to find other sites like mine , usually the ones that have alot to offer and talk to them and affiliate. we trade buttons. that seems to work wounders. i couple of other things i like to do is of course have a message fourm and for some reason or another i like to have a top site list of my own. a great way to see how your site is doing depending on how many people join it. Another thing i usually do becuase i have nothing better , or im never happy withit is change the layout. i usually dont touch the navigation because i dont want people to get confused because if they come back they like to know where to go to find what they want. but im always looking for new stuff to add, not in the matter or content but in appeal .... All in all the center and heart of a website is the content and how well the website is built on it. without content there is no point to the rest.

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

 

1) 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

 

If anyone has any more to add, just send me a PM with the rule/ example/ resource.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yep U must look for the Meta tags As there is where the truth lies in..! Put in All kinds Of matching keywords..! But not too much just the most Ones thats related to your site else the search engine will ignore u..!If proper keywords are filled in Meta tags Im sure it will becomes better in searches..! As per the looks i feel tgere is a need for it to look good..! Yeah we must not use heavy flash animations..! As it tends to slow down the browsing.! Visitors are not there to just look on the animations So better to not keep them waiting..! Instead use basic Animations like java and smaller flash components.!Make the graphics neat.. And if possible dont use google ads as they tend to look horrible on your page..! i dont think anybody will use google ad in your page..! Also its not that great income creating Source..! So just ignore than and make a site with professional looks..!

I dont think the layout has alot to do with the "STICKY" but the content or treating your home page as the only page on your site is a must. thats the way i have always been. I always have a bulletin board in the middle of my site in my mind its a must, containing all the news , the updates in detail with links to make it easy ,"some times even thumbnails is it calls for it". Also the community idea has got to be a plus. some where on my site rather on the top bottom or in a rotater i love to find other sites like mine , usually the ones that have alot to offer and talk to them and affiliate. we trade buttons. that seems to work wounders. i couple of other things i like to do is of course have a message fourm and for some reason or another i like to have a top site list of my own. a great way to see how your site is doing depending on how many people join it.

 

Another thing i usually do becuase i have nothing better , or im never happy withit is change the layout. i usually dont touch the navigation because i dont want people to get confused because if they come back they like to know where to go to find what they want. but im always looking for new stuff to add, not in the matter or content but in appeal .... All in all the center and heart of a website is the content and how well the website is built on it. without content there is no point to the rest.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And layout is everything when it comes to Sticky. If you don't have an eye-candy layout, then what chances will you have?

I agree with The_Elemnt_Him. But the 'sticky' steps are also good. Getting the right combination of stickyness and what him was talking about, will make your site more attractive and will increase your hits.

Yea this is a problem I have had in the past. I would make sites that had alot of conent, but it was buried down deep in the site and the opening page was basically just a junction to find it. While I think having sections full of stuff is alright, you need to keep the main page updated often and fresh or else people won't have a reason to revisit unless they want to find something specifically in one of the deeper sections.Good ideas all around man

I find I am able to create a nice clean layouot, with the tips you've given, but I always have trouble updating the content on a regular or even semi-regular basis. So I am left with a site that is sticky for maybe 2-3 months, then fades away. My latest project involves more "user" content along with more interaction than my previous site projects, and a lot of work is going into the planning stages.Now, mind you I am a self taught web page dabbler, and would like to improve. So learning all this PHP and CSS, and how databases work is a bit of an overload of information.. so I am taking it slow.Those are some great tips though, thanks.

Keeping a site "sticky" is definately a great way to keep people coming back for more. Sometimes I've been on websites where I've had to dig through all the arcives just to find a piece of information! This is NOT want you want to give people. Updating a website frequently is a great idea because once they know that it is getting updated, they will come back often.

.Solitude

Personally, I think that a good mix of information is what keeps people coming back to the website.. of special importance is news - updated on a daily basis from some sort of feeder service and technology, specifically new gadgets.. people just can't seem to get enough of new gadgets. Other than that - personal pictures updated on a daily basis (assuming there's enough of space on the server) will surely get people visiting very often. Also, if the website deals in specific information, of a speciality product.. or information which is very unique, there's bound to be a good deal of traffic. But in most instances, for a site to become extremely popular, it's just got to have a bit of every thing, just enough to satisfy everyone without bunching up too many links and making the 'home' page too cluttered.

A must-do when it comes to making your site sticky, is to provide a newsletter (or e-zine). It's a great way to keep in touch with visitors. People may come to your site, like it, leave eventually (I suppose they have to some time, right?), and then forget about it, not because it wasn't *sticky* but simply because people forget.

A newsletter is the perfect tool to remind them of your site's existence. You can include all kinds of things in it, such as attractive snippets of your site's articles, tips, news and updates, etc.

And the best thing, newsletters are so easy to make these days, technology-wise. There are dozens of free providers. The critical step is, and always will be, your content. You have to make the *content* itself sticky, enticing readers to go to your Website again. It's a tightly-knit process, really.

All the best,

Mernokh

Definitely all good ideas...

Yeah, I myself had actually posted a tutorial on META tags and their use thereof; it sort of expunds on this topic of sticky sites. I know I've had some trouble in the past where I just could not get my site noticed. Now, I have a site that results as 5th on Yahoo!; so I would say that that is not all too bad...

In any case, this is a very good tutorial and I'm sure those without know-how could certainly find a kick out of this!