What is Stickiness?

Stickiness is a term to describe a website's effect on first time visitors. A website that is "sticky" has visitors that stay for a long time and return often.

Websites or content that is sticky:

1. Regularly updated content, like news websites or high volume blogs.
   
   
2. Reference resource, like step-by-step tutorials that visitors repeatedly refer to.
   
   
3. Interactive communities, like forums and social websites (eg., Yelp!, Digg).

The stickier your website, the easier it is to grow your subscribers or customer base. You don't want potential customers to be turned off by your website the first time they see it. You want them to explore the site, buy something (or subscribe, if you're writing a blog), and come back often.

To maximize your site's stickiness, keep these 3 tips in mind:

1. Write useful content. People are busy and will only "indulge" you if your website is insanely useful to them. Be useful -- whether you're blogging or selling widgets -- and people will flock to you.
   
   
2. Empower your visitors. Let them add something to your site, and they will be that much more invested in your business. For example, if you sell widgets via an ecommerce store, write a blog so your customers can comment and interact with you.
   
   
3. Ask them to commit. Have a newsletter signup or ask them to subscribe to your feed. Ask your visitors to take action and some of them will.

If you're wondering about your own site's stickiness, ask yourself these questions:

1. Why should I bookmark this site?
   
   
2. Why should I visit this site again?
   
   
3. Why should I recommend this site to my friends?

For more tips and advice on maximizing your website's stickiness, visit us often or make it easy on yourself by subscribing to our feed.