Backend Products
Make Your Web Site Sticky!
There are many, many ways to develop a sticky site … here are just a few. At the end of this post I’ll give you a link to some additional thoughts by expert Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.
See if any of these ideas make sense for you web site:
1. Remarkable content. Not just good quality content, but the very best available in your niche. If you can’t provide it, go out and get it. Make it so good that your members (subscribers) would consider content from anyone else as inferior.
2. Simple, clean, intuitive site navigation. Surprisingly maybe, but the user experience has a lot to do with customer satisfaction at a web site. So make it simple and easy for your visitors to find their way around. They should be able to navigate anywhere in two clicks.
3. Make the site interactive. You want to engage your members and invoke a response from them. A forum is one tool that allows interaction. Polls, games, apps, chat room, and other such things could work magic in keeping members on your site longer. I would suggest that if you implement any of these, you make them relevant to what your site is all about – not just randomly thrown in.
4. Make your members feel comfortable. Some sites provide a “guided tour” approach so that members understand all the cool stuff you offer and how to easily access it. Usually, “surprises” are not good!
5. Be personal and encourage your members to do the same. You are building a community and in most successful communities people that engage with one another are happy. Encourage members to tell their story, share fun things, spotlight their own experiences in the niche, and help others in areas where they have expertise, etc.
6. Give personal recognition. A member of the month or week or day could be spotlighted. Recognize achievement and accomplishment – longest subscribing members, most active members, founding members, new members, oldest, youngest, etc. People like to be stroked! Show your appreciation for them.
7. Give unannounced “goodies” in the niche. It could be anything and everything – content, videos, graphics, ebooks, reports, hints, helps, you name it. Everybody likes to be unexpectedly and pleasantly rewarded for membership.
8. Keep the appearance of activity. No one likes a stale site. Keep blogs, content, news, . . . everything . . . updated and fresh as much as possible. Encourage your members to pass along news, events, and great content in the niche.
9. Keep all your content in a vault that is easily searched and accessed. Members will return to your site just to “find” tips, articles, ideas, etc that they remember they saw on your site but didn’t download at the time.
10. Listen to your members and incorporate things into your membership site that they request. Features, sections, media, whatever they ask for. Sure, not everything is possible (especially for the money) but if your members feel you are listening to them and trying to satisfy their needs and requests, they will stay with you longer.
11. Develop trust. People buy from folks they know, like and trust. Likewise, they will stay with you longer if they trust you. Give them reasons to trust you. Show them that they can trust you. Put testimonials on your site from members that trust you.
12. Case studies. Are there some common wants or problems that your members are having? Start a case study and ask your members to help solve a common problem. Then give a blow by blow account of how to solve the problem based on the combined ideas and suggestions of both you and your members. Post all these case studies in one area. Let you members post their own case studies that others can benefit from reviewing (of course with your own review so that member submitted content is screened).
13. Give links to other great content. You will never have a corner on great content. Stay abreast in your niche and refer your members to articles, reports, books, videos, etc that are excellent in the niche. Some hesitate to do this for fear of sending members off-site to their competitors. But I think the advantage of you being seen as an authority and expert, even outside of your site, will pay great dividends.
14. Follow your reader’s actions on your own site. Track what they view, where they browse, etc. to learn what appeals to them, and maybe what doesn’t. Then fix or get rid of the “dusty” places and beef up the heavily trafficked areas.
15. Interact by setting up social media links. Make it easy to incorporate Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Instagram, Pinterest and other sites so that you can recommend things, offer specials, link to social media pages, etc. By making communication between your site and the social sites easy, it will encourage members to interact.
Here are some additional ways to make your site sticky:
Darren Rowse at ProBlogger.net
21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky
To your online business success,
Steve Browne
www.SteveBrowneDirect.com