The Sticky Killers

Site stickiness is a big issue whether you realize it or not. All the traffic in the world won’t help you if no one stays on your site long enough to do what you want them to do. Want sales, opt-ins, or paid clicks? It won’t happen if you can’t get anyone to stay long enough to make them happen.

I’ll readily admit that stickiness has a lot to do with psychology, which is more ‘trial and error’ than ‘systematic’ to fix. The mistake is in believing that all stickiness is defined this way. Just because its not all cut and paste doesn’t mean you can’t fix the things that are obvious problems.

One big thing you can do to make your web site stickier is to eliminate the ‘Sticky Killers’. You can sum up ‘Sticky Killers’ with two major categories:

1. Negative first impressions that immediately drive visitors away.
2. Bad site experiences that drive them away after they’ve been on your site for a while.

The first problem, negative first impressions, include things such as:

• Difficult to comprehend, irritating, or ‘crowded’ site layouts and colors that cause negative gut reactions at a glance.
• Pop-ups barrages or other types of over-the-top spamming tactics like ad stacks or nonexistent content.
• A sloppy, home-made, or thrown-together look that makes your site appear unprofessional or gives the perception that it’s a waste of a visitor’s time. This doesn’t mean you have to own a fancy Flash site, but it does mean you’ll need a little thought or a good template when you make one.

Bad site experiences are the things on your site that drive visitors away after they have stayed long enough to do something. Bad experience departures are caused by things like:

• Bad navigation that makes it impossible for visitors to get around or find what they want.
• Poor content that doesn’t meet an expectation. Even sales letters are ‘content’ and the copy can be either good or bad. Or if you say you have informational/funny/interesting content and only provide junk, your visitors will leave and not in the way you want (such as through a paid click link).

Remember the two big ‘sticky killers’ when you’re making (or commissioning) your sites. Negative first impressions result in traffic leaving a few seconds after it arrives. Bad site experiences will give you decent ‘stay’ statistics, but nothing you want to occur will ever happen. Neither one is good for you or your bottom line.

Had enough of visitors just surfing away? Learn how to glue them to your pages with Flypaper Content.