The initial challenge in making your website successful is getting traffic to it. And since most of you are regular readers of this newsletter, I will naturally assume you have been implementing many of the cutting edge internet marketing techniques (hint, hint) we have discussed and can also then assume there are finally floods of users arriving at your site. But as you probably have found out by now, the bigger challenge is making sure that, now that visitors are there, they don’t click away only seconds after they arrive with the impression your site has nothing valuable to offer.

Website “stickiness” is the term that refers to getting people to stay on your site and getting them to return as regular visitors. Of course the “stickiness” of your site is also a quintessential factor in determining whether your visitors become customers, and whether your website is ultimately offering its full value to your company or organization.

The stickiness equation goes something like this:

Qualified Traffic + Quality Content = Website Stickiness.

Quality traffic is defined as a user arriving at your site seeking out exactly what it is you have to offer. If you have a sports website and someone arrives looking for cookie recipes, that user would hardly be considered qualified. A sports fan that arrives at your sports website would be perfectly qualified, however.

So following the logic above, the next part of the equation is having quality content on your website. If you own a sports website and manage to draw sports fans to it, you must then seal the deal by providing a wide array of quality sports information to keep those people engaged.

I have long said web surfers have the attention spans of fruit flies and this adage becomes truer by the day. Yes, we would all like to believe our site’s visitors are single mindedly focused on what it is we have to offer. But the reality is your browsers are looking at your site while speaking with coworkers, listening to their IPOD’s, half paying attention to their boss on the company conference call, etc., etc.

Internet users are notorious for multi-tasking and the infamous back button is public enemy number one to the savvy website owner. With all this in mind, it is imperative to cut through all the noise by engaging your visitors with relevant content and sufficient interaction.

So here are 7 immutable laws to start governing your site by to increase stickiness:

1. Don’t ever, ever, ever make your users wait.

The initial interaction with your site is critical. Trust me when I say your visitors will be long gone if they are made to wait a few seconds while your page loads. My advice is to do away with any needless flash intro pages and keep the amount of graphics reasonable. When you do use graphics, make sure the file size has been properly compressed. A good rule of thumb is if a particular design element does not contribute to your visitor’s experience, then drop it.

2. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

I will probably not win any popularity awards by saying this, but appearance can make or break your website. Like it or not, people do in fact judge books by their covers and if your site is not well designed, it will leave a strong negative first impression with your visitors.

When I land on a website for the first time and see that it is poorly designed, I am gone as quick as I got there. Why? Because I make a snap judgment that the website owner is either low budget or has terrible business sense.

The look of your site will set the tone for the rest of the users visit. Right away, visitors will judge your site as professional or amateurish, as funny or serious, as cool or lame, and so on.
Keep your site consistent with a uniform appearance. Use the same backgrounds, colors, navigation menu, and site logo throughout your pages. Consistency helps your visitors remember who you are and gives your site an easily recognizable brand.

3. Be relevant or risk dying a slow painful web death.

Studies show that visitors will leave your website e seconds on average if they do not see what they came looking for within the first five seconds. Yes, I just said five seconds, not five minutes. The implications of this truth are startling.

Let’s say you are a cosmetic surgeon and are offering a special price on tummy tucks. You have spent time, energy and money on drawing visitors to your site to cash in on this special offer. But upon arriving at your site’s home page, the user is overwhelmed with unrelated information and offerings for other procedures. Chances are this user will not take the time to dig through your site to find the tummy tuck offering and end up abandoning the site altogether.

One of the most effective marketing techniques I know of to combat this all too common problem is using landing pages. Instead of sending users to your home page or other general page that does not speak to the particular need, you would direct them to a very specific and relevant landing page.

So if you were that cosmetic surgeon, you would set up a landing page with a bolded headline about the special on tummy tucks. To make even better use of the landing page, you would prompt the user to schedule an appointment and offer them an additional discount if they commit to their procedure within the next 24 hours.

The simple rule of landing pages is to be highly relevant with a specific product or service offering and drive conversions by asking the user to take a specific action. I actually just read a study that says landing pages can increase conversions by up to 1000%!

4. Give them a proper road map.

Make it easy for people to navigate through your site. Your visitors should at all times know where they are and how they got there. Every page on your site should have a navigation panel linking to the other main sections of your website. You should also have a proper Google approved site map, bread crumb trails and site search box. Your webmaster should now what these things are and if he doesn’t, it is time to get a new webmaster.

5. Serve fresh content

Does your audience have a reason to return to your site? I can virtually guarantee you that if you do not regularly update your website with new content; the number of repeat visitors to your site will be anemic at best. The reason for this is simple.

If visitors have taken the time to come back to your site only to see the same thing they saw on the previous visit, they will infer that your site does not ever change and therefore believes there is no reason to come back in the future. The goal is to get your users addicted to what you offer and serve it to them on a consistent basis.

One of the main keys to keeping your site fresh is having an on the ball webmaster who posts information to the site immediately after you have sent it to them. Should you want to take the next step, it is wise to invest in a Content Management System (CMS) which will allow you to post information straight to your website without the need for technical assistance.

6. Get interactive by asking your visitors to participate.

A few years back I renamed our company from Vegas Marketing Group to VMG-interactive. The simple reason is that I saw a huge trend going away from simply serving people information on the internet to one of interacting with people via the web. The recent rise in blogging, webinars, online chat, discussion forums and the like have only confirmed this notion.

The simple fact of the matter is that people love to get their hands dirty. Provide your visitors with ways to interact with your site and it is certain to make their experience more enjoyable and real. Add a poll, host a discussion board, or start a blog … interactivity is now the standard rule for a top quality site.

7. Use innovative tools and technology to keep your users engaged.

The profusion of new technology available has made creating sticky sites easier than ever. Ask your webmaster about audio and video plug-ins, Java-based technologies, CGI and Perl scripting, Web 2.0, Widgets, or any other new technology that can dramatically increase the quality of visit your users experience while on your site .

William Foote is co-founder and a managing partner of www.VMG-interactive.com.