Guest Post: Gettin’ Sticky With It – How to Get Your Readers to Stick Around Longer

This is a guest post by Danielle.

It’s a simple fact that the longer you keep visitors on your site, the more popular it will become. Readers who pop in after clicking on an interesting URL, regardless of where it’s posted, are likely to stay a little longer if you appeal to their interests and give them a reason to hang around. Stickiness, or a site’s ability to keep consumers engaged, is the holy grail of everyone from bloggers to retailers. One of the most effective ways to encourage your audience to stay a while is by promoting your site through your social media networks.

Be A Social Butterfly

Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are naturals when it comes to keeping readers engaged. From personal and professional updates to games and photos, visitors have no problem hanging out. Those who log into your site by way of a social media channel spend on average 50% more time browsing and visiting pages than those who log in through the site itself. Facebook is by far the largest of these social media portals, but site owners should consider using other channels like Yahoo! or Google+.

Liven Things Up A Bit

Once social media has helped you gain followers, consider installing free online games on your site. Search for those that complement your subject matter or a topic you often blog about. For instance, if you’re a Words with Friends addict and talk about it at length, install word games. If you were raised on Nintendo, you might be interested in arcade games. Puzzle games will be a nice addition to your posts about solving the New York Times crossword or tips on improving your memory.

Make A Great First Impression

Design your site so that it’s interactive. People are less likely to click away when they finish reading the first page of your site if you engage them in an activity, such as the option to share, tweet and ‘like’ your posts. Don’t simply rely on the ease of a social media login to keep your readers around. Easy-to-click icons at the end of posts will encourage readers to pass the information on to friends on other sites. Likewise, a comment section at the end of your posts invites visitors to voice their opinions about your subject matter.

Take the Time To Get To Know Each Other

Encourage conversation about a variety of subjects, all of which can bring readers back repeatedly. This can be a blog, vlog, discussion forum, or any other method of encouraging communication between and among your readers. If visitors are passionate about your content, it will foster discussion, increasing the stickiness of your site exponentially.

Social media has created an ideal method of finding interested, passionate readers for your site, but you can’t simply rest on that fact alone. Build your site to be conversation-friendly, a place that encourages discussion and an interactive place with buttons to click and games to play. You’ll increase the stickiness of your site and, ideally, the size of your advertising income.

Danielle is an avid blogger and social media addict. In her spare time, she enjoys trying out adventurous cupcake recipes, taking her pug to the park, and meditating. Read her musings on health, active living, and sustainability on eatbreatheblog.com.