Boosting your Page Rank (PR) is an organic way to improve your search engine results. Backlinks are the backbone of building a strong PR but can be challenging to obtain. Posting to directories and submitting articles does help for sure. However, many times the backlinks they give you have a tag called “nofollow” associated with them. This means that the search engines won’t give these links as much weight. Purchasing backlinks from a “backlink farm” does also work but the quality of the links are poor and they quickly fizzle-out. Then you find yourself buying more links to replace them. The PR of the backlinks matters more than the quantity of them. You can have 100,000 PR zero links and your page would still be a PR zero. However, you get one solid PR 7 (very hard to get) and you could very quickly become a PR 4.

As mentioned, it can be a challenging task that you may need to execute over an extended period of time. Having something unique and of value on your site is the best way to organically attract new traffic and backlinks.  For a few examples, the ’sticky’ item may be informational, a promotional offer, or industry related tools, etc.

jweissberg Blog Articles Search Engine Optimization, Sticky Site Techniques

Of course you want visitors to come to your website and to then take whatever call to action is appropriate. If you are selling a product, you want them to buy it.  If you are offering a service you want visitors to use it.  If you have an organization you probably want to increase membership and raise funds.

But how do you gain more organic search engine traffic and how do you make your website of value to appropriate visitors.  One solution that can help with both considerations is to make your website ’sticky’.  Simply put, you can increase the time people spend on your website and how often they return by using ’sticky’ features.

So what are ’sticky’ website features.  They are generally value added opportunities for viewers to opt-in.  Some common examples are free white paper reports, free newsletters, and discount offers in return for email enrollment.  The trick here is to be creative, original and keep the offer relevant and of real value to your viewers.  In return you will build an email list of prospects for future email marketing and potentially generate additional traffic through referrals. In this manner you can build a loyal customer base and develop a following for your website. You will also distinguish your website from competitors who do not offer such value added offers.

jweissberg Blog Articles Sticky Site Techniques

1. Follow the fundamental rules of design and composition including webpage balance, focal point, ratio of positive to negative space, use of either a complementary or analogous color scheme.

2. Use an industry relevant color palette. Check the sites of competitors and trade organizations. Use a reliable color selection program, such as Color Schemer Studio, to sample and identify colors and to quickly create full color palettes.

3. Follow a simple  navigational button layout.  Its good advise to keep the button layout simple and predictable. You don’t want people having to struggle to find their way through your website.

4. Include sticky elements to capture viewer’s interest and email addresses. Commonly used sticky website elements include free newsletters or special pricing sign ups, free white papers or e-books and interactive tools relevant for your products / services.

5. Build in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO). On-Site SEO primarily involves editing the site textual content and HTML coding, therefore the easiest time to do this is while developing the website. A great time to write the SEO titles, tags and description is in conjunction with the development of the website page verbiage.

jweissberg Blog Articles Sticky Site Techniques, Website Design

Sticky content refers to content published on a website, which has the purpose of getting a user to return to that particular website or hold their attention and get them to spend longer periods of time at that site. Webmasters use this method to build up a community of returning visitors to a website.

Examples of sticky content include the following: Chat room, Online forum, Webmail, Internet games, Weather, News, Horoscopes, and much more.

Sticky content is also sometimes called sticky tools or sticky gear. Websites featuring sticky content are often referred to as sticky sites.

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