by Marisa Ramondo

It’s not enough anymore in 2004 to simply register your domain name and put up a website for your business. If your website is not generating leads, attracting prospects, and you are not getting a positive impact on your bottom line, then your website is probably suffering from a ‘stickiness’ problem.

What is a stickiness problem?
Well, first of all let me define what having a sticky website means.
A sticky website is one that has the ability to:

Studies have shown that your website has an average of 10 to 20 seconds to impress your visitors. If it fails to do so, they are only a click away from leaving your website, never to return again.

You definitely want your visitors to see what your business can offer and how it can help them. The more interested visitors you receive, and return back to your website, the more likelihood they will buy from you. And isn’t that the reason why you set up your website in the first place?

We all hear about how important it is to optimize your website so that yours will be ranked on top of the search engines results. However all the effort, time and money you spent would all be in vain if the traffic generated to your website results in an immediate ‘CLICK’ out of your
cyber front door.

It is vitally important that once they reach your website, it makes a good impression, encourages them to do business with you and demonstrates trustworthiness and confidence.

How do I achieve a sticky website? Let me count the ways…

This article covers just one of the several ways to do so.

Overall website appearance:
Great care should be given to the overall appearance of your website.
Your website should be:

• Fast loading
  Heavy graphics, flash and other such applications tend to slow down the process and increase the aggravation level of your visitors.
• Consistent and simple navigation
  Your visitors should be able to find what they are looking for by the 3^rd click. They should know at all times where they are and where they can find the information they are looking for.
• Avoid unnecessary distractions
  Too many flashing banners, animated images, colour schemes with too much contrast (i.e. red text on green background) tend to distract your visitors away from your product or services.
• Make sure your website looks professional. That’s the beauty of the net. You can be working out of your garage but your website could easily stand next to any big corporations and no one will know the difference. Asking your brother-in-law or the teenager next door to do your website is taking a big chance and not worth the risk.