Think for a moment about your own behavior on the Internet. Are there certain sites that you frequent? Why do you do that? What does that site offer to you that keeps you coming back for more? In many cases, the answer to that question is a sense of community. When visitors feel like they belong, that they get some value from a site, and that they are able to contribute some value to a site, they are likely to remain and return. This behavior can result in increased sales. So, how can you create a sense of community on your site? Here are some tried and true methods:

Give Your Visitors a Voice
Have you seen the new EZ-FormBuilder in EZ-NetTools? It makes it incredibly easy to create forms of all kinds. These can be used to give your visitors a chance to interact and participate in your site. Create a poll where the visitor will want to return to see the results. If it fits with the nature of your site, create a classified ads section on your site or a feedback form where visitors can tell you what they think about what you're doing. All of these can be achieved very easily with the new EZ-FormBuilder, and all of them can do wonders for your site's "stickiness."

One of the best ways to encourage your site's visitors to remain is with a bulletin board. EZ-BulletinBoard has changed dramatically. Our programmers took your suggestions and added in virtually all of the features that you've asked for and your visitors want. Start a conversation on your website and you will see people come back time after time to read and participate in it.

Provide Your Visitors Valuable Information
You may have heard that content is king on the Internet, but what are you doing about it? These days, search engines such as Google and others give higher rankings to those sites that are "experts" on a particular subject. Provide valuable information on your site in the form of articles, tips & tricks, photos/graphics, etc. and your site will become very popular.

Start A Mailing List
From time to time I interview owners of e-commerce websites that are doing well. One factor that they consistently refer to is the importance of generating and maintaining an Email List. Take a moment to consider what it means when visitors and customers "opt-in" to receive periodic notices from your site. They are volunteering to receive advertisements and updates from you directly in their inbox. They are qualifying themselves as being your very best targets for your marketing efforts. You need to make sure that you are giving them something valuable to keep them from opting out of your email list. If you are just advertising products, keep the text brief and to the point. A reader's patience level for long emails will be exhausted quickly. Try to focus on simple things that will bring the reader from their email to your site (ex. Enter our Free Drawing or Check out our new Closeout Items!).

One very creative EZ-NetTools user that I know of uses EZ-MailingList to provide users with valuable information and keeps her site's name in their minds at the same time. Be-Motivated.com sells motivational books and cassettes online. Visitors to the site can subscribe to receive a motivational quote via email everyday. It may seem like a lot of work, but how valuable is it for her to put the name "be-motivated.com" in front of potential customers everyday?

Three Words - Free, Free, Free
Free is everyone's favorite four-letter word. People love to get something for nothing. However, make sure that your freebie is going to benefit you as well as them. A small drawing or giveaway on your site can be a great way to draw traffic. Invite visitors to tell their friends about your offerering, and you could very well get an avalanche of visitors. Make sure that they aren't one-time only visitors. Make your giveaway a regular thing that will bring everyone back next month to enter again. Send out an email to everyone that entered letting them know who won the prize and instructing them in how to enter for the next prize drawing.

Reciprocal Linking
Related links on your site are very useful for your visitors and can have a very positive effect on your search engine rankings. Perhaps someone has already approached you to request a link trade. Did you not feel a sense of pride that someone else found your site useful and wanted to link to it? You should do the same thing. Reciprocal linking (where two different sites offer links to each other) is a very powerful marketing tool. EZ-NetTools users can use EZ-LinkTrader to facilitate the exchange, or simply find a related or complementary (not competing) website out there and email the webmaster. Tell the other webmaster the page that you will put their link and respectfully request that they do the same. Some will and some won't, but if you don't ask, they definitely won't!

Conclusion
Site stickiness refers to the extent that your visitors want to return to and remain at your site. The best way to encourage stickiness is with interaction. Encourage your visitors to participate in your site. Bulletin boards, classified ad sections, link submission pages, feedback forms and more can all be used to encourage your visitors to hang around and return to your site time and again.