Here is a how to create a sticky site to increase your traffic and customer loyalty.

Many web sites are very short sighted.

Their one and only goal is to get their message across about their product and make the sale. They give little if any thought to following up with their visitors or giving them a reason to come back to the site. This may work fine in the short term but it could be preventing much bigger profits from being realized.

The better option is to create a site that gives visitors a reason to come back for more.

When you find ways to encourage people to keep revisiting your site, there are several excellent benefits for you. It can:

• Lower advertising costs
• Increase your profits exponentially through multiple purchases over time
• Build customer loyalty by creating a sense of community

This can be done in a variety of ways but one of the best ways to get this sticky factor going with your site is by putting up a bulletin board or discussion forum. They can be fairly easy to set up but even if you are technically challenged, you can easily find someone to install the software for you for under $50.

Discussion forums appeal to human nature in a few different ways. People want to:

• Belong to a group of people with similar interests
• Keep up with what online "friends" are up to
• Be able to give their opinion on matters

There are many choices and options for good bulletin board forum software. Some of the best bulletin boards are either free or very low cost. Some free forum software worth checking out is:

http://www.ikonboard.com (for Unix based sites) http://forum.snitz.com/ (for Windows based)

You may also want to visit other forums online and see what style and layout you like. Here are some examples with different styles and layouts:

Everybody has different tastes as to what style of bulletin board appeals to them. Some boards are a continuous thread of multiple topics while others may be organized by subject matter.

When you are first starting out, the continuous thread model may be more appealing instead of having many topic areas with very few posts.

Once you find a design you like you can usually find out information about the bulletin board's home page at the very bottom of the forum. It may say something like "Powered by Ikonboard" for example with a hyperlink to the ikonboard homepage.

Getting Your Forum Off The Ground

It will take a little while for the forum to getting rolling with posts. Don't be afraid to encourage your friends and family to visit and post a question or response. You will find that soon enough it will start to move along on its own.

A great tactic I have seen is used by Michael Green to promote his forum. He provides a once a week email with a list of the top posts of that week. This really encourages people to revisit his forum, thus making it very successful.

Site Success Tip: How Can Your Site Benefit

Are there ways that you can make your site more "sticky"? A bulletin board or discussion forum is a great way to start this process off. Your site's success may really benefit by taking some time to give your visitors a reason to come back for more.