In the world of web usability it’s called stickiness – the ability to keep you customers on your website and keep them coming back.

The secret to keep your visitors coming back time and time again is to provide them with a great experience, and the information they require! The theory is, if you make your website useful, interesting and easy to use then your visitors will find what they’re looking for, enjoy their stay and come back when they need further information.

Think about it, we all have favourite website to which we regularly return when we are looking for something specific. We return because we’re certain that we will find the information or product we’re looking, or a link to a site that can help.

Our favourite sites are full of easy to read content, are easy to navigate and have regularly updated content. Many of the best websites have a large number of outgoing links to other interesting sites; links that often provide more precise information, but you always return to the original site because it is your starting point, the familiar place you know and that will be the beginning of many other journeys into the sea of information that is the World Wide Web.

So the question is: how do you get to be one of the favoured few that get book marked on users’ computers?

Review your website’s content and usability and give your website some simple tools to improve your visitors’ experience. The following tips will assist in making your site ‘sticky’ and increasing traffic:

Make your site a ‘font of knowledge’
If your site has links to lots of other specialist but related information, people will bookmark you as a shortcut to get other information. In effect you become an information resource they will remember you for.

If you run a travel based website have a look at: free airport information tools supplied by AirportsInformation.co.uk – these tools will enhance the information you provide to your customers.

Review your site’s content
People like informative content that tells them easily and quickly what they want to know. Break up content with headers and bullet points – don’t have long reams of text that puts visitors off – they want to find content quickly.

Keep your content up-to-date
Search engines, and people, thrive on fresh new content. If you can’t always provide it, ensure that you have a link to good quality, up-to-date information.

Review the ‘usability’ factor of your website
Can people find what they are looking for quickly and easily? Conducting usability tests is a specialist field, but start with friends and family – sit behind someone who is not familiar with your site. Give them tasks to achieve and information to find. Get them to talk out load about what they are doing, even at this basic level you will get a fair idea of how easy your site is to use.