Are you sending visitors away or inviting them in? As a web user, I know how easy it is to click the back button to go to another website. Having good information isn’t enough. Presentation counts. It’s got to be easy to find, readily understood and persuasive. In short, you need a sticky website.

In last month’s updating tip, I talked about knowing the purpose of your site. It is your purpose that identifies your target visitor and your visitor determines your content. What you say, how you say it and what it looks like all contribute to the visitor’s experience. If you’d like people to stick around, you need to make your site inviting.

Ask yourself these questions about your homepage:

• Are you giving the visitor just enough information to want to click through to another page for more detail?
• Is the vocabulary and tone appropriate for your target audience?
• Are you using type sizes, styles and colors that make your site easy to read?
• Is there enough contrast between the background and copy?
• Are your paragraphs short and simply? Have you included headlines, sub-heads or bullets to help the reader find information?
• Do the pictures and graphics help tell your story as well as add visual interest to the page?
• Can your visitor easily see how to get to other pages on your site? Have you included links in your paragraph copy?
• Do you have a good reason for including blinking or moving elements on you page?  If not, get rid of them, they distract from the content, take a long time to load and annoy the visitor.

When a visitor finds you through a search engine, you are competing with is all the other organizations that came up in the search. The decision to stay or leave happens in less than 15 seconds. You have a short time frame to catch a visitor’s interest. Don’t make it more inviting to leave. Be sticky.