by Brenna Mae

Created on: January 11, 2009

The 'sticky blog' metaphor refers to a blog that visitors stick to: they visit, and want to return many times in the future. This is, of course, a goal for any blogger. Repeat visitors are more important than hundreds of unique visitors per day, because repeat visitors leave comments, recommend the blog to others, and provide other benefits, depending on the blog type.

To create a sticky blog, there are two practices to improve upon. First, your website's sticky monetization, which are the features your website, as a whole, provides in order to help make it 'sticky'. The second are the actual posts. Good content, or posts in terms of blogs, means automatic repeat visitors.

Monetize Stickiness
While blog posts are important, it is also important to set up your blog in such a way that visitors will remember to come back. Here are a few ways to do this:

1) Include feed icons (RSS, ATOM, etc.) on your blog somewhere. Make sure they are easily visible, and it is a good practice to use an official feed icon logo so your visitors will recognize it right away. It is also a good idea to create a "What is RSS?" page to explain to visitors what subscribing is, and how it can benefit them.

2) Add bookmarking icons like Digg, Del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon. This will allow visitors who come by to bookmark a favorite post, or the blog as a whole, thus reminding them to return. 99% of the time visitors don't come back because they simply forget.

3) Link to popular posts or features within your blog. At the end of a post, or in the footer, have an area for popular posts. There are also plugins for most blogs that automatically search for tags in your content, and link them to popular posts on the subject matter. Doing this will keep your visitors on your blog longer, and they'll be more likely to subscribe or come back to read more.

4) Make your blog more interactive. Blogs already have a commenting system, but it's a good idea to monetize the blog to focus more on comments. Create a well-seen 'Recent Comments' area, and put your comments link in a visible place. Add other forms of interaction, such as polls, contests, or a forum if your blog is popular enough. If visitors feel they're more apart of your blog community, they'll be more likely to return.

5) Allow membership, and membership content. You can keep it free, but allow your visitors to join and get access to specialized content. Most blogging platforms allow you to do this; you'll just have to research a way to do it for the

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