I like to ask this question not to make myself sound like I’m straight out of 1997, when I distinctly remember the editor of a film magazine I was interning for saying that she didn’t see the need for a website for the magazine after I offered to build one! I like to ask it because the assumption now is: Yes, we need a website, of course. Everyone has one! It’s like you don’t exist unless you’re on the Internet! The default answer is “yes,” and common knowledge is that NOT having a website is a massive mistake.

But I like to question the assumption of having a website or a blog because, depending on how you answer and how deeply you let the question sit with you, it’s a huge clarifier of your website’s purpose. And most importantly, if you take the question to heart and really let it sit deeply, it can lead you to what your website’s genius could be. Genius is what makes you and your presence on the web memorable. And genius is what distinguishes an ordinary, info-pumping website into something that people flock to and feel passionate about. And that’s something that you can build into something amazing for yourself and your group.

So take a moment to answer the question of why you need a website or a blog. It’s okay if the answer is pragmatic: I need a portfolio of my photographs so I can show in fancy galleries, I need to build a platform for my writing and its audience and become famous, I need to sell baby animal t-shirts to make money to send my six children to college. This level of answer–what I like to call the “brass tacks” of web development–helps you nail down the ultimate strategy of a high-functioning, effective website. It gives you the answer to “What do you want your website to do?” It gives you a highly effective master plan.

But there’s a whole different level to this question as well. Really think about it–why do you need a website? Why do you need a blog? Let me frame it in a slightly tactless way. In an Internet that’s chock-bursting with information, opinions, thoughts, queries, and sheer huge flotillas of words–why does your website need to exist? The blogosphere is a crowded place these days and the sheer amount of information out there is astonishing to contemplate. There’s just so much out there, saying the same thing but maybe packaged in a different way. What is it about your blog and website that will make it stand out?

But I’m not asking the existential question of whether or not you need a website to add to this miasma to discourage you from putting anything out there–instead, I’m telling you to look at it as an opportunity for inquiry. (I LOVE an opportunity for inquiry.) What is it about your website, your blog, your whole internet presence–what will distinguish it from everything else? What can you contribute to the Internet that’s unique, beautiful, cool, interesting, informative and, most importantly, distinctive? What gift, beauty, insight can you contribute via your web presence that will lift it above all others? This is an even bigger question with a bigger answer — and this can lead to bigger payoffs.

Usually it takes time and some pretty heavy thinking and feeling to come up with an organic, true response to this deeper level of this inquiry. And it takes know-how and insight to craft a complementary strategy to get this beauty and genius out there via your online presence. But I invite you right now to sit with the question of why your website needs to exist–and what will it contribute to an web landscape that will lift your site above the horizon to make it genuine, distinctive and unique. Let the answer start to bubble up, and keep your eye on this space for more inquiry that will spark a beautiful answer to a strange question.

Photo by me! If you want to peep more of my art/creative work, head over to KATASHARYA.COM. (Yeah, almost the same name, one-letter difference.)

“Stickiness” is what builds audiences, and audiences create consistent, reliable traffic. This is the Valhalla of websites, the Holy Grail of your web presence–I’d argue that having a loyal, consistent audience with a strong emotional connection to your site is WAY more valuable than huge amounts of undifferentiated traffic. Because loyal, consistent audiences become your tribe, and your tribes are way more willing to listen/buy/download and generally TRUST you more. So how do you get your visitors to come back again and again to your website, building that trust and connection so that they turn into an tribe of friends and fans that is willing and eager to hear what you have to say and offer?

First things first: at the very basic level, you need to make sure your website is as functional and easy to explore as possible so that when visitors first arrive at your site, they can analyze quickly if it’s a place for them. Most people stay on websites for only 10-20 seconds after landing on your page, so you have to be QUICK in attracting the eye and focusing attention. Great visual design to delight the eye and communicate emotion and flavor, clearly organized information that makes it easy for visitors to get around your site, strong copy that invites and intrigues visitors, and fast-loading, optimized pages that don’t make browsers crash and people gnash their teeth at the thought of typing your URL in their browser: these are basics that no website should be without to be highly functional. But stickiness goes beyond mere functionality. It’s about connection–about setting up expectations and anticipation for your visitor and then meeting those expectations. There’s no way around this: it takes time and familiarity to make this happen, but these five basic principles can focus your efforts and strategy much more quickly and efficiently.

INTERACTIVITY, BABY!

If you’re a smart web strategist, you want visitors to do something while they’re at your site. You want them to sign up for your newsletter, join your list, inquire about your services, or at the very least, leave a comment somewhere. In other words, you want them to interact with you. So make it easy for them! Make sure you can be easily contacted via a variety of methods, whether it’s some combination of email, Twitter, Facebook, etc. And be proactive and creative about different ways to get people to interact with your site: run a contest, offer a free product, gather information for a survey or poll, run a web-based scavenger contest. Interact consistently and you organically create community, that most magical of words in terms of branding and marketing. I’ve found that one of the best ways to create community is well-organized, optimized commenting. Don’t underestimate the power of your commenters to bring back traffic. Make your comments easy to participate in, make them easy to read and scan, let visitors subscribe to them, let them upload userpics to people can attach visuals to a name. (I made the mistake of not having commenting on NOGOODFORME.COM for the longest time and felt like we were really behind once we did.) And of course, be responsive yourself, either in the comments or in other ways–people like knowing that there’s a flesh-and-blood entity behind the site, even if you’re just in the business of selling widgets.

GIVE YOUR VISITORS SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO

I had a screenwriting professor in film school that talked all the time about creating “a sense of future” as a powerful technique to keep audiences interested in a story. It’s startlingly simple–you hint at where the story could go, creating interest and expectation so that the viewer will stick around to find out what happens. You “plant” events in the beginning of a film (Mugatu’s fashion show in Zoolander! Rachel’s wedding in Rachel Getting Married!) that an audience will wait around to see later in the film. You create a narrative question (Will Zoolander assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia?) that an audience will want to see answered at the end of the script. Basically, you give the filmgoer something to anticipate. You cannot underestimate the power of anticipation to get human beings interested. This goes for everything from marketing to audience-building to promotion. (And even dating: if dudes realized how much ladies like to anticipate dates and how anticipation could work for them, they’d be way better about calling and making dates than just sending texts that read “Want 2 hang out 2nite?” How is that anticipation, people?!!)

How do you create anticipation? One of the most subtle but powerful ways, especially if you blog, is to be open and transparent about what you’re up to. Mention that book you’re working on, talk about the awesome product launch you’re doing in five months, chatter about the cute baby animal pictures you’re looking at for your next t-shirt line. Remember that people love stories and narrative and characters, and build that into your communications. Create anticipation and a sense of future with your content as well–create a content series and release installments (hey, it worked for Charles Dickens), run a contest and make winning a big deal, run an event and blog about the buildup and aftermath. And don’t forget to create an editorial calendar and stick to it–figure out how consistently you can blog and stick to it. Anticipation is an investment of attention, and you want to stretch that attention given to you as long as possible.

KEEP IT FRESH

Nothing makes your site LESS sticky than molding, rotten content, so get rid of that stuff! (Or at least make it clear that it’s “archival” or for research purposes, if it’s actually for research purposes!) At the very least, create an editorial calendar or schedule and stick to it. It’s fine if you don’t want to blog every day, but at least tell your visitors when to expect to hear from you. It used to be that blogging A LOT was a guaranteed traffic builder, but I’d argue now that offering relevant, current content is more important, since information changes so quickly. If you can give yourself the rep of being able to “keep up,” your visitors will keep coming back to you because they know you’re on top of your game. So be responsive to what’s going on in your field or sphere. If you blog, respond to other bloggers’ important posts and participate in a larger conversation. And here’s where passion for your subject comes in, because if you’re enthusiastic and interested, your visitors can sense that and respond to it. Freshness is what gives a website “life,” and the constant hum of quality content is like water in a desert of crap.

MAKE IT USEFUL OR AT THE VERY LEAST ENTERTAINING

There’s lots of talk about “creating value” when it comes to the Internet. Value is one of those highly subjective qualities, but it’s actually quite simple: it’s generally very useful or informative, and at its best, valuable content is highly actionable. It gives people concrete actions to take if they have a problem, whether that problem is trying to fix the annoying trackball on a BlackBerry Curve (hello, me!) or needing advice on whether a Gemini can find love with a Scorpio. Most people get on the Internet for a reason, whether it’s to find out where the Balenciaga sample sale is (try Billion Dollar Babes), if Momofuku’s still selling half-priced cookies after 5pm (no, sadly), or how to create a “sticky” website (ha ha, yours truly!) And at the very least, people want to be stimulated or entertained. Think of your website as an “information boutique,” offering curated, quality information. Find out how people are getting to your website and start creating content to fill that need. (At NOGOODFORME.COM, I discovered that tons of people were getting to our site through searching for “astrology,” so we started doing more astrology-related content.)

GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY NOW

It’s just a fact that people love free stuff. “Free stuff” isn’t just random promo swag when it comes to the Internet–it’s content. Blogs, newsletters, mp3s, podcasts, tips, tricks, e-books: give away valuable, free content, prove that you can deliver consistently and powerfully, and you’ll build an audience that will be hungry for what you have to say and offer. (And they might be willing to pay for it down the pipeline, too, if you prove it consistently enough.) The key to giving something away is that it’s got to be high value, and the more special and unique it is, the more they’ll connect to you. The Internet was founded in part on the idea of generosity and connection. Give in that spirit and people will keep coming back to see what else you have on tap; they’ll come to appreciate and like you, and when you get to that point, you have the beginnings of a connection to your audience that is way more valuable than huge numbers of random visitors who don’t know you from Eve.

Here’s what I mean–say you’re trying to get a small business off the ground and your immediate goal is to build a customer base. You want loads of people to find and buy your lovely catalog of, oh, ironic t-shirts of baby animals. You’d focus on the design of your site (since you’re selling) and you’d prioritize setting up a e-commerce system. You’d also spend time optimizing your search engine placement, getting linked somehow on the millions of adorable baby animal blogs out there, and maybe you’d create a blog yourself. And perhaps you’d create a “special deals” newsletter to highlight your products” as well as build up a concrete list of potential customers.

Or perhaps you want to be the Internet’s biggest expert on, say, fishbowl maintenance. You want to be the one CNN calls next time there’s a fishbowl crisis in the news! Then you want your website to establish your authority and expertise: maybe you start a blog or newsletter to show off your know-how, and start an Internet video show or podcast to establish and practice your media savvy. And social media becomes important if you want to connect with other enthusiasts, perhaps taking questions from your followers and building a reputation that what you’ve got to say is useful and knowledgeable.

There are so many things and features that you can have on a website, and it’s tempting to try to do it all. But too much on a website, and your audience will only be confused and bewildered and have no idea what’s important to you and what you’re there to provide them. It’s like too much Disneyland! And most importantly, maintaining a million features only leads to more work for you. If you operate on a smaller scale, you have to be wise and discerning about the things you do put on your site. So often it’s easy to get wrapped up in technical particulars and widgets and bells-and-whistles. A website can be like a new toy–it’s fun to keep soupin’ it up, like a car or a Christmas tree. But ultimately what makes a great, effective website–from a potential customer/client point-of-view, from a browser point-of-view and from a best-practices point-of-view–is a beautiful clarity about what role the website plays in your larger goals. Know this and keep it with you as your true north and it will make your decision-making process much more simple and clear as your website emerges from the mountains of code and widgets.

So before you start the complex process of putting together a web presence, sit down and ask yourself what is the most important thing that you’re trying to accomplish and what can your website can do to help to achieve this goal. Be honest and specific: create fame and reputation? Build a client base? Show off your brilliant art? Sell a million baby animal t-shirts? The more you’re clear on this, the more focused and powerful you can be in your choices and actions–not just in your website, but in life.

Photograph by me! It’s Iceland, with Mount Hekla in the distance.