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Building Some Sticky Sites
October 18, 2006
Well, it's that time of the year - or rather, one of those times of the year. You know, when I'm pretty busy doing everything that needs to be done, which for me almost always seems to mean I start thinking up new ideas.
I've been thinking about this "sticky site" idea for a little while now, actually. And I'm just about ready to start implementation.
One of the things that I've been realizing is that, while I am definitely building my VRE empire ("virtual real estate" - thank you, John Reese), the one thing that's lacking in my portfolio of sites is a sticky site. One that is viral, that builds community, that draws people back again and again. And not only do your visitors come back, they drag their friends and family with them.
You get the idea.
I think the closest I have to that kind of a site is this one right here, the one you're reading. I do love this site, but what I love most about it is that it's a blog of my web publishing life. It's an outlet that I really don't have anywhere else.
(So I don't really want to change things too much around here.)
Right now I have three prospects for building a sticky site.
1. An existing blog that I own, which astonishingly enough got a lot of PR love in the last update and gets its trickle of visitors.
I say "astonishingly", because even though I am very passionate about the topic of this particular blog, I hadn't (up until now) been able to nail down the exact focus of the site. And I know from past experience that nothing, and I mean NOTHING, will come together for a site that I have until I nail the focus down.
Translated, what this all means is that I barely managed to post to the site once a month.
Despite this, it's actually doing "well" (relatively speaking) - well enough that I recently received a book review request from a publisher.
2. A site that Chrissie and I have been talking about doing together for a while now.
This one has a domain name that's rather appropriate, if I do say so myself.
But again, we had that focus problem - what exactly was our niche going to be? We fiddled with lots of different options, all of which were, in retrospect, too broad.
And then last night, in a series of emails, we nailed it. So this one's on the list. It's good to go, really.
And finally, 3. This one is my dream. It's the site that has been lingering in the back of my thoughts for quite a while now. It's the big one, the one that I would want to lead me to some glorious places.
It, too, has it's own domain name. It's a memorable name, perfect for this particular dream.
This one requires a lot more from me, though. Once upon a time, I would have said it required my "courage", but now I know it's more that it will require my authenticity. Not that I'm not authentic here or any other place where I write from a personal perspective. Just that it will require me to put more of me "out there". Steve Pavlina style, if you will.
So those are my choices. Knowing me, once I decide to do this, I'll probably aim for all of them. Nothing like fragmenting your focus right when you're ready to really focus, but that's just me (as anyone who followed along my 50 Affiliate Sites challenge would know).
Right now, it looks like I will be starting with Site No. 1. And once I get rolling with it, I'll probably start blogging here about my journey over there.
It will be an interesting ride. Whether or not any of these sites will be lucrative - well, my gut feeling on all of these three site ideas is that these are for the long-term.
But oh, what a long-term it will be.
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Posted by BJ at 12:10 AM in Web Publisher's Life | Permalink
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Comments
I hope that the new idea works for you. Can't wait to find out what it is and what the perfect domain name is.
It's funny that you should write this as I too have been searching to make my "sticky" / "Viral" site and I think I finally am on track to do that with http://www.BrightonVibes.com which is a site like myspace / bebo etc but specifically for people that come from Brighton in the UK.
It is my hope that the more focused location will give it more appeal to its users :) Fingers crossed. :)
Dave
Posted by: Dave G | Oct 18, 2006 5:11:06 AM
That sounds great, Dave. I think getting more niche is always a good thing. Out of my three site ideas, though, only site number 2 is really more on the niche side of things, and it's still pretty broad. So I'll have to see how things go.
Hope BrightonVibes goes well!
Posted by: BJ | Oct 18, 2006 10:59:18 AM
