There are many things to think about when maintaining an online home business, If you have a website or blog no doubt at some point you will be involved with keyword research and search engine optimization. These things are important for good search engine rankings. But there is something else you should consider when optimizing your website or blog, and that is its Stickiness.

Imagine you have spent days researching your keywords, you've optimized your site to please the search engines, you've got a good marketing campaign going and your visitors are increasing in numbers daily. You have good tracking software and you diligently analyze your stats. Everything is going to plan except for one thing. No sales, sign-ups or what ever it is you require your visitors to do, they are not doing. What's the problem?

It could be the ‘hardly ever spoken about' matter of Stickiness. Many marketers often overlook this when giving advice to newbies. You could have a million visitors a day but if your site is not sticky your visitors will not perform the required actions.

So what is Stickiness? It is the ability to get your visitors to STICK around your site. Thrill them, dazzle them, beguile them, but do not bore them. Your site must contain something that your visitors want, something that will keep them their long enough to consider taking action i.e. signing-up, purchasing, clicking on your adsense ads, something.

Content Is King. It always has been and it always will be. If your site does not offer good quality content, your visitors will leave just as quickly as they arrived. Your site must teach, help or enlighten your visitor. If perchance your content is already good, but your visit lengths are still short consider some of these options.

1. Surveys. Place a survey on your site for your visitors to complete.

2. Competitions. Hold a simple competition and offer a worthwhile prize.

3. Games. Put a game of some sort on your site.

4. Discussions. People love to have their say.

5. Photos. These could be personal or scenic.

6. Newsletter. Offer your readers information they cannot refuse.

7. Articles. High quality content will not be overlooked.

Another idea worth considering is conducting a treasure hunt. The ideas is to search through the site to find an icon hidden some where within the pages, this is an excellent way to get people to search your entire site.

Websites like LabPixies offer a range of cool gadgets that you can put on your site such as the LabPixies clock, video poker game, radio, to-do list and many more. Do some surfing it is easy to find many interesting little things that can help to keep your visitors around a little longer.

Also keep in mind your audience. Be sure that your marketing efforts are geared towards the correct market and that you do not put an entertainment feature on your site that may offend.