Sites that engage visitors to click around, stick around and come back for more will help you sell your stuff. Sites that don’t? By today’s standards, they suck.

What’s the opposite of suck?

I want to say “blow,” but I want this here post to get an A-rating, not an X . So instead, let’s say “push.” Or better yet, “publish.” You good with that? You better be. Today, you need to become a publisher of valuable online content. Perhaps you don’t entirely abandon “pull” marketing strategies, provided you’ve found some that work for your business model, but you better jump on the content creation train or prepare to be derailed by those that do.

Are you uncomfortable with publishing?

You best be fixin’ to fix that. (Sorry, just got back from vacationing in the sweaty, but sweet state of South Carolina.) The age of creating websites with nothing but features and benefits ended. If you haven’t got the memo yet, consider this it. So if you’re not comfortable with publishing the delicious content the consumer craves, make a few changes. Hire a writer, blogger, and/or someone who can be your social media sherpa.

Engage is the rage.

Amazon. Netflix. Dell. These sites don’t suck. They rule the content creation kingdom. Customers find reviews, references, recommendations and radical amounts of information at these sites. And the information is far from canned. It’s personalized. It’s meant to engage the customer and it does. Do you think you’ll arrive at one of these sites and then quickly move on? Very unlikely. They offer you content you want to read, hear, watch, and interact with. You’re in for some fun. You’re likely to spend some time—and money—there.

Remarkable.

My heroes at HubSpot, gurus of “Inbound Marketing,” call this sort of thing “remarkable content” (stuff you make remarks about). Your company needs to (1) create remarkable content or (2) create a time travel spaceship capable of transporting you back to 1999. Which is the more practical choice?