When you are building a website, one of the first things you think about is how you are going to engage your visitors. Whatever your goals are, you need people to come to your site and spend time engaging with the content, but how can you achieve this?
It is not always easy to get people to spend lots of time on your website and click through different pages, but there are many things you can do to help boost engagement.
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Brand Identity
The more people identify with your brand, the more likely they are to engage with it on a deeper level. Your website might have some amazing information, but if it is missing out on that connection with users, then it probably is not going to maximize engagement.
When people identify with your brand, they want to be close to it, and this often results in people coming back to your site time after time and engaging with your content.
Make Use of Your Blog
You want to make use of every opportunity you have with your website. Your blog is one of the most useful tools you have, but still many websites do not use it.
The blog is a perfect opportunity to answer the questions people might have about your products, business, industry, etc. It is an ideal way to begin to build relationships with your users and take the first steps towards turning them into customers.
A good blog can greatly increase your visibility and drive high levels of engagement.
Create Valuable Content
The most important thing if you are going to make use of your blog is that you focus on valuable content.
If you just put together a 150-word blurb that is totally focused on your product specs, it is of no use to anyone – they have got your product pages for that. Instead, focus on ways you can help solve your target audience’s problems and answer their questions.
When you offer people real value, then they will stick around and read what you have to say. Once you have established trust, then it opens the door for much greater engagement.
Understand Your User Personas
Who is using your site?
If you do not understand the people who are using your website, then it is much harder to engage them on a deep level. The more information you know about your users, the easier it is to create a great experience for them, and this is where user personas come in.
User personas are detailed pictures of your audience you create. They tell you the basics such as gender, age, and location, but they also go deeper and paint a picture of people’s motivations.
Some of the most important things we want to know are:
- What are your target audience’s pain points?
- What questions do they have?
- How do they search for information?
When you have a clear answer to these questions, then suddenly you have a blueprint for reaching your target audience with valuable content. From here, you have got a great opportunity to build engagement as you can talk directly to your target audience and focus on their wants and needs.
User Experience
You can have the greatest information on your website, but if the user experience is poor, then you are going to struggle with engagement.
One of the most annoying things for users is when websites do not work as they are supposed to. All people really want is a fast, clean experience, but many sites over-complicate things and this can alienate people.
When pages load slowly, links do not work, and a website is hard to navigate, people will simply look for their information elsewhere. If your site has a below-par user experience, then this could be severely holding back your levels of engagement.
Answer the Next Question
To keep people engaged, you want to keep them on your website. One of the ways you can do this is by going a step further than just answering someone’s question in your content and answer the next question they have as well.
The way you can do this is through internal linking, and it is an important part of your SEO. This is how you link your content together and guide people through your website.
Make sure you are linking to relevant content throughout your articles and give people the option to dig deeper into the subject if they wish to. This is a natural way of keeping people on your site longer and getting them to engage with the content.
Calls to Action
You probably have a picture in your head of the journey you would like people to take on your website. Are you making this obvious to the user though?
Often, people do not just take action – they have got to be prompted to do so. The way you do this is through calls to action, and they can make a big difference.
Make it obvious what steps you want people to take next (without being too pushy), and they are much more likely to actually take them.
Use the Right Applications
Running applications on your website is a bit of a balancing act. The right ones can add to the experience, but too many will make your users feel bombarded.
There are some great apps out there that can help you engage visitors though, so search around for the best ones. Apps such as the ones that allow you to use proactive chat can add great value for your users and help you get more engagement.
Keep in mind that you do not want to over-clutter your website though!
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an ideal way to supplement what you do with your website.
Sometimes, a user will come to your website and love everything about it, but when they leave, there is no guarantee they will come back. If you are getting people’s contact details, though, you always have the ability to create touchpoints through email marketing.
This is a useful way to create engagement but remember the principles that got you this far. People are trusting you with their contact details, so you have still got to make sure you are offering value with everything you do.