Are people leaving your website as soon as they land on your pages? Unfortunately, you have a problem with user engagement.
Even if you are getting results from your current website, it pays to give your customers the best experience possible. Studies show that 86% of consumers are willing to pay more when they have a better user experience.
While there are a lot of ways you can improve user engagement for a website, some are more effective than others. Below are seven tips that will help you increase user engagement and increase your bottom line.
1. Focus on Page Speed
It’s hard to keep someone’s attention on the internet these days. Studies show that you only have eight seconds to get your visitor’s attention when they land on your website. If they spend that time waiting for your site to load, they’ll head over to the next site to find what they need.
Google provides a free page speed tester that lets you know what on your pages are slowing things down. Input your website URL to get a list of recommendations that will give you a better page speed score.
Another option is to work on optimizing the images on your website. Start by running them through a compression tool. Doing this will reduce the file size of your images without hurting your image quality.
2. Understand Your Audience
It’s easy to create content that’s interesting to you. The question is, will it be engaging for the people who are visiting your website?
Take some time to figure out what problems the people who visit your website have. They are coming to your site because they have a problem that they want to be solved. It’s up to you to provide that solution to them.
If you don’t have any ideas about how to add value, send out a poll to potential customers. They can tell you the type of information that’s engaging and helpful.
Sending out a poll can also prove that you care about their opinion. It can help you create a more loyal fanbase that will keep coming back.
3. Produce Quality Content
Once you have a list of things your visitors want to see, you need to create content on your site to fulfill their needs. The problem is, creating quality content isn’t simple.
It’s tempting to rush things out there to rank on Google and show your customers. If you aren’t careful, you can do more harm than good if your content isn’t good.
You want your content to establish you as an industry leader. It will be hard for people to trust your website if your information isn’t useful or wrong. On the other hand, proving that your information can help will keep people coming back for more.
4. Keep Things Simple
If you’ve done your job, you know why people visit your website. If you want to improve your conversion rate and increase your engagement, make sure that your content is accessible and easy to focus on.
Some website owners cram a bunch of information unrelated to the content on their pages. The problem is, this information is distracting.
Keep your website layout simple. Use plenty of white space in your design, so your content isn’t crammed together. Doing this will make your text easier to read and more skimmable for people scanning for information.
It’s also essential to reduce the amount of information on your sidebar. You want your readers to focus on your content, not on random pages off to the side.
5. Promote Related Content
Your goal is to keep people on your website as long as possible. Not only does it help people stay engaged with your website, but it also helps you rank on search engines. You aren’t going to do this if your visitors have nowhere else to go after they consume your content.
You can promote engagement and time-on-site by using internal links in your content. These links will send your visitors to other pages on your site that are related to the content they’re reading.
Don’t just put these links in at random. Make sure that the content you link to will add value. Your visitor will end up leaving if you aren’t pushing them to valuable information.
6. Create Clear Call to Actions
Creating engagement is only one part of the puzzle. Getting your visitors to take action for the end-goal you’re looking for.
The problem is, it’s hard to increase your conversion rate if your visitors don’t know what to do. You can provide the answer to them by creating a call to action.
A call to action is a small nudge for your visitor to interact with your site. This can be providing an email address, buying a product, visiting another page, or adding a comment. Keep these calls bold enough to stand out, but try not to detract from the content your visitors are consuming.
7. Personalize Your Website
People don’t like to work with brands that aren’t relatable. If you don’t do the work to personalize your brand and help it stand out, your potential customers are going to head to a more relatable site.
The first way to do this is with user information. If you have any user data from the people visiting, you can use this to personalize the content on your site. Your visitors will stay engaged when they know their experience is unique to them.
You can also do this by location. If you offer a local service, your visitors need to know that you can do the work they need to be accomplished. Add in your local area so they know that you’re local and can get the job done.
There is a lot more to learn about how to personalize a website, so find more resources to learn everything you can do.
The Battle for User Engagement Never Ends
In a world where all your competitors are doing everything they can to advertise and keep visitors on their websites, you can’t afford to ignore user engagement. Improving your website is a continuous process that never ends. Make sure to use the tips above and always test to give your customers the experience they deserve.
Are you looking for more tips that will help your business? Read our latest blog posts to learn the latest tips and tricks.
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