A successful website focuses on user engagement. When visitors land on your site, you want them to read your content, interact with your forms, and click-through on your calls-to-action. Essentially, this is user engagement in action, but this term goes much deeper than that. For your website to be successful, you should know how to maximize user engagement to boost leads and revenue in the future.
What is User Engagement?
User engagement is when your website visitors appreciate your content enough to absorb your brand and engage in it. When user engagement is high, your audience is more loyal to your brand. You’ll notice users reappearing on your website that leads to higher conversions because your website works.
Examples of User Engagement
There are various types of user engagement. The following examples of user engagement will help you get more traffic to your website and maintain user engagement.
1. Purusing & Absorbing Content
When a visitor of your website reads your homepage and then clicks to other pages, that’s user engagement because the person is actively learning more about your business and services. The more informed the person becomes, the greater the chances that he or she will buy from you. This increase in accessing your information is why website user engagement is vitally important to your success.
2. Active Participation
Active participation is when a visitor comments on your posts or engages in a discussion. Other types of active participation include completing quizzes, answering polls, taking surveys, or interacting with chatbots. These elements enhance engagement while offering fun incentives to give your visitors a reason to spread the word and return to your website for more.
3. Social Shares
If your website provides new and exciting content, then visitors will be more apt to share it. For example, if visitors like your blog, they may hit the social share button to share your posts with their friends. The very act of pressing your social buttons counts as user engagement.
Please note how HubSpot presents many options for site visitors to share their brand’s content across the web intentionally. Social share buttons, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are sure to enhance user engagement across the website and your brand’s social profiles.
4. Viewing Videos & Images
Offering a media gallery page provides visitors with plenty of content they can peruse at their leisure. Keep in mind that even the images on your homepage should be visually appealing. Blurry or otherwise poor-quality imagery won’t engage users.
The Best Way to Maximize User Engagement
1. Create a Fast-loading Website
Your web pages should load instantly to keep visitors engaged in your various web elements. Even a one-second decline in load speed can harm user engagement and conversions. More conversions mean your site is becoming more visitor-centric and user-interactive.
Google Analytics offers speed suggestions under the heading Site Speed. You can also use a tool like GTMetrix, which gives you site speed suggestions if your site happens to load slowly.
If there is room for speed improvement, put effort into that first. You could have the most visually impressive website in the world, but if it loads too slowly, you won’t keep visitors for long.
2. Simplify Your Layout
Suppose your site confuses people—this can lead to higher bounce rates. When your layout is too busy and users can’t find what they are looking for, they will leave. Switch to a more straightforward design to keep users engaged.
First, your menu should stand out and provide just enough imagery to impress your audience, so they make wise navigation decisions. Then, use plenty of white space so your content is more visually appealing and accessible.
For instance, paragraphs should be short, concise, and to the point. Also, utilize readable fonts and text sizes. Again, your website could have the best, most valuable information, but if your visitors can’t read it, they will bounce.
3. Streamline Your Site’s Navigation
Your site visitors should be able to find the information they crave within two or three clicks. The bottom line is that if your website is too difficult to navigate, your bounce rates are going to rise, and user engagement will plummet. However, take bounce rates with a grain of salt. Sometimes users find what they are looking for quickly and leave. In this case, the user converts, and this is a positive result.
In essence, a best practice is to provide a simple navigation menu and make good use of page and blog post categories to make information organized and constantly accessible. For best results, also include a search box so visitors can always find what they need instantly.
Contact Us
Is your company dealing with any challenges related to user engagement? We understand that customer engagement is one of the most essential components to a successful website. Contact us today to learn more about our collaborative digital solutions that include brand development and customer engagement strategies.
Need help getting your customers attention ? Let’s Talk.
We also created an eBook to help you Five Ways To Authentically Engage Your Customers
eStream Vol.1 – Customer Engagement
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