User engagement is an all too often overlooked factor when developing an effective website.
What exactly is user engagement?
User engagement is a measure of how much visitors interact with website content. For example, visitors who stay on a website to explore its content (videos, images, pricing information, FAQs, etc.) and “engage” by liking and/or sharing comments about your website content. When user engagement is high, this is a strong indication that your website is effective in keeping visitors interested in the information presented and sharing it with others. Thus, higher user engagement can build a larger and loyal audience to your website. If you are selling a product or service, high user engagement should result in better conversions.
What is a Conversion?
A conversion is the process by which a website visitor takes a desired action such as clicking a link, purchasing a product or completing and submitting a form.
So, without further adieu, here are five ways you may be able to improve user engagement on your website.
Ensure Your Website is Mobile Friendly
Although statistics vary, it is estimated that over 60% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. That’s a lot! So, in order to ensure the best user experience (UX), it is important that your website is mobile friendly (responsive design) so that browsing your website from a smart phone or tablet can be easier.
Build a Fast Loading Website
No one likes to wait for a web page to load, particularly, when out and about, from a smart phone, it is important that your website takes into account slower download speeds from use of a cellular network. Website pages that load slower lead to a higher bounce rate and lower conversions.
Eliminate Web Page Clutter
When a website has too much text within a poorly laid out design, can reduce user engagement. So, strip out unnecessary verbiage, images, etc. and use a more efficient, simpler website design layout with intuitive calls-to-action and navigation.
Present Relevant Content
Unfortunately, some websites have everything but the kitchen sink thrown up on it in an effort to appeal to everyone. Unfortunately, your website cannot appeal to everyone and to attempt to do so, will surely result in a lot of information that is not relevant to most visitors. When presenting only relevant content, you end up reducing the clutter on your website, making your website more appealing to visitors.
Interlink to Related Content
To increase user engagement, it can be quite helpful to “interlink” to other related content. For instance, if on your web design services page you not only describe the different services you offer, but link to other web pages of related content (i.e. WordPress Theme Development, SEO services, etc.) user engagement should go up.
One more Way To Improve User Engagement
Add a search box, search bar or search field to your website pages. This makes finding what visitors are interested in, faster and more convenient. This should not only improve user engagement, but increase conversion rates.
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