When launching a shiny new website, your primary focus should be drawing in consumers. Yet, many companies overlook the importance of user engagement, leaving them with lagging customer involvement and poor bounce rates.
Fortunately, there are plenty of tried-and-true methods for boosting site engagement. So, if you’re struggling to capture the consumers’ attention and build a noteworthy website, read on for five tips to try out.
Data tells a story
Your website’s data can provide valuable insight into your customer’s wants, needs, and behaviors. As a tool, you can wield data to improve nearly every aspect of your business, including your customer’s experience.
By investing in quality site and page analytics, you can identify weak points in your user engagement. From there, you can develop strategies to improve engagement site-wide.
Clean up your layout
A cluttered website is a sure-fire way to send customers clicking away from your site. So when you design your page layout, keep a streamlined user experience in mind. A website layout that causes your customer’s eye to dart all over the page invites frustration.
To clean up your site, use white space to clean up the page and ensure every item has a clear purpose. Avoid walls of text, and break up your longer content with images or videos. Additionally, prioritize mobile users by optimizing your site for smartphone use.
Use intuitive navigation
Intuitive navigation is a factor of nearly all efficient websites, allowing users to move around the site quickly and without confusion. The last thing consumers need is a learning curve to access your website features, so keeping operations as straightforward as possible is a must.
To achieve intuitive site navigation, implement a menu and navigation system that requires little thought. Place menus in the expected top corners, nesting them to avoid having options that take up half the page.
Use varied media
Regardless of your site’s content, you want to present it in ways that appeal to all users. Like young learners, web users often want or need information presented in various forms for easy absorption.
So, if you have long blog posts on your site, intersperse the text with videos or images illustrating your points. Or, consider adding a slideshow instead of a gallery, sticking with eye-catching photos that draw in attention.
Create a solid internal linking structure
A crucial part of user engagement is keeping the customer on your website for as long as possible. Preferably, you want them to visit a few pages on your site. That said, to achieve a better bounce rate, you need to develop a solid internal linking system.
Internal links will direct users to relevant pages on your website. However, to ensure users click on the links, you should always use descriptive anchor text and choose highly relevant links. For example, if they’re shopping for bathing suits, you might want to direct them to beach bags or coverups.
Wrap up
Encouraging and increasing user engagement on your website should be a focal point when designing your site. When you use the tips outlined here, you’ll have no trouble boosting engagement and, more importantly, higher conversion rates.
