Improving Visitor Engagement!

So we’ve got people into the door, they’re browsing, they’re returning, how can we get them to talk to us? How can we entice them to leave some details? How can we continue to tell these people our story?

Driving engagement is a constant goal and every brand is eager to tell it’s story to those willing to listen. How we cultivate visitors coming through the door into clients or customers can be instantaneous or we play the long game whilst they act hard to get.

Below I’ve pulled together some of the ways in which ourselves and some of our clients have been able to improve their levels of engagement.

Content Content Content

You’ve probably seen it a thousand times and there’s a reason why.

To build a reputation and be perceived as a genuine expert in your sector worthy of anybody’s time or money, you have to be able to generate and share content. I’m not talking content for content’s sake, it has to be consistent and of quality.

You know the one thing that will really promote engagement and everybody already owns? Opinions.

Commentary is great, opinion is better. Being able to take a view on industry relevant events or happenings and provide your take is a sure fire way of provoking counter-opinions and discussion!

Navigation

If there’s a point I could make before anyone designed their website it would be “Design for your Audience!”.

Style and design seem to go through different phases in terms of what’s popular at any given time, however you should always keep your end user front of mind. Minimalist and sleek will not work for every market, likewise with information packed homepages. The one thing to be sure of though, you have to take care to make sure your website is professional.

Invest time to measure and test what works and doesn’t work for you site. Be sure that you’re not hiding pages, be smart about your own internal linking! Make sure the site is easy to navigate and people are likely to find what they’re looking for!

Remember, you’re trying to get people to interact and nose around. If it takes hard work, there are plenty of other websites to try elsewhere.

Analytics (Entry and Exits!)

There is huge potential in here but is often at times overlooked. Pay attention to your analytics! More specifically where your key entry and exit points are on the site.

To understand where a bulk of your visitors are being generated from can allow you to begin tailoring your messages and work to your strengths. In the same breath, it can highlight certain areas of weakness in terms of traffic generation (i.e. your social media efforts pale in comparison to your weekly newsletters) and allows you to align the message you send out and at least understand what you can improve!

On the other side of it, and perhaps one we all find hard to admit, we need to understand where it is visitors tend to fall off the site and if there are common themes amongst what drives them elsewhere. It could be that the same content being pushed out via one channel is actually the same content causing visitors to leave - you won’t know until you understand the numbers!

Just ask! (Feedback and Mailing lists)

You’d be surprised at the amount of customer or clients willing to provide feedback on your services. In the same way you might also be surprised at the amount of visitors who would be willing to suggest the types of content, service, product and so on that they’re looking for (have I already mentioned opinions?).

Plainly asking visitors for their feedback on anything provides an opportunity for community engagement, albeit it can take some work to make sure you’re taking all that might come flooding in!

Another thing to add here is make sure you provide ample opportunity for visitors to join a mailing list to receive information from you. That is ultimately the end goal right?

Experiment

The final point is, be sure to experiment. It’s easy to reach the point where the website is made, it looks great and it’s left at that.

Don’t be afraid to try new things out in terms of traffic generation and engagement, the worst case scenario is something doesn’t work but you can always switch it back. One of our favourite quotes here at CANDDi is “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”.