With millions of websites on the internet, getting traffic has become more difficult than ever. If there is no user engagement after landing on the website, it hardly matters how good your products/services are.
As the attention span of the target audience continues to go South, keeping them engaged is a challenging proposition. However, if you do a careful analysis of your potential visitors and their preferences, you can keep them engaged long enough for a CTA.
In this blog, we will discuss seven elements that encourage high user engagement. If you work on them and get them correct, you can increase traffic and get more leads and sales.
7 Website Elements to Focus Upon
There are many elements that constitute a website, but some are more important than others when it comes to user engagement. Let’s see which they are.
#1 Content
Nothing can be a more engaging element for a website than the content itself. You need to have relevant and precise content to keep the users engaged.
The content should focus more on delivering value to the visitors and less on your brand. To do this, you should know your target audience well.
You should tell your target audience how they can benefit from your products or services. Write in a conversational tone making use of words like “You.”
Your content should be scannable, as visitors will scan the content first before reading it in detail. For this, you must use short paragraphs, bullet points, and infographics.
You should also check out how the content looks on a mobile screen, as many visitors may access your website via a mobile device. The size of the text should be appropriate or adjustable.
#2 Choice of Colors
Colors have a psychological impact on the minds of visitors, and that is the reason why you should choose colors wisely. Red attracts attention instantly, whereas lighter shades are soothing to the mind.
Contrasting colors on the same page has its own appeal. You can also add contrast between the background, text, and buttons.
The emphasis should be on simple colors that can attract users’ attention. Colors also give cues to the user on how to respond to a particular message on the screen.
If you are not sure about which colors you should use, you can go for A/B testing to decide.
However, you should not go for too many colors as they can be distracting to the user. So, restrict yourself to two or, at the most, three colors. This makes it easier for the users to focus.
#3 Navigation
The navigation menu on the web pages is a very important element of a website and has a major impact on user engagement. If your visitors find the navigation confusing and slow, they will leave immediately.
Just imagine how users will find the information they are looking for without correct navigation. A good navigation system will reduce the bounce rates considerably and engage the visitors.
The sections should be arranged in a logical order to increase user engagement. You can go for an F-layout for your website. The F-pattern happens to be the most common eye-scanning pattern.
Website visitors do not read but scan the webpage, and F-pattern is most suitable for that.
#4 CTA (Call-To-Action)
A CTA button is an important element for user engagement on a website. It should ideally be located at the bottom of the page and engage the visitors to take action.
The action could be signing up for a newsletter, taking part in a survey, or purchasing a product/service.
The ultimate aim of any website is to get more visitors to take action, which can lead to conversions and sales. This is what makes CTA buttons so important for engaging users.
You should carefully decide on where to put your CTA button, the text it would have, its color as well as its shape.
Conversion starts with gated content like free ebooks, free consultations, newsletters, and exclusive access. For this, you need to have great CTAs.
#5 Interactive Infographics
Infographics provide information in the form of images and text put together. They can be used as an interactive element.
This can be done by asking the user to click on the infographic to keep moving forward and go through the information.
You can even go for personalized infographics, which change according to the user’s specific requirements. They can input some parameters which will change the infographic accordingly.
For industries like staffing and recruitment, professional recruitment website design solutions often include interactive infographics to showcase their expertise and services. Even small businesses can benefit from the use of infographics to engage users and interestingly deliver information.
#6 Social Media Buttons
With the rise of social media, it has become difficult not to include them in any blog post, article, or webpage. They are also a great way to engage users, as almost everyone has social media accounts these days.
It has also become a very powerful tool to increase word-of-mouth publicity and brand awareness.
This is the reason why you should include social media buttons on your web pages. Users will share your content if they like it or find it interesting.
You must add nicely designed buttons for sharing blogs, infographics, and statistics.
#7 Videos
As the majority of users like to watch rather than read the text to get information about your products/services, adding videos can be a good way to engage them.
Thus, inserting videos about your products/services can serve the dual purpose of marketing as well as keeping the users engaged.
In these videos, you can also showcase your brand’s personality while introducing your products/services.
Videos can positively influence the decision-making process. However, your videos need to be precise and not very long.
The videos have to be placed strategically on your website to get the visitor’s attention. It adds a bit of movement to your website as well, making it more dynamic.
Bonus Tip: You should also include social proof in the form of ratings, reviews, and testimonials. This can help users make purchasing decisions as they are more likely to trust your previous customers than you.
So, you should have a section on the website which is specifically designed for social proof. In the case of B2B websites, including Case Studies is also a very good option. However, do not bombard users with too much of it.
Wrapping Up…
User engagement is necessary if you want to get more leads and grow your business. Your website is your digital representative, and it cannot be taken lightly.
Hence, focus on these seven website elements to increase your user engagement.
If you focus too much on SEO, you will get traffic, but without user engagement, it is of no use. In case you need help in developing your website, we can help you at w3speedup.