User engagement is a critical indicator determining the ranking and success of your website. Even if you manage to attract enough traffic, it won’t mean anything if you aren’t able to engage your website visitors, before you convince them to complete the desired action (subscribe, make a purchase, etc.). In addition, engaging users will prevent them from leaving your site within several seconds, which will affect your bounce rate.
So how exactly can you boost user engagement? In this post, we’re outlining 5 tips that will help you effectively engage with website visitors.
Make Navigation Simple
If a lot of your website visitors leave, maybe it’s because they are unable to find something.
If your site is difficult to navigate, it will result in poor user engagement and a high bounce rate, so the first thing you should do is re-organize and simplify your navigation structure so that users can find what they’re looking for without too much effort.
Companies frequently work with WordPress agencies to optimize their website’s user interface and improve overall navigation. These agencies can help create a seamless, intuitive design that enhances user experience and keeps visitors engaged longer.
Some of the things that make for complicated navigation include poor categorization and an inaccessible navigation bar, so be sure to pay special attention to these elements. Ensure that all your important links are accessible from your main navigation and group your like in order to avoid a big mess of links. Depending on your website’s style, consider employing “sticky navigation”, i.e. navigation that stays with the visitor while scrolling.
Improve Loading Times
If your pages take too long to load, visitors will likely get frustrated to wait. Studies have shown that one in four visitors will leave a website that takes more than 4 seconds to load, and more than 45% of users won’t return to a poorly performing site.
In order to solve this problem, start by conducting a page speed test using free online tools such as Pingdom or Google Page Speed Insights to see how long it takes your site to load. If it takes more than 2 seconds, make a plan to improve the loading times. Consider removing any unnecessary elements from your pages and limiting the number of images per blog post in order to boost your loading speed.
Add WhatsApp Chat to Your Site
Is it possible to embed WhatsApp chat in websites to increase engagement? It is, and many companies are now doing it. Not long ago, most businesses offered live chat as a mean means of communicating with customers. But as more and more people appreciate being able to use their favorite channels to communicate with brands, companies are now starting to offer alternatives.
When you engage customers through WhatsApp, you’re able to understand the thought process of their buying journey during conversations. This allows you to make more relevant product recommendations, increasing the chances of making a sale. WhatsApp makes customers feel that you know them well enough to know exactly what they want, which can contribute towards creating long-term engagement with your brand, ultimately resulting in customer loyalty and retention.
Rely on Gamification
In recent years, we’ve witnessed a massive increase in the use of gamification by brands.
Gamification is the incorporation of game-design elements into a non-game context and can be used on all types of websites such as eCommerce, blogs, quiz portals, online communities, etc. Gamification can also be used for different niches, making it a very versatile tool that sets your site apart from the competition and ensuring brand recognition.
By rewarding their customers for completing certain tasks, brands seek to boost loyalty and engagement, improve communication, increase traffic, entertain, educate, motivate users to take more actions on their website, get valuable information about customer behavior, etc.
If you are thinking about employing gamification as a strategy to increase engagement, consider using a WordPress gamification plugin. Using a gamification plugin to your WordPress website is a great way for your brand to boost traffic and user engagement in the long run.
Gather Email Addresses
Engagement is more than just engaging with new website visitors once; it is also an ability to convince visitors to return to your website. The best way to achieve this is by collecting visitors’ email addresses, which you can then use for sending updates. Email marketing offers an excellent opportunity to re-engage lost visitors and converting them into buying customers.
Consider creating a pop-up opt-in form, placing a subscription form on your sidebar, or adding an opt-in box at the end of your blog posts.
Final Thoughts
Increasing website user engagement can be a long and daunting process. Once you decide to make some changes, you will likely be forced to face some harsh realities. For instance, you might discover that your website is too cluttered or visually unappealing, or that your content is poor. All this means that you will need to make extensive changes. But don’t fret. Boosting user engagement isn’t something that happens overnight. In fact, it’s best to create a solid strategy and increase engagement slowly over time. Use this list as a starting point and start making slight improvements that make your website faster, more attractive, and more interactive.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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