3 Simple Ways to Engage Your Website Visitors

Captivating visitors should be the top priority of your website. With viewer attention spans dwindling and online competition rising, it has become more and more important to drive an audience to your website — and once there, keep them engaged and navigating through the customer funnel.

Luckily, there are a variety of things to do to engage with these individuals. You could add CTAs on the bottom of your blogs, or include lead flows throughout your website to push visitors forward to next steps. But I wanted to simplify the process as much as possible. So here are 3 straightforward and easy ways to keep your visitors engaged while on your website.

1. Create Interesting and Trustworthy Content

If you follow our blog, you know that we really drive the message home that “content is king.” But, that’s because it’s true. This is one of the most simple things you can do to intrigue website visitors. Give them something interesting to read that tells a story – put yourself in their shoes and think like them. What would they enjoy reading? What problems are they looking to solve?

The content should be trustworthy. Give the facts and provide useful information. Create a relationship with your viewers so they can learn to depend on you. There is a ton of bad information out there, so by creating great content, you easily stand out from the crowd.

What is great content? It engages. It provides value.

“Good content deconstructs the complex to make it easily understood: It sheds the corporate Frankenspeak. It conveys things in concise, human, and accessible terms,” wrote Ann Handley in the book, "Everybody Writes.”

Be thoughtful with your content so that you have an interesting and helpful website that always puts the consumer at the front of mind. As your website visits grow, you will notice a community growing around your content. People with share and interact with your posts and hopefully become ambassadors for your brand.

2. Tell Your Story

People love stories. They also love to feel connected to the brands and companies they work with. People want to trust you and know that there is a human behind the site.

TOMS Shoes is one of my favorite examples of great corporate storytelling. They have a video series called “HQ Updates” that highlights the individuals who work behind the brand. This video has nothing to do with shoes, but makes me want to go out and buy a pair. It is successful because it puts faces to the TOMS name. It gets personal, showing not only their role in the company, but also about what they like and where they are from. It looks like a really awesome company to work for. 

While I am a big fan of video, your story doesn’t need to be a video. You can write an engaging story for your “About Us” page. But as you read further in this article, you will see that video is gaining more and more traction among viewers…so it may be a good idea.

Your story doesn’t even need to be on your website to gain interest in your brand. With social media apps like Snapchat, Instagram Stories, and Facebook Live, you are able to share short snackable stories about your brand to engage with your audience. It gives your potential customers insight into the people behind the company and humanizes the brand for them. These stories offer a glimpse into your business and also a great way to test new content since the videos only live for 24 hours. Or maybe let your customers create your story for you with their own Instagram stories or Snapchat feeds that show them interacting with your brand or product.

3. Engage Your Audience Longer with Video

If video isn’t part of your marketing plan, it should be. Including video on your website is key to driving results and having repeat visitors. There wouldn’t be YouTube stars today if this weren’t true. Remember what I said about attention spans dwindling? Video is the way to beat the odds. People love watching videos and will typically remain engaged much longer than they would on a website that is made up of just words. Plainly put – video is a game changer.

Here are a few facts to help highlight the importance of video:

• A study by eyeviewdigital.com reports that including video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80%.
• YouTube reports mobile video consumption rises 100% every year.
• Forrester researcher Dr. James McQuivey estimates that one minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words. Take a moment and let that number sink in.
• Forrester Research also found that it is 50 times easier to rank #1 on a Google page with a video.
• According to Mist Media, the average visitor spends 88% more time on a website when it includes video.

Individually, each one of these points will work to keep viewers on your website. Remember, though, that this is very much a process. Keep constantly adding great information to your website to maintain attention and keep your visitors coming back for more!