You have a website. Check. You have social media accounts. Check. But no one new is going to your website and your Google Analytics is stuck on low. How do you get more traffic and engagement on your website in order to reach more potential customers? Stay tuned and you’ll get my top 5 tips for increasing your website engagement.
- Make it easy to discover your products and services
Your navigation and page layout contribute to the ease of use of your website and how likely someone is to engage with your content. What are the top 5-8 reasons why someone comes to your website? Some common reasons are to learn more about your products and services, shop online, book appointments, find your contact information, and read reviews. Talk with your customers and potential customers to find out what they most need from your website. Make it easy for customers to find your products and services and connect with you. Keep your navigation clean and simple by placing it in a space people expect to find it, either top-horizontal or in a vertical sidebar. Also consider having your navigation links in the bottom of your website (footer) for additional visibility. You can also highlight your top resources for website visitors by increasing the size and weight of your text and add visuals such as icons and stock images.
- Connect via email
When visitors come to your website make it easy to sign up for your updates and offers. Consider a pop up when visitors come to your page offering your newsletter subscription for additional resources or savings. Also, include the email opt-in on the website page for people who do not subscribe to the newsletter via the pop-up but would like to sign up for your updates after viewing more content on your website. A great way to increase your email signups is to offer a free resource to your subscribers such as a checklist, guide, whitepaper, video or something else that would be valuable to your audience. Remember to focus on how you can help and what you can offer to your network and have fun!
- Keep the conversation going with chat
Have you seen those automated chats on websites? There is something about seeing a chat box with animation and someone sending you a message that encourages you to reply back. I mean, it would be rude to not reply to the chatbot right? Many people engage with the chatbot if available on the website and can use it to find out more about your business with pre-installed FAQs, booking appointments, and signing up for your newsletter and more. You can view a demo of this feature and sign up for a trial from Drift, Intercom, and Hubspot.
- Be strategic on when you post content
Timing matters when cooking and baking and also when posting website content. A study from AddThis Academy shows that Tuesdays and Wednesdays between US business hours achieve the highest views and engagement (Add article source). You can write your content in advance and schedule the posts for the most active days on your website. Also consider scheduling new content on the same days you post new social media posts to drive engagement from social media to your website. Your email subscribers can also receive scheduled updates that lead to driving traffic to your new website content. Bring it all together with a scheduling calendar for your social media, newsletter, and website content to make it easy for you to stay on track. My favorite tools are Buffer for scheduling social media posts and Mailchimp for scheduling newsletter updates and the schedule posts feature in WordPress for website blog posts. Happy scheduling!
- Make search easy with SEO
Many people have heard of SEO, but how do you make it work for you and increase your website engagement? Start with researching search terms (keywords) commonly used for your type of business. You can also search Google Trends for data on the best search terms to use. You can compare different keywords and find the most popular ones for your website. You can use the most popular keywords for your social media hashtags and website keywords. When people search for the keywords online your website will appear in the Google search results driving more traffic and engagement for your website. I also use an SEO plugin called Yoast on my WordPress websites for increasing traffic.
Here’s a recap of 5 tips to increase your website engagement
- Make it easy to discover your products and services with a clean navigation and layout
- Connect with your audience with email subscription
- Leverage conversation chat for more interactivity
- Be mindful of when you post content for the best visibility
- Leverage SEO keywords to attract new website visitors
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Also, consider expanding your network by downloading this guide with links to some of my favorite organizations to connect with black and brown people in the UX and tech industries. I share the professional organizations that influenced my career which led to positions doing UX for cloud applications at Boeing, IBM, MATLAB and more so you can know how to discover diverse talent and bring more value to your customers and organizations.
Resources:
https://www.addthis.com/academy/5-tips-to-increase-website-engagement-with-your-audience/
https://www.gosquared.com/blog/increase-engagement-website
https://advdms.com/blog/5-tips-to-improve-customer-engagement-on-your-website/
Shanae Chapman
Shanae Chapman, Founder and CEO of Nerdy Diva, is passionate about women empowering women in business and life. Nerdy Diva is a tech startup offering branding, web development and training for growing online business. Shanae brings over a decade of experience from corporate Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurship to her clients. Her background is in User Experience, Web Design, Web Development and Cloud apps. She is a proud graduate of Saint Louis University and Northeastern University and also holds certifications from Webster University and MIT.
A passion for entrepreneurship and the direct need for an agency focused on the success of women-owned businesses drove Shanae to build Nerdy Diva. She envisioned Nerdy Diva to be a place where the clients and staff alike would feel connected, supported, and encouraged to explore creative solutions to grow successful online businesses. Nerdy Diva also is committed to service and partners with local and national non-profit organizations to share the joy of design and coding to youth.