So, you’ve managed to convince users to land on your website – congratulations. But what about website engagement? While unique visitors is an incredibly important metric, what’s most important is the steps your users take once they’ve landed.
- What is website engagement?
- Why is it important for SEO?
- How do you increase website engagement?
- Why does content matter?
- Tailor content for your goals
What is website engagement?
Website engagement is any interaction a user has with your site once he or she lands on a page. This can be closely aligned with your goals, for example, you might want sales or leads from an enquiry form.
Hence, we track measurable indicators of website engagement like clicking a link, buying a product, or filling out a contact form.
Why is website engagement important for SEO?
Website engagement is also a key ranking factor. We need to engage our users because it shows search engines that our content is serving a purpose. For example, an unengaging website might have what’s known as a high ‘bounce rate’ – the percentage of people who leave after viewing one page.
If we can encourage users to click on other areas of the site, and interact with things like videos, polls or financial transactions, Google will consider our site useful and rank accordingly.
Google also tracks metrics like ‘dwell time’ – the time spent on a page clicked through from a results page. Ideally, we should avoid this with helpful content.
How can we increase website engagement?
Increasing website engagement happens both on-site and off-site. For example, certain off-site tactics we employ can increase the user’s chances of engaging on-site, such as a targeted social media post. If this post is engaging enough to share, it will influence others to click through to your site and read your content.
The same applies to the journeys users take on-site. For example, we might measure:
- What PPC ads generate the biggest number of converting clicks
- If users engage with online chatbots/customer live chat
- The path users take to get to a contact form/enquiry page
Don’t forget – every page needs a clear goal. For example, it’s needless filling a page with subscription forms or downloads if your ultimate goal is to sell.
Why content matters
We can link the above user journeys to the king of digital marketing: content. By creating engaging content that answers user questions, we’ll keep visitors on-site and increase our chances of conversion. We can do this in a number of ways:
Creating content based on search queries
Your content should satisfy users’ needs, so this all starts with keyword research. For instance, you might try Google’s ‘people also ask’ function to see what kind of questions people are asking about your industry.
This could lead to a long-form informative blog, which not only answers the initial question, but acknowledges further concerns.
Internally linking through to transactional pages
To increase user engagement, we want to avoid the dreaded bounce. Ensure your informative content naturally links to your conversion pages with a call to action.
Personalising chatbots based on landing pages
If content is king, personalisation is at least a prince. You can automate chatbots to ask certain questions depending on the page users land on. This will more likely satisfy their query and keep them on-site.
Increasing quality scores with appropriate keyword distribution
If you are using pay-per-click advertising, your landing page content needs to match your targeted keywords. Always look out for ‘quality scores’ in Google Ads. You may just need to tweak your keywords (but not stuff!) or add more content to make sure your page answers the question.
Making your content interactive
Modern-day content is no longer about text alone. It’s about images, videos, polls – anything that will encourage the user to click and stay on the page, or even share content!
Keeping the user experience simple
While these elements will help, don’t forget to remember user experience. Make sure rich media doesn’t take over the page, or worse still, overlap content. This is especially important for mobile SEO as it may prevent users from clicking through to convert.
Tailor your content for your goals
As we’ve seen here, everybody measures goals on different metrics, whether that’s clicks or bounce rate. What’s important is that you tailor your content for your goals. If you want to inform users with moving images, add a video! If you want to provide a personalised experience, add a live chat!
With a user-first approach, the results will speak for themselves.
