The Importance of Engaging Visitors on Your WordPress Website.

Why is Engagement So Important?

You have put time, consideration, sweat and tears into maximising your SEO so that your WordPress website is finally being found – so why am I not seeing more enquiries? Why are visitors leaving and not returning?

Most website owners dream of doubling, trebling or quadrupling the amount of traffic to their website without considering what these crowds of visitors do once there.

You need to create clear pathways or journeys for these visitors to find what they are looking for, wander into less relevant sections that have no way of capturing them or bounce – never to return.

Why Visitor Engagement Matters

• Boosts SEO: A site’s search engine rankings are directly linked to your visitors’ engagement level. A matrix, including time on site, pages per session, etc., measures engagement.
• Increases Conversions: There is an apparent correlation between engagement and higher conversion rates. The longer visitors spend on your site, the greater the chance they will convert.
• Builds Loyalty and Trust: You need to consider repeat visitors and how building a relationship with visitors creates a sense of community and kinship.
• Enhances User Experience: Visitors who engage with your site are a primary source of feedback that can help improve UX for future visitors.

Strategies to Engage Visitors

Quality Content

• Relevance: Content must deliver on its initial promise and impart the knowledge or experience the visitor expects. Nothing makes visitors bounce more than irrelevant content.
• Value: Visitors seek more than knowledge; they require actionable insights and valuable information. Maintain a high standard of quality.

Interactive Elements

• Comments and Discussions: Encourage a lively comment section and engage with visitors; they are an essential source of primary feedback.
• Polls and Surveys: Use these tools to gather opinions and keep visitors involved, but avoid making your research seem interrogatory or judgmental.

Visual Appeal

• Attractive Design: There is no excuse for bad design. Visitors expect a visually pleasing website to ensure they are happy and will stay longer.
• Multimedia: Use various media to engage your visitors, including images, videos, and infographics. A choice of different media ensures a more excellent range of engagement.

Personalisation

• Tailored Content: If you have the data and platforms that allow for highly tailored materials, making their visit as enhanced and detailed as possible makes sense. This level of engagement has limitless potential.
• User Profiles: If you can offer users the ability to create profiles and receive customised experiences, engagement is practically assured. 

Tools and Plugins for Engagement

• Interactive Plugins: Update or select plugins such as Disqus for comments, WPForms for surveys, and others that support engagement. If in doubt, always check with your website manager to ensure plugins do not conflict with or affect other core plugins. 
• Analytics Tools: Many different analytic tools are available to help track engagement metrics and gather insights. Google Analytics is a must, but you can select others based on your requirements rather than their capabilities. 

Conclusion

Engagement should be a fundamental goal of any website. Your engagement strategy should detail your customer’s journey from landing on your site and clearly lead them along the path you want them to take. If engagement is left to chance or considered an afterthought, you will fail to achieve the goals you hope for. Use the strategies and points covered in this post to improve your engagement considerably, but constantly monitor and adjust to ensure continuous growth. Analytic tools and carefully selected plugins will help track and analyse the data, so use the insights to refine and improve the strategy.

If you would like someone to help you navigate this subject and provide services that will fulfil your engagement goals, contact us today. We will happily help. Or get your  Free WordPress Website Audit