How To Increase User Interactivity and Engagement On Your eCommerce Site

Attracting visitors and converting them into customers are two different things altogether. Unattractive website design is among the main factors that lead to high bounce rate. The modern-day customer has a lot of options to choose from, and thus demands the best experience. Such customers have access to information at their fingertips, and most of them are impatient. Many business owners are finding it hard to establish a loyal following due to the dynamics in the business world. Your website should add value for customers and provide solutions to the problems they face on a daily basis. The following are practical tips to improve customers’ interactivity.

Invest in Chatbox

A majority of online businesses have live chats where they can engage with their customers. Chats will help you do this on a personal basis, and provide clarifications as well. You can use such a platform to convert a visitor to a customer. You give instant answers to customers, making their experience worthwhile. You can also generate useful customer data such as behavior, geographical location, and demographics. Live chats are cost-effective when compared to voice and video calls.

Generate engaging content

You can present your content in various forms such as audio, blog posts, images, and videos, which should all be informative and add value to the website. You should understand your customers well and generate content that suits them. Make the content easy to read by composing simple sentences with a good flow, and use videos and images to make the content livelier. Refresh and update old content according to the current trends in the market, whilst supporting this with market figures from reputable sources. And finally, optimize the content for search engines to attract new customers. People love associating with popular brands and are mostly likely to seek solutions from websites that rank highly on search engines.

Allow customers to air their opinions

It is wise to provide a forum where customers can applaud or criticize your products, which is also a great way to generate content from clients. You can always use such information to improve the processes and how you offer the services. Send new blog posts through email to your subscribers, and encourage your followers to share your content with their friends and colleagues.

Install social media plugins

Social media has become one of the greatest tools of marketing in the modern world. Most people prefer social media marketing because it reaches customers in real-time. You can create several pages that match your domain names on various popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Install a like or tweet button on your pages to increase user engagement, and respond to customer queries and encourage them to recommend products on their networks. You can always alert your followers of new products through social media. Use various social messaging apps to converse with your customers, because this is cost effective.

Make navigation easy

Customers should easily navigate through your website to get solutions. Most visitors are impatient and will close tabs once they face challenges when navigating your site. You can place all the main categories on top of the page and subcategories just below them. Avoid duplicating information and keep the pages as compact as possible, and the layout should be easy to navigate through various devices such as smartphones, tablets and personal computers. Give the visitors a chance to switch between various views to suit their needs. Ensure that your site is mobile friendly and use standard font size and a format that caters to a range of people.

Include a Call to Action

You should have strong calls to action that causes a reaction in visitors. Use catchy headlines that are likely to lead to conversion, for example a simple quote like ‘get forty percent off’ can entice visitors to take action immediately. You can splash several calls to action all over your website. Ensure that your calls to actions are also accessible to mobile phone users - good calls to action can increase your email subscriptions, sign-ups, and sales.

Use user-generated content

Customers need to feel like part of a community to become loyal followers. Publishing their comments and testimonials will pull them towards your business. You can also send inquiries, surveys, and questionnaires to understand how they view your business. Ask them what they like about your business and what they would like you to improve. Follow up on customers who promise to take action at a later date. You can also request the customers to rate the experience before leaving your website.

Improving user engagement and interactivity requires patience and hard work. Test new opportunities that are likely to improve your online presence, and look at the website from the customers’ point of view during the development phase.