In today’s world, to rank on Google’s search engine result page or simply SERP, you not only need to have an outstanding SEO, but also a highly engaging content and website. Over the years, user engagement has become one of the imperative things that help you sell more and more; be it products or services.
What Precisely is This User Engagement?
User engagement, as the name suggests, is the way your website gets a user engaged with your services and pages.
If the user is passively looking for products without a defined path or goal and exits the site within a short span of time, then you are going to have less user engagement. Meanwhile, if the user is continuously reading the articles and then going to visit other pages as well, then your website will end up having a high user engagement.
What are the Different Standards to Measure User Engagement?
Your Site’s Click-Through Rate
It is the first thing that is responsible for engagements to occur on your website. The number of impressions determines the click-through rate and how many times your site was opened with each search.
In simpler terms, when somebody searches for a keyword on Google, if your website comes on the SERP it will be said to have an impression, and the number of times it was visited for that keyword is the clicks on your website.
So, the click-through rate is the clicking on your website to the number of impressions. To increase the click-through rate, you need to have good headings/titles and meta descriptions. Having a great title will attract the visitor to click on your website’s link on the SERP, while meta tag will help him with what he is going to find on your website.
External Linking Sources
Suppose you have a service to offer, and someone on another site writes a content related to the service you provide. He may ask to use your link at the end of the article, to tell his readers that this is exactly what he was talking about. That link will create visitors for your site. These types of mentions are essential to acquire more visitors who come to your website after reading a complete article on the services. The visitor, in this case, is here to buy your services.
Another vital platform from where you can get more visitors is social media. Social Media is not a direct way to acquire customers, but you can attach the links onto your Bio and also the posts, that will aim them to your services. Social Media is a great way to increase your fan followings and advertise new offers and discounts on your website.
People can also share, like, or comment on your website’s posts, and share them to their social media accounts that will further increase the direct engagement of your website.
The Time a Visitor Spends on Your Website:
When a person does a search related to some keyword and clicks on a link to some website at the moment the site gets opened, a counter starts to count the time the person stays on the site looking and searching for the things, he needs. The counter will stop when the person gets out of the site to the SERP or closes the web browser.
Even though this is the most basic way to find out the dwell time of a person, but the search engine does not use just one way to find out the dwell time. And hence, it is hard to predict everything. The only way you can ensure to keep a visitor busy on your website and wanting for more is by having an excellent user interface so as to create a better user experience.
How to Track the Engagement on Your Website?
Many engagement matrices are present in Google analytics, which will give you a better idea of what on your website is performing well and what is not. These matrices will help you much with the administration of your website and creating new content for the site every day.
The Number of Views
Page views are one of the most effective ways in which you can keep track of your ’visitors’ counts. You can look for the fluctuation in the views from the audience→overview of the Google analytics that will give you a better idea about which page is helping your site and which is not.
The Content That is Performing Well
Google analytics provides you with a tool that can help you create your content strategy. The top-performing content will tell you for what your visitors are coming to your site, and you can create more content for those particular services, while the least performing content can be changed over time to experiment with it, until, it also starts to perform well.
You can find all of these in the Google analytics, under: Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages
Returning Visitors and Also the New Ones
When we think about our website, we love to see new visitors swarming in; but as much as the new visitors are essential, the same are the returning ones also. While the new visitors give you more exposure, the old ones provide a loyal following.
In the Audience-> Overview, you can find a pie chart that will give you a better comparison between the new and the returning visitors. You should try to maintain a balance between the two.
Bouncing of the Visitors
Bounce rate is determined by the engagement again. If your visitor opens a page on your website and closes the website after that without taking further actions, then your site will have an increased bounce rate.
If your objective is to solve a problem, your website will only have a single article read before the visitor bounces off. But, if you are providing any services, then your website should have a lesser bounce rate as he should at least visit two pages in order to buy something. Bounce rate will give the best way to understand what your customers’ actions are when he visits your website.
Converting the Buzz
In the end, for an e-commerce website or any service providing website, it all comes to the conversion of the number of customers. The conversion is determinant of your success. There can be a direct conversion or an indirect one too.
Direct conversion is when a customer pays the amount of money for a service directly through a payment gateway. While an indirect conversion will mean a phone call or an email chat, every type of conversion is important in the long run. One should celebrate not only a penalty shot but also the long hard single goal in the full 90 minutes.
All of the above-mentioned data will help you plan your SEO and hence target better. The matrices will let you know what your audiences’ mindsets are and what type of content you should create for them.
To get you started, here are some of the tips that we provide for you to better your SEO:
1. The Website Should Respond from the First Click
If you want a lasting impression on your customer, make your site responsive. Use images and other attachments that will maintain both the quality along with the speed of your site.
If your site lags heavily and it takes more than 4 to 5 seconds to load fully, then it will decrease the overall user experience and will increase the bounce rate and lessen the dwell time.
Trust us; there are more websites than you can count on the web, which will have precisely the same services that you may have. So, try to be number one among them.
2. Link the Pages Correctly
Yes, it may sound amateurish, but one silly mistake can lead your visitor to the site of your competitor. Another biggest glitch that you can forget to fix are the broken links which will cause Google to show a 404 error page not found. One must always pay great attention and should align pages as they should be.
3. Create an Engaging Page
Gone are the days of plain websites with a stream of texts and little to no images. Today’s websites have more than one creative element on their pages. Videos, music, text and images are some of these elements.
But you should always take care that while using multiple creative contents on your website, they should always connect in a logical sense. You can also make use of infographics to share your companies data with your audiences. The more creative you will get, the more better you will rank among your competitors.
4. Disperse Knowledge
Your key goal should be to involve your visitors into your site activities. The best way to make your visitors feel important is by dispatching the necessary information for free.
Come up with creative ideas to sell your services while giving away free knowledge in the articles and videos until and unless your main focus is on selling videos and E-books. Help the community to grow, and community will help you grow in return for sure.
5. Get Your Website Designed Clatter-Free
Most of us think that the more we fit our services on one page, the better it will be for business. Right? Wrong. When it comes to website design, use of spaces plays an important part in keeping your visitor more focussed to their end goals. And you can achieve this only by clearing off not so important things.
A page should be designed in such a way that it lays emphasis on the product you are going to sell with a touch of your other services. The best way to check is by having a point of view of a person who doesn’t know anything about what you are doing. Give him to search for things on your website and if he faces problems while navigating through your website then try to make it simpler than it currently is.
6. Improve the Overall Suggestions
A single page can do wonders if, you know how to create it. Only fill the page with contents related to the service you are going to sell with that page. For example, if a website is selling a mobile phone of some model, then the suggested product may contain mobile phone cover or earphones for that mobile phone.
A connected suggestion will sell more of your site’s products than just shooting in the dark and expecting to hit an unconscious target.
7. Get a Search Option for Your Site
If you want your customers to have no problem with the navigation and searching of any product on your website, then do have a search toolbar that is accurately optimised according to the keywords that are most relevant to the service. This will help you clear the load from your pages and also give your site a well maintained and trimmed look.
Besides, having a search toolbar will help your visitor; search a product or service more accurately and efficiently rather than surfing the whole site and wasting time.
8. Use Your CTA Effectively
CTA is the crown jewel of your website if it is a services-based or an e-commerce website. Using CTA is important; however, using CTA buttons efficiently and without lurking desperation is even more critical. Your customers should have no knowledge that you are slowly coaxing them to buy the service.
The process should flow freely rather than shoving the CTA into your customers face. Call to action is important, and so is its placement on your website pages.
9. Chatbot
Yes, yes who uses the chatbot, I know that will be your remark after reading it. No, that is not true. When a person is desperately searching for something a little help can prove to be essential, and that is what your chatbot should be capable of doing.
The best possible case will be when an executive from your company is chatting live with your customer. It is something much worthy to spend time on, rather than a script directed vague chatbot.
If the live chatting is not possible, then you should create your script for the chatbot brilliantly, else it will only be annoying rather than being helpful for your customers.