Engagement rate will become the prime indicator of your website’s performance. Here are our tips for using stellar content to increase the effectiveness of your webpages.
What is engagement rate?
For a long time, bounce rate was considered the metric to rule them all for evaluating the interaction of a website visitor with a webpage. With the arrival of Google Analytics 4, however, bounce rate has been replaced by engagement rate once and for all.
In contrast to bounce rate, which only measures the number of visitors who leave your page without interacting with it at all, engagement rate considers multiple factors and is calculated based on sessions which meet at least one the following criteria:
The session takes at least 10 seconds: this makes sure that visitors have spent enough time on your page to interact with its content.
The session generates a conversion: this can include subscribing to a newsletter, downloading content or requesting a quote, depending on your setup.
At least two of your pages were viewed during the session: this indicates that visitors were sufficiently interested to explore your site and visit other pages.
By taking into account these criteria, engagement rate is a more relevant indicator of a visitor’s interaction with your website because it also considers the quality of the interaction. This can help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your site and subsequently optimize your content strategy to improve your visitor’s experience and encourage engagement.
Improving a webpage’s engagement rate through its content
Naturally, the content of your site will have a meaningful impact on this new variable. Here are our 10 tips for increasing your engagement rate through content:
1. Quality content
To keep people on your page, you need to offer them unique and relevant content. Your content must meet the needs of your audience and offer useful information.
2. Pay attention to grammar and spelling
Poor grammar or spelling makes your content hard to read. Moreover, it doesn’t look professional and could seriously harm your brand image.
3. Don’t forget presentation
Make sure your content is easy to read by using clear and readable fonts, well-structured paragraphs, the right vocabulary, and accessible content.
4. Put content first, design second
To increase engagement on you page, your content must inform your design, not the other way around. Web designers will often make a beautiful layout before any content is produced, using placeholder text as a substitute.
5. Optimize engagement rate with targeted micro-conversions
Include calls to action on every page to encourage micro-conversions, like subscribing to a newsletter or downloading a brochure.
6. Structure your site in content silos
Create clusters made up of pages about a similar semantic theme. Initially used for improving SEO, this approach can also encourage site visitors to interact more with your content.
7. Adapt content to the stages of the customer journey
The customer journey is often long and requires multiple interactions with your site. To optimize engagement rate, create pages specific to each stage of the decision-making process with tailored content that pushes a unique and coherent call to action (download a brochure, subscribe to a newsletter…). Think about the different questions visitors will have at each stage.
8. Pay particular attention to the wording of calls to action
Calls to action are a crucial factor for the engagement of your audience. Use clear and inviting language to encourage your audience to engage more with your content.
9. Put extra effort in your page headers
When a user visits a webpage, they only need a few seconds to decide whether to stay or not. This is why it is crucially important to immediately capture their attention with clear, attractive, and readable content.
10. Optimize your content for mobile
It is essential to make your content easily accessible on mobile by using readable fonts, compressed images, and well-structured paragraphs. Also consider vertical layout to improve reading experience and opt for buttons suitable for touch screens.
In summary, to increase engagement rate for your website, it is important to think about your content and its structure and to create quality content. If you follow these 10 tips, you can increase the engagement of your visitors and improve your chances to get conversions.
Engaging content, successful conversion: don’t lose the plot!
If the optimization of engagement rate is an important part of your marketing strategy, it is important to stay focused on your ultimate objective: converting visitors into customers. Your efforts to create quality content and offer a pleasant user experience are useless if they don’t lead to conversions. Don’t lose your visitors by overwhelming them with options or overcrowding your website. Guide your visitors to the important pages by using clear calls to action and goals.
Finally, having a beautiful website is important, but it is not sufficient to attract and keep the attention of your visitors. Without the right content, your website is a pretty but empty shell that doesn’t respond to your visitor’s needs. Content is the key to transforming your website into a valuable resource. This is why it is crucial to develop a solid content strategy for your website so you can attract, retain, and convert your audience.
Outsource content creation for an effective website
If you don’t have the time or resources necessary to create quality content for your website, working with a content agency might be the right choice for you. You will benefit from the expertise and skills of a team of experts in content marketing, SEO, copywriting, and design, to improve your website's engagement.
At IBIS communications, we understand the importance of quality content when it comes to website optimization. We work with you to understand your specific content needs and we work tirelessly to assist you in achieving your objectives.
Don’t hesitate to follow us on LinkedIn and benefit from more advice on how to improve your content.
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