If there’s something that people always want, it’s being able to interact with others. Whether it’s playing a game or a quiz on social media and then posting your results to even just clicking that little “like” button, people feel engaged when we interact in this way. And including the ability to provide that type of interactive content on your own website can increase traffic to that site by a sizeable margin.
This has been proven in research environments. In fact, Kuno Creative says that user loyalty goes up when consistently delivering interactive content to those users. Providing such interactivity, through a number of different means, creates opportunities for your website by increasing the chances that one-time visitors keep coming back — and that those visitors eventually convert into customers.
How do you incorporate interactivity into your website? There is a number of different approaches you can take, some of which work better than others. The most effective, however, usually revolve around providing the right kind of content to your audience. Here are some of the most noteworthy approaches to building interactivity as a method for increasing traffic to your site.
Visual Content
People are inherently visual. We take in the world, by and large, by sight, and that means most of our attention is based on what we see. This makes visual content, especially when it’s compelling in some way, an excellent method for drawing attention. Whether it’s meant to entertain, to make you think, or to make you take action, visual content can and does generate engagement when visitors view this content and feel compelled to interact by commenting on it.
Social media marketing is one of the places where this approach flourishes. The highest engagement statistics always indicate that image posts drive engagement better than posts without images. Since it’s so important for a website to keep its own social media sharing game strong, using visual content to your advantage in this way can generate interest in the rest of the content on your site.
Sharing Insightful Data through Infographics
A way to combine visual content and provide more categorical information is to use infographics. The trend to provide data with this way has been going on strong, and for good reason: the combination of attractive graphic design and compelling narratives draws and keeps the attention of the viewer while also serving as a powerful method for beginning conversations both immediately and in the future.
Consistent infographic campaigns can generate high visitor numbers. When others link to an infographic you share, your backlink network grows exponentially, building authority in ways that can reinforce other aspects of your site such as search engine results page ranking. Designing infographics to a professional standard may be a strain on your marketing budget unless you’re a skilled graphic designer yourself, however, so be sure to moderate infographic use with care to your resource management.
Custom-Created Content
As compelling as visual content can be, both in the form of images and infographics, the impact of well-written content cannot be ignored either. There is much to content-based marketing to recommend itself, especially when it comes to consistent blogging designed to inspire and entertain.
Like infographic creation, the drafting of effective blog content often requires outside help. However, sourcing blogs and articles tend to be much more affordable than contracting graphic design work. Professional writing services are readily available at a price that won’t break the bank, despite the strong positive difference this content can make in your website engagement statistics.
Intelligent Multimedia Combination
The individual value of images, infographics, and blog content, taken each on their own, is strong. Yet combining these different media together in an intelligent manner increases the effectiveness of all three. There’s a reason, after all, while digital publishers will take great pains to provide at least a headline image with written content; at the same token, embedding additional support such as graphics or video offers even more avenues for interactivity.
This multi-pronged approach can help foster brand recognition in a major way. If your site earns a reputation for attractive content that draws the eye and compels interaction, popularity will follow. More eyes on your content due to higher traffic means conversions become more likely — which is, of course, the goal of every marketing campaign.
Entertaining Audiences Builds Engagement
Interactivity and entertainment go hand-in-hand. The vast success of online gaming is one excellent example, as is the number of individuals live-streaming content on YouTube and other platforms in the hopes of fame and fortune. Therefore, incorporating entertainment elements is an incredible way to supercharge your own site traffic.
How can you capitalize on this all-too-human need for entertainment? There is a myriad of ways, including the traditional — sponsorships or advertisements on streaming video — or you can embrace interactivity more directly, such as incorporating your branding into a mobile or web-based game. These approaches involve varying degrees of resource commitment, however; developing a mobile game, or having one developed on your behalf, for example, is a major undertaking when compared to underwriting a YouTube streamer.
The Interactivity Endgame
People have a deeply ingrained need to interact with their environment. It doesn’t matter what type of business you have, or what kind of website you want to drive traffic towards; in the end, choosing a marketing strategy that speaks to that interactive need is going to reap rewards, either modest or major. The effort you put into providing interactive content will increase your traffic.
That isn’t to say that there aren’t risks. The number of resources you exert to increase your traffic might not lead to an appropriate ROI. Interactivity can backfire as well, especially if elements of that content are misinterpreted as negative. Yet in the end, you can implement interactive elements for your website and your accompanying social media channels in ways that can aid in preventing such missteps. Doing so paves the way to enjoying the benefits that providing increased interactivity for your visitors can bring.
