How to Keep Customers on Your Site and Boost Sales

How to keep customers engaged on your website

Enticing customers to stay on your website requires a strategic approach that prioritizes user experience, interactivity and value-driven content. The following methods will help you create a better online experience that drives conversions and fosters long-term relationships with your audience.

1. Use pop-up opt-ins.

It’s hard to convince new visitors to join your email list and engage with your content longer, which is why website design is so important. It’s crucial to do everything you can to pique visitors’ interests and keep in contact to further your marketing efforts.

Email pop-up boxes are a great way to get their attention and convince them to subscribe to your email list. When users spend a certain amount of time on your website or scroll to a point on your webpage, they’re hit with a pop-up opt-in asking them for their information.

Have you ever wondered how to capture the information of users who are about to abandon your website and skyrocket your bounce rate? Then exit-intent pop-ups are the way to go. When your site senses a visitor is about to exit your website, it triggers the opt-in to display. From there, users can decide if they want to input their information or continue on their way. Since it can potentially boost your website conversions by about 42 percent, according to OptiMonk, a pop-up is worth considering to capture leads and reduce cart abandonment.

2. Optimize your website for speed.

Website speed is a critical factor in user engagement. A slow website frustrates users, leading to higher bounce rates and lower engagement metrics. Research from Google shows that the probability of a visitor bouncing increases by 32 percent if page load time goes from one to three seconds.

“There are a variety of ways you can optimize your website for speed to keep your customers engaged,” said Taylor Tobey, digital strategist at 9Sail. “One of the best and, more importantly, free tools to find opportunities to improve your website speed is running your site through Google’s Page Speed Insights Report. This tool will provide you with actionable insights on how to improve your website speed and overall improve your customer experience.”

You can also minimize large images, leverage browser caching and use a content delivery network (CDN) to ensure your website loads quickly. A fast-loading site enhances user satisfaction and keeps visitors on your site longer.

3. Improve customer support.

Far too many websites make it difficult not only to reach the business but also to receive customer support on their e-commerce website. Sixty-four percent of consumers would take their business to a competitor after just one experience of poor customer service, according to a Verint report. You could have the best products on the market. But, if you don’t care about consumers’ needs or solve their pain points, it doesn’t matter.

Customer service must be a core part of your business strategy. Without it, you have no way of collecting feedback and improving your brand’s operations. If it’s difficult for customers to receive support, it’s time to implement stellar customer service practices that convince them to stay on your website.

“There are many ways you can keep users engaged on your website through a personalized experience and customer support,” Tobey said. “For example, chatbots are a popular way to do this. They allow users to interact with the site and get answers to their questions in a fast and personalized way.”

Use live chat to provide 24/7 accessibility to visitors. If you have an in-house customer service team, they can’t tend to customers around the clock, which is why live chat is so useful. Live chat uses artificial intelligence technology to have conversations with visitors, answer their questions and provide instant assistance.

Because it offers convenience and helps users quickly, live chat support increases conversions as well as user engagement. You can track recurring issues and ask visitors how your business can improve so your business continues to grow. [Read related article: How to Differentiate Chatbots From Conversational AI]

4. Incorporate social proof.

When visitors browse your website for the first time, they look for cues that tell them your business is trustworthy. With so many e-commerce options, brands must work extra hard to convince new customers they’re worth spending their dollars on. By incorporating social proof on your website, visitors can see that others love and trust your brand. So, they should, too. [Read related article: Eight Cringey Brand Fails on Social Media]

“Depending on your industry there are various ways to incorporate social proof for your website,” Tobey said. “For example, one of the easiest ways to work across practically all industries is to include reviews from your Google Business Profile. This can usually be implemented using a plug-in.”

Positive talk about your brand goes a long way. Consumers today are less trusting of native advertising and what businesses themselves have to say. They’d rather hear from customers, clients and brands that have done business with you.

You can use the following types of social proof on your website to keep visitors engaged:

• Customer reviews
• Client testimonials
• Brand logos
• Influencer or celebrity endorsements
• Real-time activity
• User-generated content

5. Add video.

It’s no secret that users love video content. Research suggests that the human brain processes visuals approximately 60,000 times faster than text — making it easier to consume and understand. Visual content breaks the monotony and gives users something interesting to look at; this practice improves engagement and encourages them to stay on your website longer.

Incorporating videos can make your content marketing strategy more effective. Grab users’ attention by adding video content to your homepage, the most visited page on your site. If you can engage visitors the second they land on your homepage, you’re guaranteed to keep them on your website where they can continue to explore.

Keep in mind that you should make your video size small, advised Arias WebsterBerry, chief executive officer at WebsterBerry Marketing. Even though videos are extremely important to have on your site for engagement, WebsterBerry said large files can make your platform lag — causing a loss in engagement. To fix this, he said to use free resources to compress videos and ensure they take only seconds to load.

Consider how video can help you boost sales. Instead of using static images to display your products, use video demonstrations. Seventy-five percent of respondents in a Connatix report said they made at least one purchase after watching a video. Potential customers can get a clearer look at your products and make an informed purchasing decision when they have videos to guide them.

6. Reduce friction.

If your website is difficult to navigate, you can bet your bounce rate will increase. When there are points of friction in your website’s UX (user experience), it causes irritation and annoyance. Friction is anything that disrupts a user from having a smooth experience on your website and causes them to bounce. According to a report by Salesforce, around 80 percent of customers say the personalized experience a company provides is important. So, it’s crucial to pay attention to this aspect of your website.

Shorten the steps it takes for visitors to go from discovery to purchase. The fewer actions they have to take, the more they will feel valued. Update your product descriptions to be clear, detailed and informative. Create a FAQ page that answers visitors’ most common questions so they don’t have to contact you or search the internet for answers.

Make your website mobile-friendly so those on mobile and tablet devices can easily scour your content. Simplify the checkout process so it doesn’t feel like a task to purchase products. Avoid asking customers to fill out more information than necessary, since 81 percent of users abandon a form after they start it.

7. Leverage gamification.

Gamification adds an interactive element to your site, motivating users to stay engaged. This means adding game-like features to your site. Use features like quizzes, rewards programs, challenges and progress bars to make the browsing experience more entertaining and rewarding.

When we say quizzes, we don’t mean testing a consumer’s knowledge in your industry. This involves adding a questionnaire that leads potential customers to find the item that best suits them. For example, skincare brands have users answer a few questions about their needs and then show the top three products that will solve their problems.

By incorporating gamification into your site, users will feel more confident and connected to your brand, leading to sales.

8. Personalize the experience.

Tailor content and recommendations to individual user preferences. For example, use browsing history or location data to suggest products or content customers are more likely to engage with. Try to make a customer’s experience as personalized as possible. “Most customers expect personalization,” said WebsterBerry. “No one wants the one-size-fits-all [approach].”

Companies with mobile sites that remember past behavior from users are 58 percent more favorable than those who don’t, reported Google. WebsterBerry offered that paying attention to browser history is important, and companies should suggest products that customers have looked at but didn’t buy. “Sending them emails based on the behaviors that they’ve taken or the actions that they’ve taken on your website is critical,” he said. “The goal is to make sure that every interaction is optimized to make them feel special, or that it’s been crafted for them.”

9. Include clear calls-to-action.

A well-placed call-to-action (CTA) guides users toward taking specific actions, such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading a guide or making a purchase. You should minimize the amount of things you offer so you don’t confuse people with too many options, advised WebsterBerry. “So, cutting down the amount of objectives that you have on a page is critical to increase the engagement and actually get them to convert,” he said.

Consumers want your site’s message and products to be easily found and understood. Set the stage, keep it authentic and give them a reason to act immediately. “You need to focus on engaging the users that are more likely to take action,” said WebsterBerry. “So, whether that is purchasing, signing up or downloading, one of the big things that you can do is have simple but strong [CTAs] … You need to make it easy for people to understand what the next step is on that page.”

10. Be mobile-friendly.

“If you’re trying to make it easier for people to experience your site and brand, you want to reduce the friction by making sure that your website is optimized for mobile,” WebsterBerry said. “I can’t tell you how many websites are built desktop-first instead of mobile-first.”

Your website’s layout should be easily accessible on web browsers such as Safari, Firefox and Chrome. “When you’re building a site or considering rebuilding a site, I would probably say, go mobile first and desktop second, because 80 percent of all internet traffic is through mobile devices at this point,” WebsterBerry told business.com.

How website engagement can boost sales

Engaging your audience isn’t just about keeping them on your website longer — it directly impacts your bottom line. Here’s how:

Increased conversions

Measuring website engagement metrics is crucial in understanding your customers’ actions and improving their experience on a site, in addition to increasing your sales. High engagement can lead to increased sales conversions, customer satisfaction and average duration on the website. Customers who find your website’s content valuable and engaging are likely to take key actions, leading to higher conversion rates.

Improved SEO rankings

A high level of engagement can also improve search engine optimization (SEO) ranking by indicating the user’s search intent was met; this practice can increase the site’s visibility on search engine results pages. Additionally, engagement can lead to higher revenue by encouraging users to visit the site multiple times and ultimately make a purchase. As a business owner, you should use the best customer tracking methods to evaluate how engaging your website is and reap the benefits of high user engagement.

“Engagement is an important metric that can help improve your SEO rankings,” Tobey said. “Google and other search engines’ main goal is to provide the best possible result for a user query. And, engagement metrics such as time spent on site, low bounce rate, etc. indicate that that specific website is satisfying the user’s query and, therefore, signaling to Google that that page/website is worth showing, leading to improved SEO rankings.”

Higher retention rates

Engaged users are more likely to return, driving repeat sales. Data shows that retaining customers is 5 to 25 times more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. By creating a seamless, engaging experience, businesses not only attract more traffic but also convert that traffic into loyal customers.

The strategies above are proven methods to achieve these outcomes, so start optimizing your website today.

Amanda Clark contributed to this article.