Have you failed? Have you lost their attention?
If you have, you won't get them back, they'll be on someone else's site in no time.
And that is why building an effective website for your business is vital to your digital
marketing success.
Both the content and design of your site should work together
toward establishing or supporting the products and services you offer to your
customers, as well as the corporate aims and objectives. Engaging
users is the key to success for any website and should be top of the list of
necessary site aspects when creating or updating a corporate website.
There is a lot of psychology in
creating a great website (Creech, 2011) and there are 6 factors believed
important to consider when creating a more engaging website (Weinschenk, 2009):
- If people have too many choices, they won’t choose at all. Having too many choices makes it incredibly difficult to make a decision. Too many options will give the user the feeling that they are giving something up by having one rather than the other. Just like when you type 'camera' into Amazon, the overwhelming choices can be a bit much to handle!
- People need social validation. When users are uncertain, they'll look for others opinions and thoughts. What people say about a product, site or service has more stand than anything else so be sure to include ratings or opinions.
- Scarcity makes people want to buy. A deal, or a 'low stock' warning will have people buying quicker than ever. The feeling of missing out isn't one that many people will choose to opt for!
- Use sex, food or danger to attract people’s interest. Dependant on your audience, take this with a pinch of salt. Images that attract people's attention most happen to be those that are slightly controversial for businesses, but if it works, it works!
- Use the power of faces. People like seeing pictures of other people. We react to their faces and expressions so happy people on your site will put a smile on your user's faces too, leaving them with a happy experience of your site.
- Build commitment over time. Start with encouraging a facebook 'like' or a twitter follow and carry on from there, engaging with site users will create a 'community' aspect.
Weinschenk's views have been criticised and evaluated by other professionals but still withstands as one of the best theories in creating engaging websites. Almost all literature mentions Weinschenk's theories with a positive favour to her, and her 6 factors have been proved time and time again, they are used by web professionals all over the world on a daily basis.
Engaging websites need focus on their users (customers, users, clients, etc.), they should be of top priority and that engagement is all about maximising the value of your audience – increasing the frequency that they return to the site, the tendency to tell their friends and the likelihood of them using the site for its proper purpose (Follett, 2010).
Engaging websites need focus on their users (customers, users, clients, etc.), they should be of top priority and that engagement is all about maximising the value of your audience – increasing the frequency that they return to the site, the tendency to tell their friends and the likelihood of them using the site for its proper purpose (Follett, 2010).
- Write in plain English;
- Use bold fonts and bullet point lists;
- Use headings and sub-headings to break up large amounts of text; and
- Ensure that the font style and size makes for easy reading!
Engaging websites are often based on psychological techniques, whilst content has been described as ‘king’ in the website world and is believed to be the sole aspect that keeps your users coming back for more. Stay tuned for a post about content strategies!
Theories and models for creating engaging websites.
References:
References:
Creech, J.
(2011) 7 Tips for a More Engaging Website
[Online] Available at: < http://www.intuitionhq.com/blog/2011/08/how-to-make-your-website-more-engaging/
>
Follett, A.
(2010) Simple Strategies for Engaging
your Visitors. [Online] Available at http://sixrevisions.com/content-strategy/strategies-engage-visitors/
Weinschenk, S.
(2011) ‘7 Principles that Make Your Website More Engaging’ [Video] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3J85SUZFXNM#!>
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