The Importance of Visitor Engagement

November 18, 2008 · Filed Under Uncategorized · Comments Off 

Today we’re going to talk a little bit about something that is often overlooked in SEO and that will start to become a factor as the search engines continually update their algorithms.  That is, find better and better ways to rank websites.

I’m referring to the importance of visitor engagement.  So what is visitor engagement or VE?  VE is the ability to draw people into your website and keep them there by offering engaging features that your competition may not offer.  These are things like videos, audios, gadgets that enhance the website visitor experience, etc.

I believe that the days of strictly text-based websites that have little to no visual engagement for the website visitor are numbered.

Don’t misunderstand me however, I’m not saying that your site should not have text on it.  What I am saying is that the text that you do have, needs to be enhanced with something a little more interactive such as video or audio.

As visitors attention spans get shorter and shorter, we need to find new and better ways to bring that visitor into the website and give them all kinds of opportunities to learn about the information that we want to share with them.

Just as there are people who prefer to read information, there are just as many if not more people who prefer to listen to information or to watch information.  Reading takes a lot of time, and so it is your job as a website owner to integrate some visual or at least auditory aspects into your website to keep those site visitors engaged.

Here’s some ideas you can use as soon as today to aid in this VE experience:

  • Add Videos.  If you don’t already have videos on your website you can either create some or use pre-made video content from sites like YouTube.com, Revver.com or Metacafe.com.
  • If you do add videos to your site from any of these sources, be absolutely certain that you watch the video yourself first, for a couple of reasons:A)  You wouldn’t want any questionable content being revealed to your site visitors unknowingly.  What a video says it is and what it really contains can be two different things.B)  Be sure that the video doesn’t contain any self-promotion.  That is, have a competing website address embedded within the video.  If you don’t mind that another site that is complimentary to yours is advertising within the video, then feel free to use it.  However, you certainly don’t want to be advertising your competition.
  • Create your own videos and upload them.  A great program to use is Camtasia Studio – used for screen captures to walk people through websites or instruct them on just about anything you wish.  Camtasia studio also integrates with PowerPoint so that you can create your own PowerPoint slide presentation and it also works with your webcam so you can simply have a virtual chat with your site visitors.  I use Camtasia studio personally for all of my videos that you may have seen here at Bonehead SEO. Plus, Google labs is now in the process of indexing the audio contained in videos – it’s currently in beta but is a promising sign that not only will the text be indexed on your site but the words that you use within your videos will as well.  You can read more about GAUDI at http://labs.google.com/gaudi/static/faq.html.
  • Record audio and then place an audio player on your website so that people can listen in.  One suggestion that you can use is to take an article you’ve written and not only place that text on the page, but record the article as well – thus giving your site visitors the option of choosing their own VE.
  • Use gadgets that enhance your users experience on your site.  A widget like the one from http://www.meebome.com/ allows you to add chat to your site so that you can interact with your visitors.

The bottom line is, as the search engines evolve as they always do and will continue to do, the VE that you have on your website could very well mean the difference between a good listing and a great listing.

Until next time,

Kristine

BoneheadSEO.com

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