Even if you attract heaps of visitors to your website, it won’t mean much unless you also engage and entice them to take the next step. If people aren’t subscribing to your email newsletter or purchasing your products and services, that’s a clear sign that you need to take steps to increase engagement on your website.

So, how do you get visitors to spend more time on your site, view more pages, sign up to receive your email and offers, and buy from you? Read on as we share six ways to effectively engage anyone who visits your site.

1. Add images, videos, and GIFs to your content

No matter how compelling your website copy, product descriptions, or testimonial pages are, you’re missing out on opportunities to boost engagement if you limit your content to just written text. Using different types of content like images, charts, videos, infographics, and even GIFs can increase engagement and even sales.

For example, adding a photo gallery with your products, services, or happy customers can give visitors plenty of content they can peruse to their delight. You can even have a mixed gallery with a couple of images and a video that give visitors a detailed look of your product and the different ways to use it (or how your existing customers are using it).

Here’s an example:

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You can also try adding a review video or a video testimonial on your dedicated Testimonials page as well as on each product or services page.

Check out these nine photography tactics to sell more products and services online.

Now, if you’re a 123 Reg customer using our Website Builder, you can easily create an image gallery or a mixed gallery with images and videos. In your editor, go to Widgets, and then drag and drop the Photo Gallery widget onto the page.

You can also try an already designed Gallery section. Simply hover over a block of text or design, and you’ll notice an Add Section icon pop up. Click on it and a navigation will open on the left with all the sections available in Website Builder.

Here’s how a mixed gallery looks, with a video on the left and images on the right.

Find out more about the 123 Reg Website Builder, if you’re not yet familiar with it.

2. Display related content

If you’ve ever purchased something from Amazon, you probably noticed they always display a related products section that’s relevant to your search. That’s an effective way to entice visitors to keep browsing and buying. So, why not do the same on your website?

Add related products, services, or content to all your pages to get visitors to discover more of what you have to offer.

Here’s a great example from an online business that sells coffee subscriptions:

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And here’s another example from a studio that offers personal training sessions:

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3. Give out freebies and discounts

Let’s face it. People are more inclined to interact with you and even give you their email address if they’re going to get something in return. Offering freebies, samples, and discounts is a great way to engage your audience and also to build your email list and further promote your paid products and services.

It’s much easier to turn visitors into paying customers provided you offer something of value. So, try offering something you know they’ll want and be willing to hand their details over for. That can be anything from a free workout, a downloadable nutrition ebook, a free trial, a free introductory session with you, a tester of a product, or a discount.

4. Quizzes and polls

Interactive content like quizzes and polls are excellent ways to entice your visitors to actively engage with your website. Try adding them to your homepage or dedicated landing pages. For example, if you sell several similar products, you can have customers take a quiz to find the best products for their needs.

Here’s an example from a coffee subscription website:

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Quizzes and polls not only enhance engagement, but they’re also fun and give your visitors a reason to spread the word and return for more.

5. Enable site search

If you have a website with more than a few pages of products and services, consider adding a search functionality to your site. Why is that useful? Because it makes it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for, without having to dig around your site.

Stats show that 30% of visitors to a website will use a search bar, so that’s one more reason to enable it on your site.

So, add a search bar on every page of your site to encourage more visitors to run a search and quickly find what they’re looking for. A good place to add it is at the top of the page, as that’s where most users expect to see it.

6. Create a custom 404 page

“404 – Page not found” is one of the most common website error messages around. It shows up when a visitor tries to access a page on your site that doesn’t exist.

As a website owner, that’s one page you hope your visitors will never see. But, no matter what you do, 404s can still show up. For example, if a visitor manually enters your page’s URL into their browser but makes a typo, that’ll cause a 404 error page to pop up on their screen.

Of course, there are also other reasons why pages break. You can read our post to learn more about broken links and how to fix them.

But since 404s happen, why not make the most of it and direct visitors to another page they may enjoy? By customising your 404 page, you can show off a bit of your brand’s personality, tell visitors what to do next, and make their experience less frustrating.

Here’s a great example of a 404 page:

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If you’re using the 123 Reg Website Builder, you can customise your 404 page in just a few minutes. In your editor, go to Settings, click 404 page, and then click Customize page.

This loads a new page that you can customise as you wish. You can add images, text, buttons, and edit it just like you do your other website pages.

Wrapping up

Boosting engagement on your website doesn’t have to be time-consuming or complicated. You also don’t need to make major design changes to entice more visitors to keep navigating through your site, check out your offering, sign up for your email newsletter, and buy from you.

Start with the six recommendations in this article to increase visitor engagement and make your site more enjoyable to visit and interact with.