Table of Contents
What are Engagement metrics?
A website’s user engagement can be measured in many ways, including how visitors interact with the content. The metrics included here pertain to how much time a user spends on the website, what comments they make, and whether they subscribe to social media as well.
When a visitor clicks through to your site but doesn’t engage with its content, it’s a hollow victory at best. Engagement shows an interest in what you’re saying, and it indicates that you’re sincere. A mistaken click-through can occur. They engage in conversation intentionally.
An indicator of your website’s success today can be considered site engagement in the low-attention economy.
In addition to determining how your content strategy aligns with user interest, engagement metrics demonstrate alignment.
Furthermore, engagement with customers correlates positively with profits, since satisfied customers are more likely to buy, buy again, and refer others to the company.
You must determine which metrics are most relevant to your business before deciding which metrics you should track.
1. Pageviews
How do you calculate Pageviews?
A website’s traffic is typically measured by page views, sessions, and users. An instance of a user visiting a particular page on your website is classified as a pageview, the most basic of all user engagement metrics.
Understanding the frequency of traffic to your website can be determined by measuring page views. As search engines are often the largest drivers of traffic to sites, sites with a higher number may indicate interest or good SEO practices.
Alternatively, pageviews can mean people are browsing the site in search of information.
While page views are important, they cannot tell you much about the meaning behind them if you don’t put them in the context of other related metrics.
The best way to track page views
Most user engagement metrics can be tracked using Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free software tool that provides an extensive range of analytics.
Metrics for pageviews can be found by selecting Audience and choosing an overview and then choosing the relevant period.
In addition to showing the number of people visiting your website for a certain period, pageview tracking can be used to determine if changes to the website (i.e., a redesign, online advertising, etc) are working as intended.
You can use the simple rule of thumb to determine whether your changes are driving traffic when your page views increase.
Optimizing/Improving Pageviews
Good SEO practices will lead to an increase in pageviews.
Increasing page views can be accomplished by doing the following:
- Your website should load quickly for a good user experience. Slowly loading websites are more likely to be abandoned. Make sure your site load speed is optimized for mobile users since more than half of the world accesses the internet from a mobile device. Consider usability implications of your design, categorize content for easy searchability, and make sure your content is mobile-friendly.
- Make your content worth your visitors’ time (not just clickbait) by creating viral content. Make sure that your content is found and read by using SEO best practices, such as keyword research and internal linking. Split lengthy posts into smaller ones where possible.
- Spread the word: Host a guest blog and get involved in related forums.
2. Page view time
Due to the large number of websites which produce content regularly, monitoring the amount of time spent on the website is an important indicator of user engagement.
Time spent can be viewed from two perspectives:
- Taking a closer look: the amount of time spent on each page
- An overview: Time spent on average on the site during a session
Engagement Measurement
A challenging aspect of user engagement is quantifying it. To know if you’re doing it right, you’ll need reliable data analytics. User engagement can be measured over time by monitoring and tracking the following metrics:
- Pageviews: The number of times a page has been viewed during a particular period.
- The most engaging content on your website is the top content.
- New Visitors: The number of visitors to your site who are not returning visitors.
- Visitors to your website who abandon it immediately after visiting it.
- You can track how long users spend on your site by measuring the time they spend on it.
- An example of a conversion would be the number of users that sign up for an email list, buy a product, or register an account.
Engaging Users
Your website visitors will remain engaged if you follow these four tips.
1. Be interactive
You have to give users something to do on your website if you want to retain their interest. Content viewed passively, such as text and videos, will always have their place.
You may not be aware, but interactive content such as quizzes, games, calculators, or video can generate twice as many interactions?
Consider a listing of real estate online that only includes photos, versus one with 3-D visuals. Users will stick around if there are fun things to do.
2. Create quality content
The second part of this tip is to let your audience know that you’ve created valuable, helpful content by giving it away free. Resources that are truly useful make you seem like an authority and provide a reason for people to spend a lot of time on your website.
Moreover, content marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional marketing while costing 62% less.
You can also use it for a conversion activity every now and then if you give it away for free. The content you offer as a lead magnet can be your most in-demand content.
3. Integrate augmented reality
As a marketing tool, augmented reality has not yet been widely adopted by large corporations, but that is about to change. Consumers prefer retailers that offer augmented reality experiences by at least 61%.
With AR, buyers can easily see how their proposed pieces will work with their existing décor – an advantage that’s already popular with furniture and design retailers.
Think about how AR might enhance the purchasing experience for your customers, or assist them in using and maintaining your products. There has never been a better time to use augmented reality to engage users.
4. Make sure your video is turned up
Video is well-deservedly regarded as one of the most reliable marketing tools. The average website visitor watches 18 hours of video per week. In fact, 84% of them admit to relying on videos in order to make purchases.
Video can help you boost user engagement in conjunction with other strategies. Augmented reality and video can work together. Interactive content can be adapted to fit into a lead magnet’s knowledge base.
Take the time and care to create high-quality video content. You can deliver your messages incredibly effectively when you do this correctly.
About the Author
My name’s Semil Shah, and I pride myself on being the last digital marketer that you’ll ever need. Having worked internationally across agile and disruptive teams from San Fransico to London, I can help you take what you are doing in digital to a whole next level.