Interactive Website Features You Should Use to Improve Conversions

Learn How to Engage Visitors and Improve Conversions with  Interactive Website Features That Many of Your Competitors Overlook.

What happens when your marketing consultant takes a look at your brand new site?

Often times it’s a bit of an ego blow, when they hit you with all of their recommended changes. Too often, we forget that the job of your website is to get people’s attention and ultimately get them to do something.

Back in the late 90’s early 2000’s developers were doing some really cool stuff with Flash to create dynamic interactive websites. Obviously, those days are long gone and Flash along with it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create interactive website features to engage your audience.

Marketing consultants can offer viable solutions to help you tackle problems with conversion. You need to find a reputable one with a stellar background and reputation, so you don’t waste your money. A leading web design agency in Katy, Texas suggests that you look for an agency that offers strategic solutions to your specific concerns, so you don’t go back and forth with trial and error. Their experience can help your brand navigate the intricacies of the digital world, especially in the aspect of getting your audience to engage with your website.

In fact, you need to get your audience involved on your site, because if they’re not — they’ll never convert to sales or leads!

Why Do you Need Interactive Website Features?

Like I mentioned above… you need to convert your website visitors, but to clarify that question with a little more detail; you need interactive features on your website because people simply don’t have a good attention span.

The average web surfer has an on-page attention span of less than 10 seconds.

And when we talk about online shopping things just get worse. Online shopping is a major trend that is making a lot of money for many different brands. Possibly due to the convenience and fast-paced nature of shopping on the web, consumers love to make online purchases as opposed to making the trip to a brick-and-mortar store. However, as a business owner, keeping your customers engaged to the point of purchase can be difficult. In fact, according to a study done by Chartbeat,

55 percent of visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a webpage.

 

You must have a feature that allows guests to search for answers on the website, or a bot that will answer questions through saved responses. Speed in response will make your customers feel that they matter to you. Curating responses that will make customers understand your products and service will be very useful. Yes, you can publish this on your FAQ page, but reading a page full of information can be tedious for some customers who don’t have the luxury of time.

Our smart technology is only making things worse; sure all this ‘smart technology’ is super cool but the sad fact is;

that studies have indicated that “smartphones make us stupid,” and that Internet use can lead to “cognitive failures” (source).

If you’re not getting a user’s attention right away and getting them to act, they’re going to leave in 5, 4, 3 ,2 … whoops there went your lead.

So what can you do to combat this? The best dynamic interactive websites Include some of these interactive features on your e-commerce site.

With video marketing being the exception, many websites simply aren’t taking advantage of interactive features. This could have a lot to do with our struggle to make websites leaner, faster and more mobile friendly. That being said, there’s still a lot you can do to make your website more interactive and engaging.

What specifically can you be doing to add interactive features to your website in order to improve engagement and conversions?

That’s a great question.

I don’t know about you, but I like to make things easy on myself. Don’t get me wrong, the solution has to work well for your website visitors, but generally speaking the easier it is for me to implement — the more likely I am to use the feature correctly.

1. Start by Asking Your Audience Questions

There are a bunch of great apps and programs out there that can help you create interactive features for your website, but like I said, I like things that are easy and work well so I’m only going to mention Survey Monkey.

Survey Monkey is probably the most popular online survey tool and in the free version, you’ll get:

• 10 questions
• 100 respondents
• 15 question types
• Light theme customization and templates

2. Live Chat With Customer Service Representatives

For consumers, there is almost nothing more frustrating than having trouble finding information or a product on a website. Implementing a live chat on your e-commerce site to assist users in navigating through your website is a great way to remain interactive. Not only does it give your site visitors an excuse to stay active on the site, it also displays excellent customer service so consumers are less likely to leave.

The difference between a live chat and a bot is the personal approach to the customer’s issue. A customer can quickly tell that there’s a human being behind the interaction, and it can be comforting for them to know that somebody is trying their best to fix the dilemma.

I just mentioned Survey Monkey, well here’s another kind of monkey that will help you out. I talked about this new program in a post I recently published titled; Using Automated CRM to Better Serve Visitors to Your Website. In that post I mention Mobile Monkey which is a chatbot that can engage with your visitors through your Website, Facebook Page or even via ads. It can carry a “1 on 1” personalized conversations with visitors, and remember conversation history to pick up from where you left off.

This program will definitely make things a lot easier on you when it comes to managing ‘live chat’. Way too many website owners add a live chat feature, but NEVER support it simply because they don’t have the time to dedicate to it.

3. User-Generated Reviews

In this age of social media, content marketing and blogging, online users are willing to share their opinions and communicate with brands more than ever. By prompting your site visitors to write a review of your products, you’re giving them an opportunity to spend more time on your site, which can often lead to further conversions. User-generated reviews also assist your e-commerce site by giving other customers the chance to hear about your products from people who have already used it. Scared of bad reviews? Don’t be. Even negative reviews can be positive — it lets visitors know the reviews are authentic and not censored by your company.

Most eCommerce platforms have built-in systems that automatically ask customers for reviews; which is really handy.

Another great customer review integration is Yotpo. Yotpo helps brands collect and leverage reviews and photos throughout the buyer journey to increase trust, social proof, and sales.

4. Hyperlinks

When it comes to keeping your visitors more engaged and active on your site, hyperlinks are the way to go. Hyperlinks included on product information pages keep users interested and help them navigate your site in an easier and more targeted way.

Most people think of internal linking only in terms of benefiting their seo strategy; however using hyperlinks the right way can provide easy access to various site pages and keep consumers clicking, which is always a positive action.

Apple Rubber is a great example for hyperlinking useful information throughout the product page. It turns out O-rings aren’t really a one-size-fits-all product. Apple Rubber provides o-rings for a wide variety of uses in a massive selection of sizes and even materials. They go out of their way to help customers narrow down exactly the right o-ring with exactly the right fit for the application.

These internal links keep their website visitors on-site longer by providing high quality resources and yes these high quality resources and internal links increase SEO benefits as well as user experience.

5. Interactive Photos or Videos

Creating interactive photos or videos are an ideal way to draw in consumers to your products.

The one limitation of online shopping is not being able to see and experience a product in-person before purchasing. Interactive photos and videos instantly combat this problem by providing a real-world example of what the product is like. Especially effective with products that have a number of features, you can prompt visitors to touch on certain parts of the product to reveal its features, or click on certain buttons to see it in action.

E-commerce sites are a great way to grow sales and make your brand available to your consumers from the comfort of their own home. However, the online world is fast paced and keeping users engaged can be difficult.

It’s never too late to start incorporating interactive website elements into your marketing mix. Include these interactive features to keep consumers engaged and active on your website and you will certainly see an increase in conversions.