Creating User Engagement

One of the best ways to get repeat visitors is to increase the amount of engagement on your site. If there is no way for users to interact or react to your content than you are just an information site. Here are 8 of the most common ways of doing so.

Comments

If you write a great opinion piece it is only fair and beneficial to you to let the reader respond. Don’t worry if everyone disagrees with you. Sometimes it is great to play devils advocate in your posts. There are some blogs that live off of their comments. Many times I just skim the article and get down to the comments to see the reactions. If you like to post about hot button topics you better have a good commenting system in place.

Most blogging platforms have some basic way of creating comments by default but if your site starts to get lots of traffic and lots of comments you will probably need to look into something more customized.

If your site is very new try to respond to as many of your user’s comments as possible. Let them know you are listening and they will be more encouraged to comment again.

Polls

Creating polls is another way to engage the reader. You might have already given your opinion on the topic but a poll allows a reader to get a feel for how everyone else (your other readers) are thinking.

Ask For Feedback

If you don’t ask for it you probably won’t get any. At the end of each posts leave an open ended question to encourage reader comments. Also stylize your comments button or use some other design method to increase the likelihood of comments being made. You can also come right out and ask for comments, it really cannot hurt to try.

Ratings

Rating allow users to leave their stamp of approval or disapproval on a post or comment. Allowing users to rate your posts might be scary at first but you will get feedback on what is working and what isn’t. Rating comments is also a great way to increase engagement. Not only can readers weigh in on your posts but they can agree or disagree with each other. Some commenting systems allow for comments with negative ratings or thumbs down to be hidden while comments readers approve of become more prominent or even move up to the top of the comment list.

Contests

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Contests can be a little trickier and take more time to implement but if done correctly can get a buzz going about your site. Contest too unlike some of the other methods listed here can work on any type of site.

Forums

Forums can be a way of turning a site into a community. Be warned though that forums can take up a lot of your time because they have to be monitored pretty closely. You will also want to have a pretty substantial traffic base before starting a forum.

reviews

If you thought rating were scare these can really be hard to swallow, especially if you are allowing readers to review your artwork or your products. Especially because people can be very opinionated and harsh online. But if your work is exceptional nothing is better than favorable reviews from real customers/readers.

suggestions box

Allow readers to leave a quick comment or suggestion that goes to your email address. Just another way to let your readers know you are there. It is also a good way to get post ideas. Encourage your readers to leave suggestions and questions and you can answer the questions in your upcoming posts.

Using some or all of these methods plus writing engaging content will go a long way in creating repeat readers.  Were there any good methods that work for you? Let me know.