We previously explored ways to improve your Squarespace SEO. The goal of SEO is to increase your visibility in search engines and drive more visitors to your site. Ideally, you want to rank on the first page of Google.
To improve your SEO, we touched on several aspects. From inbound links, keywords, sitemaps, page, title and site descriptions to utilizing FAQ pages. But the most important aspect of this all is content. After all Google and other search engines prioritize content.
The aim is simple to provide readers with the most relevant content based on their search queries. But increasing your search engine visibility and attracting more readers is only one aspect. Once visitors are on your site, you need to engage them, with the goal of encouraging some form of action. This may take the form of signing up for your newsletter or purchasing a product.
But how do you do this? How do you effectively engage visitors, so they don’t just read the post and leave? Here are 5 simple tactics you can implement right now to engage your visitors.
# 1 Insert Internal Links to Give Readers a Choice
Your readers are reading your blog post either because they found it in search engines and saw it as valuable, or perhaps a friend referred it? Either way, once they’re reading you need to think about how to keep them engaged. One way is to include internal links to other high-value articles on your Squarespace website. For example, in the first two sentences of this post, we linked to two articles: one on Squarespace SEO and the other on using Facebook to drive traffic. It’s simple but highly effective.
Including internal links gives readers the choice to explore the content of your website. The same concept applies when you mention things like your “About Page”, features of your product and even Pricing. Basically, include a link where it’s possible and where it makes logical sense. The important thing is not to force the link and link the reader to content that is not relevant to the what was clicked. Your visitors may perceive this as deceptive.
Tip – you don’t want them navigating off the current page. So make sure when clicking on the link it opens a new tab.
# 2 Include Related Content Blocks for Further Engagement
If readers read the full blog post and get all the way to the bottom, engage them further by including “Related Content Blocks” of your blog posts. Squarespace has “Summary Blocks” for this. You’re able to select your layout (wall, layout, carousel and grid), and then choose your blog post category. Viola! You’re all set.
The folks from Hoot Design Co – showcase this perfectly:
#3 Include Sign-up Forms to Continue the Conversation
Aside from including related content blocks, also include sign-up forms at the end of your posts and in your sidebars. This presents an opportunity to grow your e-mail list. You’re able to engage with customers via e-mail long after the initial engagement. “And does including sign-up forms work?”, you may be asking. In short – Yes, it does.
Research by online form builder Formstack reveals that including forms improves conversions by 62%. Besides Formstack, both SumoMe and ConvertKit are superb ways to grow your e-mail list. Jacob McMillen who is a freelance copywriter and digital strategist used SumoMe and ConvertKit to grow his list by 600 subscribers. And all this with just two blog posts.
#4 Use Enticing Landing Page Builders
There are many online tools you can use to assist you as you grow your business. Perfecting your landing pages through using tools likes Unbounce and Instapage is one way to grow your business.
The goal of all the landing pages is to encourage visitors to take some form of action. In most cases, this will involve capturing their e-mail address as with online sign-up forms. A/B testing is also possible where you offer up two different versions of a landing page to see which one is working.
#5 Engage Visitors Through Making Your Website Multilingual
This one might surprise you. I mean there aren’t as many multilingual sites online as there perhaps should be. And you’re probably rather skeptical with a host of questions running through your mind:
- Is there really any value in translating my website into a different language?
- Will it actually engage visitors?
- Is it not a costly exercise requiring a huge investment in a specialist web designer?
In short, the answers to the above questions are Yes. Yes! No! Let’s explore.
Research suggests 56.2% of people value browsing in their own language and 46% say they won’t buy products if sites are a foreign language. So it seems fairly obvious that by making your site multi-lingual you reduce the number of drop-offs, you increase engagement and ultimately sales. That’s real tangible value.
This is where a tool like Bablic comes in handy. This website translation tool is cost-effective with a basic plan starting at only $20 a month. This is not a huge investment and you’re able to translate your site into two languages. You don’t need to be a technical guru to set it up. All you need to do is paste a code snippet into the header of the website. So again, a huge investment is not required. A free trial is available as well as one-on-one consultation before you make the purchase.
There we have it – 5 simple tactics you can use and implement right now to engage your visitors.