Every business, big or small, dreams of boosting their ROI. But what if the secret to doing this was right in front of you this whole time?
The simple secret to better ROI is content engagement. Interested in boosting your bottom line? Then keep reading to learn all about it!
What Is Content Engagement?
One of the most important elements in the world of web design is content engagement. However, not everyone is on board with what this is and why this is important. So, the big question: why is “content engagement” a big deal and not just another buzzword?
First of all, the idea of content engagement is really simple. It encompasses anything that a visitor to your webpage to interact with your site. By measuring the right metrics, you can streamline and improve your webpage while also boosting your ROI in a big way.
Why Is Content Engagement So Important?
It’s easy to dismiss content engagement as just another word for “metrics.” In this case, they are metrics, but many people do not know which metrics are worth paying attention to and which are okay to ignore.
Without this understanding, then even the very best analytics and metrics are nothing but noise. But with a correct understanding of how to apply these metrics, you can completely transform your business.
This is because your website is the first point of contact that many of your customers have. And this will be true even more from year to year as more of your customer base are effectively “digital natives.”
By adequately and accurately measuring customer engagement, you can constantly improve your website from month to month. This means more leads, more sales, and ultimately a better ROI than you have ever had before.
Interested in seeing what content engagement improvement can do for your own site? Keep reading to learn more about the top three metrics and just how and why they are so important.
1. Engaged Time
Arguably, the most useful metric for content engagement is “engaged time.” It’s important to understand how this works as well as how it differs from previous metrics you may have relied on.
Simply put, engaged time refers to the amount of time that a customer spends actively engaged with your website content. Previously, you may have relied on measuring things like bounce rate. However, you might end up with consumers who leave an inactive tab open, and your software measures engagement in someone who is completely disengaged.
For engaged time, you can purchase special software that measures only active engagement at regular intervals (say, every five seconds). If they leave the tab open or otherwise stop being active, they are no longer recorded as being engaged.
Simple? Sure. But this is the best way to make sure your content engages consumers.
2. Pages Per Session
Earlier, we discussed the idea of using engaged time to measure the depth of consumer engagement with a single page. But what about the breadth of their engagement with your entire site?
To capture this, one important metric to measure is “pages per session.” Just as the name implies, this metric is all about seeing how many different pages of content the average visitor to your sites checks out.
If the number is pretty low, this tells you two things: you need to bump up the overall quality of your content while also making sure your CTAs are more compelling to the average consumer. In this way, you can organically build engagement while also guiding your visitors’ engagement with your overall content.
3. Form Completion
One of the best ways to regularly engage customers is to regularly provide content through things like newsletters, e-books, and so on. But are you measuring how much your average consumer cares about this?
A great content engagement metric is form completion. This is simply when a customer is motivated enough to provide things like their name, e-mail address, and phone number.
Getting this information should be a goal for any business, for it promotes return visits and customer loyalty in a way that boosts your ROI. Nonetheless, many businesses aren’t tracking the form completion rate of their visitors.
Once they’ve completed the form, you can send out things like newsletters and special deals, all of which makes things seem more personalized to your customers. Imagine your business in the age of social media: statistics about social media tell us over four billion people are online, and they spend nearly two hours a day on social media. Why? They feel constantly engaged with new content. And when they sign up for your newsletter, you can bring your customers that kind of fresh content directly to their inbox, allowing them to enjoy it from anywhere on the planet!
Start tracking this information as soon as you can, and then do whatever it takes (from improving content and presentation to offering better incentives) to drive more people to complete the forms!
The Bottom Line
Content engagement is truly the key that opens the door to better ROI. However, content engagement takes a lot of work and dedication: you must measure these metrics every month, and be willing to make big changes as dictated by the data.
If you’re willing to transform your marketing, then you’re able to transform your business. After that, the future is yours for the taking!
Chris S is a professor of English at a small college in Northwest Florida. He has over ten years of experience in teaching others how to write and uses his knowledge to provide clients with well-researched answers and explanations. He has answered over 1500 questions for Ask.com and written hundreds of articles for other sites ranging from entertainment-centric “Top 10 lists” to detailed breakdowns of how to enter new career fields. From blogs to lists to any custom content, he is here to impress you.
