When you create content for your website, the goal is to have readers spend as much time on your site as possible. The more time readers spend on your website, the more information they can consume, the more connected they’ll be to your brand, and the more likely they’ll be to buy from you. But, according to blogging statistics, the average reader only spends 37 seconds reading an article or blog post. That’s simply not enough time for them to truly engage with your content.
So, if you want to increase engagement on your blog, you need to offer more than just static content readers can skim through. You need to provide your readers with something more exciting, something that will make them want to stick around and engage with your site.
Here’s how to increase engagement with interactive content.
Run a giveaway.
Giveaways get a lot of buzz online because let’s face it; everyone loves freebies. If you offer your website visitors a chance to win an awesome prize, they’ll jump at the chance to enter your giveaway.
But, your giveaway has to be done the right way in order to increase engagement. If you let users simply enter your giveaway, that won’t create a ton of interaction for you.
But, with a giveaway WordPress plugin like RafflePress it’s easy to create a giveaway that boosts engagement. With RafflePress you can give users extra giveaway entries for completing actions such as following you on Twitter, joining your email list, watching a YouTube video, sharing the giveaway with their friends, and more.
As you can see, you can boost your engagement in a number of ways by running a viral giveaway.
Provide calculators.
You might think that interactive content is all about fun and games. But, you can also offer interactive content that will help your website visitors too. By providing a calculator on your site, your blog readers can get accurate data to help them make more informed decisions. Calculators are a popular tool in industries such as finance, real estate, insurance, and more.
But, calculators can be a great interactive tool for a number of website types and industries. For instance, take a look at this fun calculator that tells users how old their dogs are in human years.
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Calculators are also helpful for increasing conversions. For example, calculators can show your website visitors how much money they’ll save when they start using your product or service. So, you can increase engagement and sales.
Offer quizzes and polls.
Websites like Buzzfeed are so successful because people love filling out quizzes and polls. Even a silly quiz like “Choose Your Pizza Toppings and We’ll Tell You How Old You Are” can get a ton of engagement online. You can also use quizzes for educational purposes like giving your website visitors a chance to test their knowledge on topics they’ve learned about on your blog.
There are a number of plugins you can use to easily add a quiz to your website, one of which is Formidable Forms. This contact form plugin offers an addon that turns WordPress forms into automated quizzes. You can create a quiz, automatically score the answers, and then display the results to the user via email, success message, or in a view.
Aside from quizzes, try offering polls on your site too. People enjoy polls because it gives them a chance for their opinion to be heard. Polls also give you an opportunity to collect valuable insights to improve your blog. For instance, you can create a poll that asks users what type of blog posts they like the most. The results from the poll will let you know what type of content to create. The more your readers love your content, the more engagement you’ll get.
Add games.
Games are super fun and people love them. According to Statista, there will be 209.5 million US mobile gamers in 2019, increasing to 213 million in 2020. Unfortunately, you can’t offer popular games like Candy Crush on your website, but you can offer other types of games that are just as fun for your blog readers.
For instance, you could offer a “Spin to Win” game like in the example below. Visitors to your website can spin the wheel for a chance to win a discount on your product or service.
A game like this not only improves engagement on your site, but it can help you grow your email list and boost your sales as well. In fact, according to statistics, gamified optins have been known to turn 2-3% conversions rates into conversions rates of 30% or more.
Over to you.
With these tips for how to increase engagement with interactive content, your readers will no longer skim your blog posts. Instead, you’ll be able to fully capture their attention. Add some interactive content to your blog and you’re sure to see more views, clicks, and shares.