Tips to Engage Your Website Visitors

What should be obvious to anyone who has ever built a website is an overlooked fact of life: Every website has a user experience, whether those experiences are intentionally designed or not. The reality of our online business climate is clear. Flat and static sites no longer have a place in companies that want to remain web competitive.

To stay alive in today’s fast-paced marketplace, companies must continue to find ways to use their web properties to engage prospects, customers, and partners to drive unique and compelling results. Sites that deliver compelling user experiences are significantly more effective in generating leads, servicing customers, and promoting business growth. So it should follow that your goal should always be to find web service providers that will deliver the WCM solution platform and the tools to design and implement compelling, intentional user experiences to your visitors!

The Winning Equation: Right Message + Right Person + Right time = Revenue!

We would probably all agree that most people buy clothes that are sized to fit them instead of using a one-size-fits-all mindset, right? Yet you might be surprised to know that today, most companies are still delivering a one-size-fits-all user experience to their site visitors.

Statistics point out that, on average, a site visitor will view 5-7 pages of your site before moving on. Think about those pages as real estate. You have an average of six pages worth of real estate to motivate those visitors to do what you want them to do. Here’s the good news: There are specific WCM solution tools and techniques out there that you can use to target, personalize, and start to optimize the content and user experience you deliver to your visitor so that you can maximize those six pages of real estate.

A good WCM solution tool should enable you to craft sites and experiences using personalization and dynamic content delivery to make the most of every single web interaction. And when you use these WCM solution tools, you maximize your chances of turning that site visitor into a prospect that engages with your company. In other words, you’re turning “tire kickers” into buyers!

How to Engage with Your Customers and Prospects

Engaging with your prospects and customers is more than just talking to them; in a very real sense, it’s a two-way street. With the rise of Web 2.0 and the “read/write web,” your visitors expect to carry on a dialog with your company–both online and offline.

A good WCM solution gives you all the tools you need to engage your customers, build trust and strengthen long-term customer relationships. So, you should be on the lookout for a WCM solution that offers an array of tools and capabilities such as web forms, blogs, wikis, web forums and discussions, polls and surveys and more that can enable the most sophisticated of customer interaction strategies.

WOM: The Power of Buzz

If you take some time to research what’s working in marketing today, you’ll find that one of the hottest website trends is word of mouth (WOM) marketing. More and more, there are WCM solution providers out there who are offering highly effective suites of tools to get your site noticed, as well as viral tools to allow the good word to spread. From Search Engine Optimization tools, to RSS syndication and email-a-friend controls, as well as automated social site integrations, there are many WCM solution applications available that let you leverage this compelling marketing vehicle to the fullest extent.

Return Visitors: Keep Them Coming Back For More

An important part of any customer engagement strategy is periodically reaching out to your customers and prospects to draw them back to engage with you on your site. Look for available WCM solution applications that are designed to drive repeat traffic and re-engage visitors, such as email campaign management modules as well as web alerts to let visitors know when content changes. There are WCM solution tools that make it easy to setup new campaigns and that enable you to deploy things like customized or vanity URLs, which are especially useful when they’re integrated with offline campaigns such as direct mail.

The Key Takeaway: Optimize Always!

Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security where your web content is concerned. It’s important to remember that what worked yesterday won’t always work for you tomorrow. It’s critical that you have the tools, such as a WCM solution, to evaluate what is and isn’t working on your site and to be able to quickly make adjustments. By constantly looking for ways to optimize your site for maximum results, you’ll be taking key steps toward understanding how your site is performing, and where the problem areas are in terms of user experience.