With the inception of the World Wide Web in 1989, there are now more than 80 million websites online, with many more computers connected to the Internet, and hundreds of millions of users. We want a computer, not to compute, but to access the Web. As such, when we are online we tend to spend more time on sites that are worthy of our attention. After all, time is a limited resource. So, the big questions are, where DO we spend all our time online? Which websites are more successful in capturing our attention compared to others? How engaging is the content on the website?
The Internet Activity Index (IAI) issued by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) based on a 4 year study found that internet users are spending most of their online time visiting content and less time on communications and commerce combined. No wonder that ‘Content is King’ online, as well.
The dominant role of content is driven by several important factors. The first is the online transition of traditionally offline activities, such as getting news, finding entertainment information or checking the weather forecast. Secondly, the internet provides a wonderful broadcast medium for every netizen to become a content creator and publisher.
Content broadly is defined as ‘the stuff in your Web site’. This may include documents, data, applications, e-services, images, audio and video files, personal Web pages, archived e-mail messages, and more. Web 2.0 technologies and publishing models have set the stage for fast, highly-interactive sites to deliver user-requested content.
With this plethora of stuff online, it is important to understand what content engages the online visitor. The new metric for websites is not how many people see your website, but how many see your content and interact with it. Content engagement metrics are complex and are evolving to include all the different facets of visitor interaction. They are not merely based on number of visits or time spent by visitors on the web page, but also the frequency of returns to a site, the amount of time and page views per visit, actions performed on the page, etc.
PostRank (www.postrank.com) provides a web analytics tool to rank any kind of online content by analyzing the types and frequency of an audience's interaction on analysis of the "5 Cs" of engagement: creating, critiquing, chatting, collecting, and clicking.
Is it any wonder that Nielsen Online finds that Facebook reigns supreme in the amount of time spent by users – a whopping 4.5 hours per person, on average per month and growing, followed by Google, Yahoo, AOL and eBay. It is often said that actions speak louder than words. This is particularly true in thinking about how visitors engage with websites. Start with your readership in mind instead of the search engine robots and you’ll not only end up ranking well but will help some people along the way.
Engagement can be defined to be an estimate of the degree and depth of visitor interaction on the site against a clearly defined set of goals for that website. Determining whether content is appropriate to visitor needs and to business goals is a complex problem. Your website must be functional and relevant. If not, the visitors will leave, searching for quality information. Provide accurate and accessible information. Update your services regularly to encourage repeat visits and greater interaction. Make an assessment of your content. Focus on objectives and specify the type of each objective, characteristics and an accurate description. Think about who will perform the tasks related to various aspects of the website.
The two critical elements to building a successful site are a search engine friendly website, and an effective and solid call to action that gets the visitor to take action and respond. One without the other just won't have the same impact at all. Remember to focus on creating content that satisfies the reason why the user performed a search in the first place. An Integrated content strategy isn’t easy, but, it is imperative to growing and sustaining a website online.
This can be in the form of feedback or forums, where people interact with each other and discuss the various issues related with a product or website. Another technique for increasing engagement on websites is the use of website reviews. User generated reviews lend credibility to a website while making the user feel part of the story.
So how do we compete and keep the users on our sites? The best ways to capture a users’ attention and keep them coming back are to strategize your content, leverage technology to assist in the effort, and incorporate the user’s voice.
Article Contributed by Ms Poonam Sagar, International Consultant with Training Edge International
Email : poonam.sagar@trainingedgeasia.com
Website : www.trainingedgeasia.com
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