Advertising research tells us a lot about what works online. Ads are the last thing viewers want to see, yet research proves engaging ads get more eyes upon them for longer periods of time.

Your website is undoubtedly much less subject to avoidance than advertising. If engagement works so well for advertising, imaging what it can do for your website. This is where Engagement Experience Optimization comes into play. Some call it Customer Experience Optimization, others call it User Engagement Optimization. Whatever term you use, understand that optimizing the engagement experience is as important SEO and SEM.

Best Practices for Experience Engagement Optimization

Many factors go into a visitors experience on your website. Site architecture (navigation), graphics, content and the personality of your site all play a part. Because there are endless ways to engage your audience, there is no “right” way to do it. Here are just a few thoughts on ways to make users feel like they are part of a community, and therefore more likely to engage.

Let Them Have Their Say

Blogs are so popular because they are an easy way to engage users. Visitors have a chance to share their opinions and comment on your content. Always make it easy for users to contribute by having an open and obvious comment box at the end of your content. Never require users to register to comment. Consider adding voting boxes and other input devices that offer your users a chance to have their say. Include “email-this” and social bookmarking features on every post to encourage sharing.

Tell Them Who You Are

A good about page welcomes users, tells them why your site is here and what it is you want to accomplish with your site. Tell them what you’d like to see from them. Show your picture. Focus on the qualities that are uniquely you. Do what you can to connect on a personal level with your visitors.

Resource Page

The things we like say a lot about us. A resource page offers links to the things you like and tells visitors a lot about you. This is not about backlinks, it’s about social interaction. Just liking the same things forges connections that encourage user engagement. Presenting likeable links is a personality marker that works, but a list of 100 links is overwhelming. Only list your top ten or twenty sites and make it easy for users to tell you what their favorite sites are too with comments. It’s like a blog roll, but done on its own page. You can include more links if you split them up by category and just list a few sites under each.

Be Yourself

When creating content for your site, be your irreverent, nerdy, annoying, vexing self. Don’t be afraid to make a bad joke or tell an embarrassing story. Yes, it takes guts to put yourself out there, but with little risk comes little reward.

Respond to Analytics

Once you have put all these social tools into place, you need to monitor and respond to the activity on your site. See what users are searching for most and focus on that topic. This is an ongoing process that should be maintained and monitored weekly.

All these tools are focused on entertaining and informing while giving readers a chance to connect. By looking for ways to give visitors what they want, you are more likely to get what you want out of them: engagement.