Wednesday 15 April 2009
At the dawn of the internet, a website did nothing more than share information with users. Reading was the only sort of interaction you could do with a site. But times soon began to change. Internet and SEO guru, Richard Vanderhurst explains that reading is still essential to user-website interaction because of the necessity for product descriptions, information databases and so on. But, there are far more interesting applications today than there ever was in the age of text.
These days, users expect some sort of interactive element from your site and may become bored if it is overstuffed with words and information. Try drawing them into the site and make them feel welcome by interacting with them. This can be in the form of a blog that they may comment on, possibly a game related to your site, the ability to download content for further use or a poll they can vote on. But aside from the users, search engine crawlers are checking for interactions as well. Interactivity is a criteria that is not nearly as important as some others, such as the content itself, but it could mean the difference between a first and second page rank on search results.
Richard Vanderhurst makes a point to tell his students that interaction is also the most efficient way to complete a goal conversion. This is usually described as an action that a user does on your site that allows you to gather more information about them. Goal conversions are usually in the form of a simple activity, such as signing up for a membership or joining a newsletter. These are meant to persuade your visitors into staying just a little bit longer and sharing with you some of their information. Ultimately, the more interactive your site is, the more likely users are to participate and reach that goal conversion.
In his lectures, Richard Vanderhurst explains that, in many cases, websites will be dedicated to making goal conversions. For instance, they’ll entice users left and right, prodding them toward the purchase pages, and often meet that goal conversion through a purchase. If a user does end up purchasing and completing the conversion, this automatically makes them more likely to return in the future. So, in the end, interactivity has won a return customer.
