How to Get Visitors to Interact With Your Website

Rather than focusing on selling products, many websites are designed to capture leads, drive repeat traffic, build community or grow membership. For content sites, portals and social networks, these objectives are essential for advertising revenue survival.

Accomplishing these goals is a matter of establishing a relationship with the website visitor. The right content is a good way to attract an audience, but it’s important to understand how to get the visitor to interact with your site to create a deeper relationship.In the olden days of the Web, people would readily engage with a website, providing their email and other information without expecting much in return. Not true today. Scary stories about privacy and overflowing email inboxes have made website visitors cautious. Established brands don’t scare people as much. Smaller, newer businesses have to work that much harder.

As explained in Part 1, relationships are built over time through a series of actions on your part and theirs in a fair exchange, evolving the visitor from someone who simply lurks to someone who actively participates in the website. This engagement is essential if you want to know what the visitor is thinking. And the more you know, the better you’ll understand their needs, wants and the value they place on what you have to offer. But how do we figure out what’s fair?

The TEMPS Index

TEMPS (time, emotion, money, privacy, sweat) is a way to measure a visitor’s willingness to commit to your site. The higher the TEMPS, the more involved they are – the very definition of a relationship. Your goal is to raise the stakes, but the more you want someone to give, the more you’ll need to provide in return.

Time: Literally the amount of time it’s going to take the visitor to perform an action. If your site is designed well, it will take the visitor less time to perform an action. Less time means a smaller perceived level of commitment. Time becomes less of an issue as the visitor’s overall perceived value of the site increases.

Emotion: Represents the visitor’s desire -- to be more involved. It’s where making a personal connection with the visitor becomes so important. Really knowing your visitors – their psychology and behaviors especially – will help you express the right style and tone, which in turn helps creates emotional involvement. You want them to fall in like with you (can you say Apple?). It’s also an important part of what makes a site “sticky” (when a visitor stays longer, visits more pages and visits repeatedly).

Money: If you’re asking for money, well, we all know that price and perceived value are integrally related. In other words, whatever I’m buying better be worth it. And if it isn’t a tangible product, but rather information, for example, it needs to come with a hefty reason why I should be paying for it.

Privacy: As I’ve said before, people these days are really hesitant to provide personal data, unless of course you’re talking about those who participate in social networks, and that goes only so far. Asking for social security numbers and other financial data drives the TEMPS Index even higher.

Sweat: Apart from actual time spent, this accounts for the effort a visitor has to expend. It includes: thinking, sourcing information, typing, scrolling, clicking, waiting for page loads, etc. The more trouble, the more sweat. Once again, designing a site for ease of use is important for reducing this perceived commitment.

Applying TEMPS to Your Site

Think about how you build relationships with customers in the real world

Outline how you could replicate this process on your website by thinking about the various ways you’d like visitors to engage with your site. Start with the end result: Are you looking for members? Newsletter sign-ups? Survey responses? Contact? Then think about the steps someone might take from first hearing about you to that final result.

Here’s a sample list, from low to high TEMPS:




* Learn more



* View Demo



* Download



* Blog, comment



* Sign up/Register



* Contact



* Join/Become a Member



* Buy






At the beginning of the process, the TEMPS index is pretty low and there’s little at stake for the visitor – they don’t have to give up any information, and they don’t have to expend much effort or time in doing so. Asking a visitor to click a button to “learn more” is a fairly low TEMPS request.

Determine what you can offer in fair exchange for those actions

You’ll need to offer visitors something of sufficient perceived value to get them to want to give of their precious attention, time, effort and information. The higher their TEMPS, the more you’ll have to give. The idea is to offer something that costs little, but has high value to the visitor. Here are some ideas:




* Downloads of information not available elsewhere (i.e., white papers, research, articles you’ve written, etc.



* Access to resources (i.e., links, descriptions, etc.)



* Event updates (i.e., via a newsletter)



* Membership only access



* Community (i.e., social network)



* Permission to participate (i.e., in a blog)



* Promotional opportunities (i.e., sale notifications)






Don’t try to ask for too much without giving something in return

From the moment someone lands on your page, a gap exists between what he or she wants and what you want the visitor to do. Asking visitors to do something they’re not ready to commit to can be alienating, leaving them with a bad feeling about your site and possibly your business. Better to start slowly with requests that don’t require a big investment on their part. Create alignment, gradually and at their pace, to ease the visitor from passive viewer (reading, surfing) to active participant (signing up, commenting, calling, etc). At each point, as the visitor moves towards their goal (and yours), you provide them with a reward for their time, effort, and personal information.

Be clear about what the visitor can expect in exchange for this higher level of commitment

When someone makes a purchase, it’s clear that they’ll get the goods. Services are nuanced, requiring more explanation and a bit of a sales effort. As you move towards high TEMPS requests, be sure they know in advance what to expect. For example, when soliciting emails for your newsletter, you could provide access to past issues in an archive, let them know how often the newsletter is published, or provide a beneficial summary of the type of information they might expect.

Use persuasive architecture and content

Determine what you want your visitor to do once they hit your site, using navigation and links to guide them through from passive to active. Use compelling content to encourage them to move forward. Think about why the visitor might not want to do what you’re asking – then write your copy to overcome their objections. Keep in mind that there will be repeat visitors who already know what they want to do. Make this easy for them, following the rule of thumb of no more than three clicks to get them to their desired destination.

Experiment with different options and track results

By engaging customers, you’ll have the opportunity to test different promotions, messages, and website content to see what people are interested in. Use Web analytic data, like bounce rate, time spent on site, number of pages visited (and which ones), to get an understanding of the visitor’s behaviors. You’ll be able to determine how deep a visitor goes beyond your home page and how long they’re engaged, which will lead you to making better decisions about your site. Don’t worry so much about daily stats, unless you get lots of traffic; better to review over a period of time, say from 2 weeks to a month to spot trends.

Quick Writing Tips

Using the right words might be enough to convince someone to take an action. Here are some ideas to get you started:




* Always take your visitor’s point of view, considering their WIIFM (What’s in it for me?)



* Make sure what you’re offering matches what you’re asking for – it’s the give to get.



* Offer a bit of news (on the next page), intrigue (hint at something bigger), or ask a question they can’t help but want to know the answer to.



* Add an incentive, such as a bonus offer, free download, discount or contest.



* Give a reason to act quickly, such as a deadline, expiration date, or limited availability.



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