Who isn’t looking for ways to boost site revenue?
By moving people from passively consuming site content to actively engaging them, you encourage visitors to spend time on your site — and the longer they are on your site, the more likely they are to share their information, subscribe, refer others, and return regularly. This in turn provides you with a great story — and the supporting data — to share with your advertisers.
Here are five ways interactive content can increase your site revenue.
1. Interactive content can increase web traffic
Interactive content is the most likely content to be consumed and enjoyed and bring your audience back for more. It is also the most likely to be shared. Consider:
- Over 1.5 million pieces of content are shared on Facebook … daily.
- The number of Twitter users increases by 300,000 every day.
- Interactive content is shared 11 times more often than static content.
The challenge for publishers is to engage on social sites and then drive fans and followers back to their websites.
This infographic shows that approximately 60% of consumers followed a brand for special offers or entertaining content and that 70% participated in a contest or sweepstakes. Consider running a sweepstakes and use it to drive visitors to your site. Martha Stewart used a Facebook sweepstakes to encourage 77% registration for its email list.
2. Interactive content increases time on site
Fifty-three percent of time spent on the Internet is content consumption. To make your site “sticky,” you need to offer the content that today’s consumers are drawn to and enjoy sharing with others. Think videos, games and quizzes.
In addition, with compelling content, you increase ad performance. In fact, the longer a person engages with site content, the more likely he or she is to click on ads or recall brands adjacent to that content.
Cisco Systems made its PCworld.com content interactive by incorporating quizzes about network management. Trivia quizzes have been shown to increase time on site by an average of one minute and 46 seconds.
3. Interactive content drives conversions
Interactive content that requires visitors to register to get results is a great way to gather information, and once you’ve got their attention, you can cross-promote to them. For example, Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia ran a sweepstakes to drive visitors to the site of the Philadelphia Eagles. When entering, consumers could opt in to receive email and text updates.
- 65 percent of those who entered opted in to an offer.
- For every “share” the Eagles saw 38 new site visitors.
- Eagles Facebook fans increased by 25%.
4. Interactive content drives repeat visits
Stale content leads to boredom and site abandonment. Fresh content encourages consumption. Polls and surveys are a great way to encourage interaction and gather insights that you can publish as future content.
Hollywood Life, a publishing & entertainment company, creates three to five new quizzes per month and sees 70% visitor engagement.
5. Offer your advertisers something different
In addition to all the data that you are now armed with when you pitch potential advertisers, there is something else you can offer advertisers to ultimately boost your revenues: the chance to use the exact same types of interactive content that have been so effective for you.
By providing advertisers with the tools to insert their messages in sponsored sections of your site that host interactive content, or by providing them with the opportunity to run quizzes, surveys and contests in ad units, you are providing higher value advertising opportunities. And the more they get out of the ad, the more they can justify spending on it.
Give interactive content a try and see what it can do for your site.
Seth Lieberman is CEO of Pangea Media, developer of the SnapApp marketing platform.
