When the internet was first created, most websites were static pages with written content and a few graphics. However, this quickly changes as interactive features become more available, and now these features are all over the internet. Instead of having to be spectators, web users can now enjoy an interactive online experience, and that’s exactly what users are looking for. Sites with dynamic features such as commenting systems, (blogs and forums), surveys and forms to fill in, calculators, or other interactive features are the places people are choosing to “hang out” when they go online.

 Since user behaviors are becoming more and more important to the search engines, this means you’d better have a strategy for making your site more interesting and interactive if you want to remain competitive in the SEO world.  In this article, we’ll cover three things you can implement right away to make this happen…

#1: Community is the Key to Engagement

If you want to make your site more engaging, a blog or a forum is the best thing you can do right away. There’s a reason Facebook is so popular, it’s a place where people can connect with like-minded people online. Even if your business does not lend itself to building an online community, there are likely common subjects that your typical customers are interested in. Creating a blog or a forum around these subjects can attract a lot of users, giving you fertile ground for turning them into customers.

There are dozens of applications that are available for creating blogs, forums, or social networks, and many of them are free. For blogs, the popular choice is Wordpress, for forums BBpress and for social network building, there’s the Ning network (available for just a couple of dollars a month). The great thing about creating a forum, blog, or social network for your site is that you get the assistance of your visitors when it comes to creating fresh content, which is great for SEO.

#2 Practical Resource Management Applications

People are always looking for better ways to manage their lives: their money, their health, their time, their goals. If you have something on your site which people can use to manage any of these resources, you’ll get a lot of visits from people simply because of the application. Many times, you can make these applications available for download or have a simple copy and paste script on your site which allows people to add the application to their site.  This is a great way to automate your backlink building process by placing a link back to your site within the application itself.

If you’re unsure about what type of application might be good for your site, you can have a designer create few web design templates which are related to the theme of your site. For example, if you’re in the money management niche, you can have a page of free templates that other people within your niche can download. Place a link to your site in the footer of this template and every time someone uses that free template, you get a free backlink to your site in addition to the traffic from people downloading the template.

#3: Free Games

People love to be entertained, and games can actually be a very effective marketing tool if you know how to use them. For example, the games “Mafia Wars,” “Farmville” and many other popular free online games are used to gather valuable marketing data about the game users. With the help of a good custom software development expert, you can have a game created which gathers information about the game user’s activity while they’re on the internet, including the phrases that they type into the search engines and the websites they frequent.

This is information can be very valuable to you as an online marketer as it will help you get to know your target market better.  Of course, custom game creation can get a bit expensive, so you might need to start with something simple if you’re working with a minimal budget.

#4: Software as a Service (Saas)

Software as a service is when the software creator offers the user access to software through an internet connection instead of selling the software for the user to download and install onto their machine. The user pays a monthly or a yearly fee for access to the software and they can access it from anywhere that they have an internet connection…all they need is a username and password. If you can offer any kind of software as a service on your website, you can generate residual income and attract a lot of repeat visits to your site.

This, again, can be expensive when it comes to getting the software created. However, if you get to know your visitors by either tracking their behaviors or asking them for feedback in your blog, your emails, or in your forum, you can find out exactly what type of Saas they would consider the most useful. This puts you in a position where you can create something that people will be ready to purchase before it’s completed and before you even start offering it to them.

Conclusion: More Strategies for Increasing Your SEO

There are many other ways to optimize your user behaviors and if you use your imagination, you might come up with something which revolutionizes your business. If you’re unsure about how to make your site more interactive, just spend some time doing some web surfing yourself and pay attention to the kinds of things that grab your attention and keep it. The next idea you have when doing this could be the idea that puts your business over the top.

In the meantime, it’s important to continue your education on good SEO, which you can do right now by signing up for our FREE seven-day mini-course below.  You’ll get instant access to information about tools you can use to dominate your competition and attract more customers.

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