5 Tips for Making Your Website More Social

If you operate a website, you're doubt familiar search engine optimization. Now, add "social optimization" to your to-do list.

A website that's optimized social media sharing typically attracts traffic and sparks more engagement customers. But what social optimization mean exactly? Is it simply a matter of adding social sharing buttons pages? Actually, it encompasses everything encouraging more sharing on your pages to seeking more feedback visitors.

To your website more social, consider these five tips for going beyond buttons:

1. Encourage a more social experience.
There is a belief people either share or they don't. Not . You can encourage sharing and engagement your website by choosing "emotionally intelligent words." This means you select words represent the personality of brand and appear conversational.

A good example would changing a "Try it now" link to "Ready to give it a whirl?" This evokes an action and makes the click more of a personal experience the user. Making it personal, in , can help users feel more comfortable leaving a comment or sharing your site.

2. Raise the bar content quality.
Creating distinctive content that your customers find interesting and useful is, of , key to any successful online marketing strategy. Without such content, there's less chance your pages will be discovered and linked by other sites.

Improving the quality of content is one way to your site more social. Think about it. Are you creating articles, blog posts or videos that are sharing? For example, sure your titles are enticing. Be sure integrate your sharing buttons closely the pieces of content.

Content format and length are important. Infographics, videos and concise blog posts are generally shared often than long, in-depth pieces because they're easily and quickly digested. That's especially important the growing number of mobile-device consumers.

3. Incentivize when possible.
By incentivizing your visitors gamification features such badges, counts and stars, you play to an innate need compete and win. Ask yourself what can tweaked on your site to incentivize sharing. Maybe it's something as simple ratings or voting.

example of successful incentivizing is ModCloth's "Be the Buyer" program. The online vintage clothing retailer invites shoppers to vote which outfit the company should sell next. Customers also encouraged to promote the outfit to friends to more votes. If an outfit gets enough votes, ModCloth will carry outfit.

This program encourages shoppers to check often, increasing site visits and potentially boosting sales. The shoppers are rewarded by able to buy an outfit that isn't carried anywhere . It's a win-win.

4. Actively seek customer feedback.
When was the last you asked your visitors what they wanted see next? Whether it's asking them to vote the next feature you build or to choose a product they'd to see you sell, don't underestimate the power of feedback. Crowdsourcing your site can help encourage users to be social both you and each other.

An example comes from conversion and retention analytics company KISSmetrics, spent its first year asking customers which metrics they needed and where should go in its app. By relying customer feedback, KISSmetrics was able to meet customer expectations throughout platform. This approach helped increase customer retention and the likelihood of future feedback, well.

5. Track diligently and make adjustments.
You might believe that some brands just more likely to win in social engagement others, but that is rarely the case. Success often comes to a more strategic process of testing and making adjustments.

To boost engagement your site, test such factors as sharing buttons go and which kind of messages encourage customer interaction. Most sites have Google Analytics or other research tools, but few are using them to track social media traffic and better understand how people are engaging on their site. Simple changes such as using more direct language can often boost social activity.

Businesses that refuse to test and adjust their social optimization strategies will find that engagement can quickly fizzle and competitors will gladly connect their former fans.


Adapted from: entrepreneur.com, July 2, 2012.