More Than Meets the Eye: Engaging Website Visitors with a Sensory-Rich Experience

We experience the world through our five senses – sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. The more of our senses that an experience engages, the richer and more memorable that experience is likely to be. Visit a nice restaurant, and you’ll see how that establishment works deliberately to engage all five of your senses. The food will, of course, entice your senses of taste and smell, but its presentation on the plate will also play to your sense of sight – as will the lighting and décor. Consider as well the music being played and the feeling of the fabrics and textures on your chair and table: what kind of sensory response do these things elicit? All of these elements work together in synchronicity to define your experience at this restaurant. When it comes to website design, we have traditionally focused our attention on only one of the senses – sight. While sound comes into play on occasion, it is the sense of sight that we tend to think about first and foremost, as websites have long been considered a visual medium, similar to printed content like books, magazine or newspapers. However, one of the most powerful aspects of the Web is the fact that we can, indeed, engage more of the senses than we can with a paper document. With the benefit of today’s technologies and looking ahead to what the future may hold, we see that we can begin creating experiences that stimulate multiple senses to immerse visitors more deeply in our sites, thereby creating more lasting, memorable impressions. Let’s take a look at how we can use our websites to create sensory-rich experiences and how recent advancements in technology are unleashing new possibilities for how we can engage with our users through the Web.

Sight

Let’s start with the primary sense that has long been associated with websites – sight. Yes, the look of a website is important, and its design is meant to captivate a visitor’s sense of sight. But exactly how we use the tools of visual design leaves a lot of room for creative experimentation and variety. Many sites today employ movement and animation in their designs, whether it’s a rotating carousel of images on the home page, buttons that change color or size when a user hovers over them or embedded video. Amazon’s recently announced Fire phone takes the way that a screen can engage our sense of sight to the next level with a feature called “Dynamic Perspective.” This feature allows users to interface with the content on the screen by tilting the phone in different directions. A simple move of the wrist allows access to shortcuts, opens navigation menus or scrolls the page. This technology has the potential to immerse users more deeply into digital environments with a unique perspective that allows them to look under, behind or around elements on the screen. Currently, these perspective features are being utilized as part of the phone’s native operating system and by a few select apps, but how long before other devices introduce similar features and web designs begin creating pages that can take advantage of different perspectives and dimensions? If movement and animation can attract a user’s attention and engage them through their sense of sight, just think about what this dynamic perspective may be able to bring us in the future.

Sound

Today, the most common way that websites engage a visitor’s sense of sound is through video content. The ability to involve multiple senses in a single experience is a powerful thing, and video content is a perfect example of this principal in practice. By combining visual and audio, video content can accomplish important objectives on a website, whether that’s explaining a complex concept or showcasing product features, While videos are a great example of how sound can be used effectively to enhance the user’s experience, there’s also a dark side to sound on the Web, which, if used improperly, can undermine your site’s success. Just as in the restaurant example we cited previously, background music or sound on a website can help to create atmosphere and mood, but if that sound is too loud, inappropriate or obnoxious, the tone it sets will be a very negative one. Soundtracks on websites, a feature that was popular years ago when many companies wanted immersive Flash-based sites, often backfire. Visitors who may be listening to music as they surf the Web, or those who do not want a website to suddenly begin blaring music at them (perhaps because they are at work or in some other environment where being surprised by audio will be an unwelcome experience) are likely to be annoyed if they get audio content that they did not want or need. Unlike the audio associated with a video that helps engage the user, audio added to create “atmosphere” is rarely used effectively, and you should be very cautious if you decide to go this route. For all audio content on your site, whether it’s part of a video or some kind of music or background sounds, be sure to allow visitors to initiate that audio on their own, and do not surprise them with it. The shock of their sense of sound being engaged unexpectedly is what you want to avoid!

Touch

Touchscreens have been available for many years now, but until the release of the iPod and iPhone, they were not widely used in consumer devices. Today, touchscreens are everywhere. Not only do we all carry around touch-driven smartphones and tablets, but touchscreens are now readily available for laptops and even desktop computers, too. With the rise in the adoption of touchscreens comes the ability to engage our visitors’ sense of touch, allowing them to interface with our site in a more physical way as opposed to only through mouse clicks. This ability to touch our sites allows us to connect with our audience in a literal sense. While most sites or applications currently focus on gestures and movements to scroll pages or access features and content, there are also organizations working on tactile touchscreens that can make interfacing with screens a completely different experience. Looking again at the new Amazon Fire phone and their Dynamic Perspective feature, I can only imagine how powerful an experience we could create by combining that technology with actual tactile sensations on the screen as people interface with our content. Talk about being pulled into a digital environment!

Smell

You wouldn’t think that the sense of smell could possibly come into play on a website, but emerging technologies hint that this may soon become reality. Harvard scientists recently transferred a scent from Paris to New York using an iPhone app (the smell they sent was “champagne and passion fruit macaroon” – yum!). They did this using a platform called the oPhone, a new technology from a company that is “working to bring olfactory wonder to mobile messaging.” Yes, they can actually send smells. The future is here. While this particular technology, which includes more than 3,000 scents, requires the use of specific oPhone hardware, the fact that innovators are actively advancing the possibilities for integrating the sense of smell into the digital world prompts us to think about the kind of fully immersive sensory experiences that might lie just over the horizon. For example, what if a restaurant could transmit the scents of their food as you peruse their website’s menu page. Or what if you were shopping for scented candles online, and you could actually smell each product just as if you were standing in a brick-and-mortar retail store? What if you could take a video tour of a bakery, see the products as they’re being made, hear about how they’re created and smell the delicious aromas of cakes and cookies baking in the oven – engaging sight, sound and smell all at once. Sound unbelievable? It may not be as far off as you think.

Taste

What about the sense of taste? Will we one day be able to transmit tastes through our websites? It sounds crazy, but then again, the ability to project a smell online seems equally implausible until you hear the story of the oPhone. Who knows, maybe one day soon we will not only be able to send the aroma of a freshly baked cookie but also allow customers to sample a taste of that cookie as well. Again, it sounds incredible, but almost all technological advancements seem like wishful thinking until someone figures out how to make it happen.

Looking ahead

Who knows what the future holds, but I for one am excited to see how we will be able to expand our ability to engage our website visitors’ senses to create more powerful – and certainly more memorable – user experiences.

---

Insider Secrets to Killer Website Content: 7 Steps to Building a Better Blog

As important as good website design is, let’s face it, it’s not what brings visitors to your site. They come for the content, and if that content is sufficiently compelling, then they’ll take the action you desire, whether that’s making a purchase, completing a registration form or even just picking up the phone to contact you for more information. In short, the success of your website begins and ends with quality content.

That’s why in this series of articles – Insider Secrets to Killer Website Content – we’re taking a look at types of content that are common to many websites and exploring ways that they can be redesigned and improved. So far, we’ve covered customer testimonials and “About Us” pages. In this third installment of the series, we tackle the ever-popular but often poorly executed business blog.

The promise of blog content has always been the ability to easily add fresh content to your website on a regular basis. In practice, however, that’s not quite as easy as it sounds.

While the tools available to us today allow blogsto be updated very easily, authoring content that is relevant and unique is a much greater challenge – one that proves to be the downfall of many a blog.

The challenges of maintaining and sustaining a blog

Every new blog is launched with the loftiest of goals and expectations. Plans are laid to write articles chock-full of insight on the latest industry trends, and anticipation is high for the proliferation of inbound links to come along with the resulting boost in search engine rankings.

The road to realizing those dreams starts with quality content, but being able to produce that content on a regular basis is where the rubber meets the road – which often proves to be a much greater obstacle than many realize when they initially decide to launch a blog.

At the outset of blogging, enthusiasm is high and ideas flow like honey. But all too often, after a few months or even weeks, the content begins to falter. The frequency between updates grows, and the quality wanes as articles begin to read more like standard press releases or company news updates.

For any blog to succeed, it must have regularly published content that is timely and relevant. If you can also make that content unique, then you have achieved the trifecta of excellent blog content.

So how do you ensure that the enthusiasm and quality that you have at launch can be sustained past the first handful of posts? Here are seven steps to turn your blog into a powerful traffic-boosting, sales-generating machine:

1. Answer questions you are being asked.

Every writer’s biggest challenge is coming up with a topic – and blogging is no different.

Staring at a blank screen and trying to get started on a new article is a daunting task indeed. But one way you can generate some topic ideas is to think about questions that often come up in your day-to-day conversations with your customers.

Whenever I begin brainstorming ideas for a new article, I start by reflecting on these conversations. Typically, I can identify a few topics that I’ve recently been asked about, and I can also recall the answers I gave and the discussion that ensued. More often than not, these provide the perfect foundation for a new article.

By coming up with a list of common client questions, you’ll provide yourself with excellent potential blog topics. Better yet, you’ll also create content that people are actually interested in and actively looking for – because you can bet that if these questions are being asked of you, then there are others out there who are looking for those same answers too.

2. Write about what others are not writing about.

Answering common questions is a great start, but you can really take your blog to the next level if the articles you publish – and the answers you provide – are unique.

Think about your own experiences in searching for answers online. If you search for a topic and find very few relevant articles addressing that topic, then that article – and its source – become gold to you. If it’s a really great article that does indeed answer your questions, you will tell others about it via social media or by posting links on message boards and forums where you are an active participant. A unique article succeeds because it addresses a topic that no one else effectively has.

The value of an article with little competition increases exponentially. So anytime you’re brainstorming new blog content topics, be sure to do a search for articles that may be similar in nature. If you do find similar content, make sure yours offers a different perspective or creative spin. If you do not find similar articles, this is your golden opportunity to publish something truly unique.

3. Keep to a schedule and plan ahead.

A schedule is critical when it comes to sustaining your blog over the long term. The frequency with which you update your blog with new content – whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly – will be different depending the nature of your industry and your audience. However, sticking to that schedule is what’s important, because it is all too easy to miss a deadline and brush it off as no big deal. But once you miss one deadline, it’s that much easier to miss another and another and another – until the gap between articles becomes substantial, and getting back on track becomes a grueling uphill battle.

One way to ensure that you keep to a schedule is to plan ahead, and planning ahead starts with ideas. If you dedicate time for you and your team to brainstorm article topics (whether individually or in a group session), you’ll inevitably find that one great idea leads to another and another.

When you have a handful of great article concepts to work on, it’s often tempting to publish these articles in quick succession. However, it’s important to avoid this temptation. Instead, make the most of your brainstorming momentum and plan out exactly when each of these articles will be published based on a regular, sustainable rhythm.

By having a handful of quality articles in queue, you can more easily keep to your schedule. And, of course, while you are waiting to publish those new articles, you can brainstorm new ideas and write those articles so that you always have fresh content at the ready.

Maintaining a schedule helps ensure that you do not publish new articles either too infrequently or too frequently but instead maintain a steady stream of quality content so that your readers know when to expect new articles and remain engaged with your blog.

4. Keep it short and sweet.

One concern I often hear voiced when I speak with clients about blogging is that they fear they will not be able to maintain a regular rhythm of publishing because of the time it takes to do so.

Yes, writing blog content takes time, but if you’re doing it right, it’s not as much as you might think. Blog articles do not need to be lengthy to be effective. In fact, short articles that are very sharply focused and easy to read are often the most effective and popular articles you can write.

By keeping articles short in length but high in quality, you can publish great content with much less of a demand on resources than you may have initially expected while still realizing the value that fresh blog content brings to your site.

5. Enlist help.

Another way to minimize the time impact of creating new blog content is to spread the workload around. If only one individual in your organization is tasked with authoring articles for your blog, then the entire burden of maintaining your publishing schedule falls on their shoulders, which means you also have a single point of failure if their other job responsibilities start encroaching on their available time for blogging. If you have a team of authors, however, then the impact on any one individual is minimized.

In addition to the benefits of sharing the responsibilities, having multiple voices represented on your blog also brings much needed variety to its content. Different authors bring different ideas, expertise and perspectives to the table, helping to create a more well‐rounded blog. Plus, if your organization offers a variety of services, then having experts who can cover a wide array of subjects will give your blog relevance to a broader audience.

When enlisting authors for your blog, look for those with distinct voices that will bring something new to the site as well as those who are enthusiastic about writing and eager to contribute.

You should also seek out those aforementioned subject matter experts in your organization. Many people are hesitant to recruit these experts to write – often because they are so valuable to an organization that pulling them away from their “real work” is seen as counterproductive. This could not be further from the truth. The reality is that these subject matter experts have a perspective that others do not. Remember, you want unique, relevant content that will resonate with your audience. What better way to achieve that goal than by turning to those who know it best? As an added bonus, when your readers see that you have true experts at work behind the scenes, your business and your brand as a whole will benefit from a boost in reputation.

6. Embrace current events.

Timeliness can be important in blog articles. When a topic is current, it is often relevant and being actively sought out by interested readers. Therefore, creating blog content that addresses those current events and latest development can be a great way to add articles to your site with information that others are talking about and looking for right now.

If you are consistently on the lookout for relevant current events that you can build content around, and you are also answering frequently asked client questions as covered earlier in this article, then you are well on your way to ensuring you never run out of possible ideas for new blog content.

7. Get ready to share.

If publishing timely, relevant and unique blog content is step one in building and maintaining a successful blog for your website, then promoting that blog content is a logical step two.

Great content will get found, but can do a lot to facilitate this process by promoting it. Yes, this means letting your connections on social media know about a new article once it is published, but just posting a link on your company’s Facebook page is not enough. You also need to also look for more targeted situations where you can share this content.

One example would be to include a link an email exchange you are having with a current client or prospect as a reference point when they ask a question that your post helps to answer. Furthermore, you and your team should become active participants on other websites and forums where the members of your tribe live day in and day out and where you can post links to your articles when appropriate to the conversation (don’t overdo it, of course, or you’ll become a community pariah). Also, by featuring related articles within each post in your blog, you can introduce readers to other content that they may not have been looking for at that moment, but which they will find valuable, too.

Whatever avenues of promotion you use – and you should use a number of different methods – the goal is to spread the word to readers who are looking for the content you are creating.

Watch your hard work pay off.

There’s no doubt about it – maintaining an effective blog is hard work. But with strategic planning and a solid team behind you, you can publish quality content on a regular basis – content that will serve as a powerful catalyst for bringing new visitors to your website and new customers through your doors.

---