How to Use Interactive Content and Improve SEO

Posted in: Content | SEO

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Have you ever visited a website’s landing page and felt so underwhelmed with the content that you immediately left and visited a different site? Do you wish your website was more visually stimulating? What about your site’s bounce rate, time on page, or conversions? Could they use some work? Well, we’ve got the perfect solution for you: interactive content!

Yes, that’s right—interactive content may be exactly what your site is lacking. This guide will define what interactive content is and walk you through the importance of incorporating it into your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy for 2022.

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After all, Rock Content listed interactive content as a top trend to pay more attention to in 2022 to improve page visibility, organic traffic, and enhance user experience. Google has made it clear from a previous November 2021 Core Algorithm update that it is working to increase your website’s ranking in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) by getting rid of spam, as well as increasing the number of links that have informative content that promotes a positive and engaging experience for the user.

Once you’ve finished reading, you’ll be able to better understand what interactive content is, how you can use it on your site, why it’s important for SEO, and you’ll have some different types of interactive content examples to pull inspiration from. Let’s get started!

What Is Interactive Content?

Interactive content is dynamic content that encourages users to participate or engage with materials on your website. It promotes user interactivity and acts as a two-way communication between your brand and your audience. Interactive content is the opposite of static content and can be a fun and exciting way for you to engage with your audience and differentiate yourself from the competitors by using animated infographics, quizzes, calculators, 360° images, and much more.

Not only is interactive content cool and exciting, but it also allows you to collect data so that you can view how many site visitors have clicked on your material, have viewed your content, and which elements are gaining the most interactions as well as evaluating exit points.

According to a survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) in 2016, 81% of survey participants agreed that interactive content was able to grab attention more effectively than static content. Another survey conducted by Scribblelive in 2018 discovered that 60% of organizations that have used interactive content were ahead of other organizations who didn’t use interactive content in measuring the effectiveness of their content.

How Does Interactive Content Benefit SEO Strategies?

There are many benefits of incorporating interactive content to promote your SEO strategies and brand awareness. When site visitors actively engage with the content on your site, they’re more likely to remain on your site longer, which allows you to deliver your brand message more successfully. Check out some of the many benefits of interactive content for SEO below!

Increases Time on Page

When your site visitors are positively engaged with your content, this means that they are likely spending more time on your site. Interactive content can improve session duration and may reduce your bounce rate, which ultimately boosts your organic results. When people spend more time on your pages, this also sends more positive signals to search engines like Google regarding the content of your site.

Decreases Bounce Rates

You can get an idea of the quality and effectiveness of your content by checking the bounce rate of your pages. If you notice that many visitors are leaving your page within seconds and without clicking on anything, interactive content may be the perfect solution. By adding enticing interactive content, people will be less likely to leave your page quickly.

Improves Social Shares

While having your businesses’ links shared on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook does not directly improve your organic rank, social shares do have the ability to increase the visibility of your content and spread brand awareness. The more people that share your content on social media, the more likely you are to get noticed by search engines. Likewise, when people share exciting interactive content like videos or infographics on social media, the more likely you are to gain backlinks and increase branded searches.

Builds Brand Awareness

As mentioned above, brand awareness can be spread by gaining backlinks and through social media shares of your unique and interactive content. By adding interactive elements, you can help your brand gain navigational searches to your site which has a direct impact on how search engines rank your website.

Boosts User Experience (UX)

You can boost your user’s experience by providing a visually stimulating landing page that’s customized, creative, and even personalized to the people viewing your site. By presenting your content in an interactive or more pleasing way, you’ll be able to share your information in a way that is easily digestible and memorable.

6 Popular Types of Interactive Content

Now let’s look at six popular types of interactive content you can use to improve SEO and keep your audience engaged. Keep in mind that some of these examples, like calculators, games, and quizzes are truly interactive, while others have an opportunity to become interactive, like maps and infographics.

1. Interactive Infographics

Infographics provide visual appeal to transmit important information quickly and efficiently, and are a great way to improve your chances of growing your backlinks. According to Hubspot’s research, infographics are the fourth most used type of content marketing. Since interactive infographics are easily shareable, they can be used as a way for other sites and social media platforms to link back to you. Try making your next infographic more attractive by adding points of interactivity within the image.

Here’s an example of an interactive infographic for Cocainenomics by Netflix that was used to promote the Narcos series and educate visitors on the multibillion-dollar, global drug trade.

2. Videos

Interactive videos can be a dynamic and participative way to invite your audience to engage and interact with your content. In fact, it is predicted that in 2022, videos will make up more than 82% of all internet consumer traffic. Interactive videos are similar to normal videos, except they’re able to perform an action based on the user’s input beyond the traditional play, pause, and rewind features. This means that users are able to click on elements within the video to perform specific actions.

An outstanding example of an interactive video is You vs. Wild: Out Cold by Netflix. Users can watch the video and choose a preferred storyline to help the main character find his friend after a plane crash to survive.

Screenshot image of Netflix’s 2021 You vs Wild Out Cold interactive video

3. Quizzes

Quiz-based content can be a fun and creative way to entertain, engage, and educate your audience in a challenging way. Quizzes are also great for growing links to your content, increasing the time spent on your site and exploring other pages, as well as promoting sharing on social media. No wonder more than 96% of users complete BuzzFeed quizzes from start to finish.

4. Calculators

Calculators are a type of interactive tool that are mostly used in finance to provide personalized experiences to the brand’s audience. Calculators can be used to show your audience how much they can save, how to determine the price of something, create a budget, calculate sleep and diet, plus many other fun and unique niches. Calculators can also help your business establish itself as an expert in its field and allow you to collect information based on your customer’s inputs.

Our Yelp improvement calculator is an interactive tool that lets you evaluate how your ratings play into the overarching average. You can use the interactive calculator to determine how many five-star reviews you need to bump up your rating. If your goal is five stars, this calculator makes it easy to see how close you are.

Here’s another example of an interactive calculator from GEICO on how to calculate life insurance needs and determine how much insurance someone may need to purchase.

GEICO’s life insurance calculator

5. Landing Pages

A landing page is the first thing someone sees when they land on your website and it usually has a main objective: to generate conversions. When interactivity is included in your landing page, this can help you keep your audience visually engaged and improve your chances of lead conversions like email sign-ups and increased time on page. Static landing pages on the other hand, only allow users to click on links, read the material, and sometimes provide their personal information.

Check out this hilarious and engaging landing page from Muzzle, an app that silences your notifications while screen sharing. Muzzle does a great job of showing their audience exactly what their service and brand is about with rapid-fire, incoming embarrassing notifications.

6. Maps

Interactive maps have recently become more popular, especially since the successful launch of Google Maps. Interactive maps can be used for many purposes to either entertain or educate your audience using geolocational data. Consider adding an interactive map to your site using
hover effects, zoom and panning functions, layering effects, and datasets that allow users to click on and visit relevant links.

In 2018, Go Fish Digital created an interactive map for a client that gained them many local, and national online publications. You can check out a preview of our interactive map and learn more about how interactive content can increase page time.

What Are Some Tools for Creating Interactive Content?

So, you’ve learned what interactive content is and how it can benefit your site from an SEO perspective, but now you’re wondering where and how to start. Instead of spending potentially a lot of money hiring a developer to create interactive material, you can learn how to produce interactive content on your own using these easy-to-use tools and templates below!

Dot.vu

Dot.vu is an interactive content creator platform that allows you to create calculators, quizzes, questionnaires, and lookbooks, among other interactive pieces of content without ever needing to code. Dot provides user-friendly templates and even has an advanced feature, allowing you to use a drag-and-drop editor to provide you with full control over the design.

ThingLink

ThingLink uses an easy-to-use multimedia editor and scenario builder to help you create meaningful and interactive experiences for your audience. Try building 360° videos or images for campus tours, VR experiences, infographics, maps, and presentations from your desktop or with ThingLink’s mobile app.

Ion by Rock Content

Ion by Rock Content is dominating the code-free, interactive content creation field. Ion provides you with simple tools like drag-and-drop features that help you create engaging experiences to help your business drive conversions. Create assessments, quizzes, ROI calculators, and other interactive material in just hours.

Mapme

Looking for a super cool map building platform that requires zero coding? Look no further! Mapme is an online map builder where you can select from a variety of creative map layouts and designs to create customized, interactive maps to help you boost your map engagement and conversions.

Outgrow

Outgrow lets you create the interactive content of your dreams, using a trouble-free and coding-free content builder. Design and create polls, contests, interactive chatbots, forms and surveys, giveaways, and much more.

Wrap Up: Interactive Content for SEO

Though static content can be useful for SEO and may be working for your business, interactive content is a fun and creative way to provide memorable experiences for your visitors. An interactive infographic, as opposed to a static PDF infographic, may be the difference between a social share and bounce. Or, an interactive video instead of an image may be what increases visitors’ time on page and your brand conversions.

Either way, high-quality interactive and participative content has been proven to boost SEO performance and may be exactly what you need to differentiate yourself from the competition. So what are you waiting for? Get creative and start working on your next interactive experience today!

If you’re looking to improve your site’s search visibility, feel free to reach out to our SEO agency at Go Fish Digital.

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