Interactive Elements of a Website

Incorporate Interactive Tools

To engage customers and move them through the various stages of the buying process, consider using a variety of interactive tools.

A range of customer contact points can serve to gain trust and credibility by increasing communication and sharing of knowledge to move the visitor along the path toward becoming a customer.

Complementary campaigns, utilizing a combination of offline methods (print, QR Codes) and online methods (website, social networking, blog, mobile apps) that reach out to your targeted audience will help keep your business top of mind.

Community of Potential and Existing Customers

Once you have developed relationships with potential customers and built your customer detabase, the door is open to you to up-sell or cross-sell.

The idea is not to hard sell or try to immediately close a idea, but instead to Build a community of potential and existing customers with whom you interact. This relationship not only keep customers loyel, but allow you to build on your undrestanding of their wants, needs and motivations-invaluable market insight for your business.

Control website content 

Current site design have moved from a static format built by web professionals to "create your own" or at least "self-edit" once a developer has set it up.

This give much more control and ability to the site owner to provide front-end user interactivity.

Interactive Elements to create a Dynamic presence 

for back-end site editing with front-end user interactivity 

• Content Management System (CMS)
• Joomla, Drupal, CMS Made Simple, Business Catalyst, Word press 
• Searchable Databases 
• Products, Business Listings directory
• Image Gallery Database
• News Management System
• Advertising Management Systems
• FAQ System
• Event Management
• Private-only, Password Protected Areas

For Social, Sharing, Collaboration

• Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Stumpleupon, etc.
• Relationship-building through community exchange
• widgets (e.g. "Share" or "follow") on articales/blogs to increas dissemination.
• Icons on your website to icrease awareness of social media activity availability
• Blogging article posts and distribution via RSS

For Calculations or Productivity Utilities

• Mortgage tools calculators
• Translation or Language Tools
• Project management tools

For Lead Generation/Conversion

• Contest Forms
• Newsletter Subscriber Forms
• Request For Quote Forms
• Sign Up as Member Forms
• Free Download Whitepaper, Articles Form

For E-Commerce

• Interactive Transactional E-commerce interfaces (e.g. Drag & Drop products into cart)
• Product Variation Selections

Key Interactive Elements - Searchable Databases

Searchable Databases such as site wide search functionality or even product catalogue searchable databases and business directories help visitors find things on your site more quickly.

Rather than scrolling through static text for any reference to their search query, they can easily search either by category or enter a keyword phrase. in some cases (e.g. business directories), the site may also offer visitors the ability to upload profile content for business listings.

This type of interactivity should be fine tuned to ensure that the results are relevant to visitors. assessing the search queries can help you produce the kind of content visitors are seeking.

Key Interactive Elements - Tool Calculators 

Tool calculators, such as mortgage calculators, home budget calculators, weight calculators, nutritionall calculators and translation tools, are good ways to engage viewers and receive their input.

Key Interactive Elements - Blogging and Social Networking

Blogging and social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google +, youtube and Flickr are engagement tools that foster communication, moving you from monologue to dialogue marketing by opening opportunities to engage with your site visitors.

These dynamic tools offer comment postings, sharing of content and status updates, interactive widgets and plug-ins, ratings, ! & As, reviews and, in some cases such as Wikis, allow visitors to input content.

Key Interactive Elements - Conversion Tacticcs

Conversion tactics that foster interactivity include tools such as lead generation forms for subscriber input, free download of whitepapers, discounted products or services, quick payment options, short content forms and surveys built with skip logic that increase usability, providing a better and more fulfilling visitors experience.

Rules 

Many factors such as usability, accessibility, web architecture, consistency of brand intergration with the various media, and site optimization all play a role in the success of developing a dynamic site.

These rules also apply when integrating new tools. Be strategic, choosing only those that will help you achieve your business goals. with new tools being developed daily, part of running a dynamic website entails continuous learning, testing with your audience and then updating and upgrading new features and functionality as necessary.