We all know how hard you work to get visitors to your blog (or site). But what happens once they land on your site? How to keep them browsing around and even more challenging: how to keep them coming back?

There are many How To sites on the web. Some are tailored to specific topics (DIY, Computers, iOS etc.) and some are generic. But they all share a common pattern: people find the site via a search engine, read the content and then disappear as fast as they came. If you are lucky, they click on an ad before doing so. So what's a blogger to do to increase engagement and get those visitors to come back?But let's first start with a little clarification, what's "engagement" and why would you want to increase it? The situation described above is one of little or no engagement. The visitor simply reads your landing page (and hopefully) learns something and moves on. There is no interaction with your site (i.e the user will not click around) and there is nothing beyond your quality content or design to make your blog memorable so that the user returns. The more the visitors are engaged (click around and return) the higher their value to you.So how can we increase engagement? With an Embedded Checklist on your articles. This will summarize your "How To" article with the two most important parts: what to do (the steps) and what you need (the ingredients). And how will engagement increase:
  1. An easy summary of the article - memorable!
  2. A way to take the checklist with them and bring it to life (interactive)
  3. Provide them with a link back to your site (bonus)
When users click on the "Use List" button, they are saving the checklist to their personal Checklist.com account. With this checklist they are also saving a link back to your article together with your branding info (make sure your profile is up to date). This way whenever they use the checklist again, they will see your brand front and centre. So now, not only do they have a useful tool to save the checklist to, but they also remember your site and can easily get back to it. Our stats show that over 20% of visitors click on the Checklist allowing you to have a more "sticky" relationship with them! So what's our suggestion:
  • Look for posts on your blog (or site) that can be summarized in a checklists
  • Create & publish the accompanying Checklist on Checklist.com. Try to break the checklist into steps and ingredients.
  • Embed the checklist on the page (simply copy the embed code onto your site)

Bonus

Update your public profile page on Checklist.com. You can add links to your blog, twitter or Facebook account. If you do not have a public GRAVATAR image associated with your email address, upload one to your Checklist profile.You can now track people visiting back from Checklist to your site via your Analytics software and measure YOUR engagement BOOST.Did you find a nice boost to your blog's engagement? Let us know in the comments below.