In 2025, your website is less a storefront and more a stage, where every scroll, click, and pause is part of an unfolding performance.
Many guides cover the basics: page speed, visual design, content quality, but few dive into the psychological, strategic, and often overlooked UX elements that truly move the needle.
Let’s go beyond the surface together and unpack how to increase user engagement on your website in ways that your competitors probably aren’t thinking about.
Key Takeaways
- Design approaches that account for cognitive biases can make user experiences more intuitive and memorable.
- Tactics that are effective for SaaS platforms, e-commerce sites, content publishers, fintech tools, and Web3 projects differ significantly and should align with specific user behaviors and needs.
- Context-aware content, behavior-based adjustments, and subtle interactive elements contribute to a more relevant and responsive interface.
- Metrics like scroll depth, return visits, and time on task offer clearer insights into engagement than traditional measures.
1. Understand the Psychology Behind Engagement
Most websites optimize for logic. But users are emotional creatures, influenced by subtle cues, cognitive biases, and emotional triggers. To design experiences that resonate, start by applying these key psychological principles:
- Zeigarnik Effect: This principle states that people are more likely to remember incomplete or interrupted tasks than completed ones. Our brains crave closure. Websites like Duolingo use this to great effect with streaks and lesson progress indicators. If you’ve completed 4 out of 5 steps in a language challenge, you’ll likely return to finish it.
- Hick’s Law: The more options a user is presented with, the longer it takes to make a decision, often leading to frustration or abandonment. Apple's website embodies Hick’s Law: their homepage is sleek, minimal, and focused. Instead of overwhelming users with options, they gently guide you to a few curated actions, like exploring a new product or watching a launch video.
- Social Proof: This principle taps into our tendency to look to others when making decisions. When we see that others are buying, reviewing, or interacting, it reduces our hesitation. Amazon uses this extensively with ratings, reviews, and “customers also bought” sections. Trustpilot embeds real-time user reviews to create instant credibility.
2. Adjust Your Strategies to Business Type
What engages a SaaS user differs from what draws in an e-commerce buyer or blog reader. Customize accordingly:
For SaaS Websites:
- Use interactive product tours and onboarding flows.
- Add micro-interactions to key UI areas (e.g., hover states, tooltips).
- Track user friction points with tools like FullStory or LogRocket.
Notion uses guided checklists during onboarding and a minimalist interface that adapts as users learn more.
For E-commerce:
- Add real-time purchase notifications.
- Enable video commerce with shoppable videos and real-time demos.
- Let users favorite, compare, and create wishlists.
- Add quizzes and questionnaires.
Glossier uses quizzes to recommend skincare routines and integrates UGC on product pages to build trust.
For Content Sites:
- Embed calculators, quizzes, or short polls.
- Use jump links, collapsible sections, and sticky TOCs for long content.
- Include click-to-copy or save-to-notes options.
NerdWallet offers comparison tools and calculators that keep users engaged while researching.
For Fintech:
- Gamify savings or investment progress.
- Simplify onboarding with progressive disclosure (only show what’s needed at each step).
- Provide digestible education in-product.
For example, Revolut offers spending insights with visualizations, and its cryptocurrency investment flow includes just-in-time education snippets.
For Web3 Projects:
- Show real-time data from smart contracts to create transparency and engagement.
- Use live wallet-based personalization (e.g., NFT ownership influencing UI).
- Build in community tools like DAO voting dashboards or activity feeds.
Mirror.xyz personalizes the publishing dashboard based on connected wallets, and Lens Protocol integrates social elements directly into the product experience.
📚 Extra Resource: Check out this article on crypto product design by Lazarev.Agency. It’s packed with practical insights on creating intuitive, high-converting digital experiences.
3. Personalize
Forget “Hey [First Name]”. Users expect content and experiences tailored to their behavior and journey stage.
Add behavioral personalization
Behavioral personalization involves tailoring the user experience based on how individuals interact with a site. This can include segmenting users into categories such as browsers, buyers, returners, or even rage-clickers, and triggering specific calls-to-action, content blocks, or popups in response to real-time behavior.
Use predictive, context-aware personalization:
Adapt layout, content, and CTAs dynamically based on scroll behavior, time spent, or referral source. Use AI-powered tools like Dynamic Yield to create adaptive web experiences.
Respect privacy while gathering insights
Use server-side tracking and first-party data collection tools to maintain compliance. Also, allow users to manage data preferences with transparent consent management.
Examples of Personalization
4. Turn Micro-Engagements into Macro Results
Subtle, delightful touches often create the strongest bonds. These “micro-engagements” make the experience feel alive and responsive, inviting users to interact more deeply, without overwhelming them.
Examples of micro-engagements:
- Emoji reactions on blog content or user comments.
- Hover-based microinteractions on product cards that show more info.
- Scroll-triggered animations or progress indicators that reinforce progress.
- Dynamic search suggestions that update with each keystroke, helping users find what they need faster.
- Smart, contextual popups that appear based on real-time behavior (e.g., scroll depth, idle time).
- Visual cues like confetti animations after a completed form submission or a successful order.
5. Measure What Actually Matters
Bounce rate is no longer relevant. So what to track? There are key engagement metrics you should focus on:
- Scroll depth: Are people reading your content?
- Click heatmaps: What’s drawing attention?
- Time on task: How long does it take to complete key actions?
- Return visits: Are users coming back?
- Engagement segmentation: How do behaviors differ across user groups?
Pro Tip: Several tools help track user engagement effectively. GA4 handles event-based data, Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity offer visual behavior insights, and Mixpanel or Heap are useful for analyzing user cohorts. For more control and privacy, server-side tools like Segment or RudderStack are also commonly used.
How to track and iterate?
Frequency
Review engagement data weekly, with a deeper performance audit monthly.
Ownership
Assign responsibility to a cross-functional growth pod or a dedicated UX researcher/product analyst.
Iteration Process
- Review patterns and anomalies (e.g., drop-offs on key pages).
- Create a hypothesis (e.g., “Users abandon signup because the form feels too long”).
- Run small tests (e.g., shorter form, progress bar).
- Measure the impact using controlled A/B or multivariate testing.
- Scale improvements across other areas of the site.
💡Pro Tip: Give your team a visual way to track engagement across touchpoints. These include how far users scroll on a page, how often they click on CTAs, the ratio of clicks to hovers, how many return for another session, and how long it takes to complete important tasks. Using tools like Looker or Tableau, this dashboard can be shared with product, marketing, and design teams for easy access to insights.
6. Test Your Tone of Voice
It’s easy to fall into the trap of A/B testing only visual elements like CTA button colors. But what often influences user behavior more is how you communicate. Try varying the tone of voice: casual and conversational might outperform formal and corporate depending on your audience.
Experiment with the timing of your CTAs: some users respond better to immediate calls-to-action, while others prefer prompts that appear after they’ve scrolled or engaged.
Test different styles for text links, ghost buttons, or bold-colored buttons and be sure your microcopy is clear and actionable. For example, “Try it free” might outperform “Start now” if users want to know there’s no cost.
💡Pro Tip: Tools like VWO or Convert can help you test and validate these variables.
7. Keep Users Engaged After They Leave
User engagement doesn’t stop when the session ends. Integrate cross-channel touchpoints into your overall UX strategy, ensuring tone, design, and user experience are consistent everywhere. Omnichannel continuity helps users pick up where they left off, no matter the platform. Try to use the following tactics:
- Behavioral email sequences (e.g., return reminders, re-engagement campaigns)
- Browser push notifications for updates or new content
- Smart retargeting on social or search
8. Embrace Emotion
Users don’t remember data. They remember how your site made them feel. For you it means:
- Using storytelling layout flows (intro, conflict, resolution)
- Adding motion in subtle doses (micro-animations, hover reveals)
- Choosing fonts, colors, and spacing that align with your brand personality
- Writing for humans
Examples of Writing for Humans vs. Writing for Algorithms
How We Simplified Grand Founders’ Website for More Engagement
Grand Founders is a non-profit investment fund committed to driving economic development and national security initiatives. Their community unites investors, ambassadors, and emerging founders through impactful events, purpose-driven investments, and humanitarian aid, particularly in support of Ukraine.
The organization needed a modern, emotionally resonant website to reflect its legacy-driven mission and help convert visitors into donors, contributors, and long-term partners. Lazarev.agency took on the challenge to redesign the platform.
Our Challenge
Grand Founders needed a digital platform that could speak simultaneously to three distinct audiences:
- High-net-worth investors seeking aligned, meaningful giving opportunities.
- Entrepreneurs in need of funding, resources, and mentorship.
- Ambassadors committed to growing the movement and sharing its mission.
The platform had to inspire trust, create emotional resonance, and make action effortless whether donating, investing, or joining the cause. That meant balancing sophistication with accessibility and turning a complex structure into a seamless digital journey.
Our Approach
We approached the project as both brand strategists and product designers reimagining every touchpoint from navigation to narrative and visual identity.
00-1 Phase: Strategic Alignment
We began by aligning with internal stakeholders and analyzing the nonprofit investment market. This allowed us to surface structural weaknesses: fragmented content, a lack of emotional storytelling, and no clear user pathways. We identified where the brand’s digital experience failed to reflect its real-world influence and mission.
00-2 Phase: Architecture With Purpose
We restructured dense, administrative content into a clear, hierarchical system tailored to user intent. Each user journey (investor, entrepreneur, ambassador) was mapped to intuitive content flows, making it effortless to explore programs, governance, and opportunities for involvement.
00-3 Phase: Storytelling Solutions
One of the greatest challenges was creating a content strategy that could speak clearly to different motivations. Our solution was to develop distinct narrative pathways:
- For investors, we led with emotional resonance like stories of human impact, then transitioned to structured investment logic.
- For entrepreneurs, we first established the fund’s credibility, then simplified application and engagement.
- For ambassadors, we highlighted growth metrics, community traction, and shareable stories to fuel momentum.
This narrative segmentation ensured that every user saw themselves in the story and understood how to become part of the mission.
00-4 Phase: Visual System Rooted in Legacy
To speak to high-net-worth individuals without alienating entrepreneurs, we designed a hybrid visual language:
- Serif typography and editorial-style layouts signaled credibility and legacy.
- Minimalist structures made content approachable.
- Rich imagery reinforced the foundation’s global reach and emotional mission.
00-5 Phase: Symbolism and Emotion
Subtle symbolic cues, like moiré textures referencing currency and blue-green accents, underscored trust and prestige. Every detail from iconography to interaction design was created to convert emotion into action.
Beyond merely launching a website, we developed a digital tool to expand influence. The new Grand Founders platform now matches design with business needs. Clear structure, purposeful storytelling, and a refined visual system work together to support action at every level.
For more examples like this, visit our page with case studies.
What to Expect: Future Trends in Web Engagement
To stay competitive, you need to keep up with evolving tech, user habits, and platform changes. Here’re four key trends to keep an eye on:
Hyperpersonalization
Users now expect websites to know them – what they want, when they want it. AI-powered tools like Mutiny or Adobe Target even small teams tailor headlines, messaging, and layouts in real time based on user behavior.
First-Party Data Strategy
As third-party cookies fade out, collecting your own data is critical. Privacy-first tools like Plausible Analytics, server-side tagging in GA4, and clear consent flows help build trust while keeping you compliant.
Sustainable Web Design
More users care about how digital experiences impact the planet. Cutting down on heavy scripts, optimizing site speed, using green hosting like GreenGeeks, and minimizing energy use makes your site more efficient, and more appealing to eco-conscious visitors.
Video as a Growth Driver
Video drives over 80% of all online traffic and it works. From short, TikTok-style explainers to product walk-throughs, video boosts engagement. Tools like VideoAsk or VideoWise let you embed interactive, personalized video into key touchpoints without slowing down your site.
Stay Relevant with Lazarev.agency
The more friction you remove and the more relevance you add, the more your visitors will interact, convert, and come back. Use psychology, smart tools, cross-channel flows, and real-time personalization to create an experience users won’t just tolerate – they’ll love.
Watch your users. Their behavior will show you exactly where to improve. Whether it’s fine-tuning UX or planning a full website redesign strategy, we can help map your website’s engagement flow. Want a personalized scorecard or a UX audit? Just get in touch.
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