We humans like to explore for exploring’s sake. We’re pleased when we find an unexpected beautiful thing, and we feel a sense of satisfaction when we “discover” something that’s not immediately obvious to the casual observer. People want to spend time in environments where these opportunities are available—which is something to consider when building (or updating) your website.
The New York Times had this exact tendency in mind when it bought Wordle, the viral game that brought tens of millions of new visitors to the NYT’s website.
Obviously, that’s an impressive number. But the NYT didn’t pay the game’s creator millions of dollars just for an ephemeral traffic bump. On average, those new visitors took at least 3-4 rounds to solve each puzzle. And a huge percentage of them returned day after day to see what the next Wordle would be.
This had a number of benefits for the Times, such as:
With the right analytics tools, all these benefits can be quantified. And the Times’ SEO—i.e. how prominently its pages are displayed in Google search results–certainly enjoyed a countable boost as well.
What’s harder to capture, but equally valuable, is how adding a silly little game made visiting nytimes.com more fun.
Your audience exists in a world that fetishizes efficiency and minimalism. They spend their days in physical worlds that have been stripped of ornamentation, and digital ones that are designed to move them through the sales funnel as quickly as possible. They grasp this on some level, even if they can’t articulate it.
So when you present their brains with some fresh stimuli, they appreciate it. And then they want more.
We recently saw this phenomenon in action when updating a client’s website. They wanted to add something new to it, though they didn’t have a firm idea of what that was. So we suggested an interactive map that showed all their projects around the world. The map would be dotted with graphic pins, and as you moved your cursor around the continents, you could click on each little picture to be presented with a story about the place, the project, and the people who were helped by it.
At first, the client was skeptical. They believed, correctly, that it would be simpler and faster to just create a static table showing the projects and their impacts. They were especially dubious about the cost. Extra bells and whistles tend to be expensive, after all; just look at Wordle.
So we explained that adding a “fancy” feature like a clickable map is actually quite affordable when done by an agency whose fees aren’t bloated by lavish salaries for do-nothing executives. (In case you’re curious, the software to create the map costs less than $200 a year). Then we asked them to play around with another site’s interactive map, and tell us how they felt after.
That firsthand experience sealed the deal. For people who’ve grown accustomed to being a passive consumer of information, something as simple as moving their mouse around and clicking on visually pleasing graphics can be invigorating.
As Wordle shows, there’s a straightforward business case for adding a dash of fun to your website. There’s also a more Rube Goldbergian human case for doing so. Combine the two, and you have a recipe for delighting your audience.
P.S. If you have a few spare minutes today, you might enjoy visiting https://www.pisanoslater.com/ and hunting for our secret Pie of the Day page.
Because the last word is rarely the end of the conversation.
Much like penguins, we enjoy bringing you little gifts to show we care:
The Onion is accepting applications for its 2025 Writing Fellowships and we’re already intensely jealous of everyone who is accepted.
Vu Le, creator of the popular/excellent blog Nonprofit AF, is launching a nationwide tour for his one-man show about the beauties and absurdities of the nonprofit world.
You’re never too old or too busy to enjoy a short video of an octopus riding a shark.
