I always hated icebreaker games. I still do. They force you into uncomfortable situations with strangers.

That’s gamification. The gamification of meetings. But gamification isn’t always social.

The term applies to anything in life you craft into a game. Even something as simple as children singing the “cleanup” song while putting toys away is gamification.

And it’s effective in learning and incentivizing. In fact, learners will remember 90% of their training if they do a job themselves or participate in a simulation.

But what does this have to do with Attract.Click – Web Design? It’s simple. We can use the gamification of a website to compel people to do things we want them to. Here are some awesome examples.

1. Site Scavenger Hunt

Programmers used to include Easter eggs in their video games as defacto signatures. Today you can find easter eggs in all sorts of media. The most famous among them is the Marvel post-credits scene.

But Easter egg hunting is a simple game. And any completionist is going to hunt until they’ve found all the eggs.

How do you get people to stay your site? The usual answer is content geared toward clients or customers. And you’ll certainly get no sales if you don’t have that.

But what if you catch the wrong person with the wrong landing page? Maybe you offer a different service they need. How do you make sure?

Invite them to play a game.

Hide Easter eggs on each page. Create a counter that keeps track of how many they’ve discovered out how many are on the site. Then watch your bounce rate drop.

2. Profile Completion Badges

If you were in the Boy Scouts or the Girl Scouts, you experienced some level of gamification. To encourage and reward kids in learning specific skills, the Scouts received badges when they completed a class or mastered a skill.

You can do the same thing to encourage visitors to give you information. Announce on your landing page that they will earn badges as they complete their profile or for certain services purchased. These badges appear on the home page when they log in.

You could even give perks for those who earn high spender badges.

3. Full Flash Games

This is the most obvious form of gamification. But be careful. You can overburden your user’s connection and slow your site down interminably if you’re not careful with this one.

Flash games have been around for more than ten years. And you can still get them developed for your site.

This strategy is hit or miss. You might be able to get leads to give you information in exchange for access to a game. You could give out coupons as unlocked achievements in a game. Or you could simply educate clients through a fun game.