For many looking to step up their online marketing strategy, blogging is essential to getting your brand further recognized as an industry leader and improve how you engage with your audience.
Maintaining a blog helps boost traffic for your website and develop a more meaningful relationship with your customers.
But if done right, blog traffic can also generate new leads and improve revenue – which should be the common goal at the end of the day.
At Search Engine Journal and numerous other blogs that I work with, I’ve been testing various ways to turn that traffic into either a sign-up or get them deeper into the sales conversion funnel.
Here are five of my tips to convert your blog traffic into leads:
1. Add Exit Pop Ups or Overlays
We can’t please everyone and some site visitors will abandon your page from losing interest over the content your offer, get distracted or just find it unable to commit to an offer at that time. But this does not necessarily translate to a lost cause right away.
By adding exit pop ups, sliders or overlays to your blog, you can bring back abandoning users and give them an alternative offer that encourages them to sign up, subscribe or make a purchase which assures you of an actual lead.
Exit pop ups use technology that monitors user behavior. When a user is about to abandon your blog, an exit overlay pops up to make a targeted offer.
Using exit pops is a clever way to recapture the attention of leaving bloggers and readers and turn them into potential leads.
For example, we use delayed pops to serve a call to action to subscribe to our emails or webinars at SEJ for our normal post pages, but on our event page the goal is to convert visitors to purchase.
So, if they do not purchase then we serve them an exit pop which has a 10% off offer, which we see converting a lot (almost 5% to be exact) of the targeted traffic which is driven to it.
2. Insert Live Chat
The trouble with blogs sometimes is that your readers and subscribers may be interested in what you offer and are not able to get the information they need.
Many are eager to know more about your product and search for answers on your blog but may not be able to navigate to the answers by themselves.
This is where Live Chat comes in useful. Live chat makes it convenient for your customers to make an informed choice.
It makes it easier for them to ask questions about your products and services and gives them instant access to the information they need to make a buying or subscribing decision.
Live chat is known to increase sales by being able to provide customers with the help they need to complete a sale until the end.
3. Add more Email Opt-in Forms
Optimize your blog to have more email opt-in forms (or move them to the best places) so readers and site visitors can subscribe with better convenience.
I’m also currently testing a horizontal opt-in form on one client’s WordPress powered site (the desktop version) which is currently converting at a higher rate than a traditional vertical form.
Ensure that subscribe buttons and other opt-in forms are placed strategically on your blog where they are most likely to be seen such as on a header section, at the end of each post or on a sidebar.
The more obvious these are on your site, the easier it is for visitors to subscribe to your blog and transform them into potential leads.
Email opt-in forms also help increase your email list database which gives you the ability to spread your brand message further and reach out to more people through email.
4. Add a Hello Bar to your blog
Hello Bar highlights a customized message at the top of your blog that is designed to inspire, entice and turn your readers into valuable leads.
Hello Bars are great add-ons for your blog as it can be used for a variety of ways to bring your readers to focus on an important message.
Through a Hello Bar, you can encourage your visitors to sign up to your email list, subscribe to your feed, visit your main website, follow you on your social media accounts, register for an event or make use of an offer.
It is also an easy way to track engagement on your blog as a Hello Bar gives you the ability to track the number of clicks it gets.
5. Make Use of Call to Action Buttons
Another effective way to turn your readers into leads is by using call to action buttons on your blog. The call to action button is a powerful marketing tool that drives conversion and revenue.
These often come in the form of ‘Buy Now’, ‘Subscribe now’, ‘Try it now’, ‘Read More’ or ‘Sign up’ buttons that are scattered throughout your site.
To be effective, call to action buttons should be placed strategically on you site, designed and highlighted to attract your visitors.
They should be easy to spot, easy to click and appeals to your visitors enough for them to actually click it.
It should be clear and precise, which means your readers should now exactly what they are signing up for the moment they click on your call to action button.
A couple of cool examples that I found would be this interactive call to action guide by iContact and Wordstream’s rundown of 17 Best Practices for Call to Action Buttons.
Many call to action buttons are often designed to highlight the benefits of signing up as well which doubles the chances of people actually clicking and tapping on them.
By adding call to action buttons to your blog, you can direct your audience to where you want them to be and give them clear instructions as to how they can learn more about your brand and the products and services that you offer.
When used and placed conveniently on you blog, it is a powerful means to increase sales, gain new traffic and attract more leads for your business.
Get Going and Convert!
Wrapping things up, the key to a successful blog is not always about traffic but conversion. Blogging should be more than just self-promotion. You have to be able to offer value to your audience through relevant content so as to retain them for a long time.
When you are able to attract an audience and keep them interested, the next step to achieve success is by being able to turn them into leads through these suggested methods and using your content and creativity to entice them to try out more of what your brand can offer.
More importantly, brands and businesses need to be able to build trust with their readers and subscribers as they are more likely to take advantage of whatever it is you have to offer if you are able to get their confidence at the get go.
Through these effective blogging strategies, you can turn your readers not just into potential but actual leads.