As a business owner, what do you want from your blog? A direct answer would be leads and conversions!

Nowadays, most businesses have understood the importance of having a blog. A well-maintained blog is able to drive lots of traffic and help to serve as a brand channel to connect with customers. Still, most of the traffic doesn’t always generate leads!

It is frustrating as a business owner to see lots of traffic under Google Analytics but alas without any potential leads! So, how do get more leads from your blog? Here are 4 ways to make it happen.

1- Insert Live Chat

Live Chat is an effective tool at initiating a conversation with a reader. A reader might be curious about your product or services but needs more information. Popping up a Live Chat window at the right time and instilling confidence in your reader could easily convert them into a customer.

Live Chat makes it easy for your customers to get answers right away. 64% of consumers expect real-time answers at anytime.

2- Use Effective CTAs

CTAs that pop up after a fixed period of time or after some scrolling have higher chances of converting compared to popups that are immediately thrown into the face of visitors before even having a chance to read an article. Here is an example popup that appeared on a blog post after some time had passed. This is a great way to capture an email address (lead) and work it through one of your funnels to convert it to a customer.

James Scherer from Wishpond, a skeptic of popups, crunched the numbers and determined that popups produced at least $91,000 in revenue each year. His blog received more than 1,000 email subscribers in less than 3 weeks.

Here are 3 types of CTAs that are found to be the most effective:

● Inline CTA : An Inline CTA is placed within the body of a blog post, but only after the information related to the offer in the CTA has been placed above the CTA as shown below.

● Bottom CTA: The bottom CTA is placed at the end of the blog post and usually contains a subscription option or a digital product related to the post as shown below.

● Sidebar CTA: The sidebar CTA is placed on the side of the post to give away evergreen digital products, services or tools. The static sidebar signup form is also an effective way to generate leads from your blog. An example is shown as:

3- Add a Hello Bar to Your Blog

Hello Bar spotlights a customized message at the top of your blog that is designed to attract, encourage and turn your readers into valuable leads.

You can encourage your visitors to sign up to your email list, subscribe to your feed, register for an event or utilize an offer through the hello bar.

You can easily track engagement on your blog as a it gives you the ability to track the number of clicks it gets.

4- Enable Opt-in Forms

Gather more subscribers by enabling opt-in forms on your blog. When visitors like your content or services offered, they will seek ways to stay in contact with you. This is where opt-in forms come handy, as it helps to collect information from visitors.

Opt-in forms below the posts help in boosting conversion rates. After reading a post, an opt-in form at the end of the article can hook them before exiting your site.

You can even integrate popup forms within your blog in different sections in the following four ways:

● Exit Overlay: By using exit pops you can easily regain the attention of readers who are about to leave and turn them into potential leads. Look at an example below that uses the Opt-in Monster plugin:

● Time Intent: Offer visitors an option to download various digital products or services you have to offer by integrating a popup that shows up only after the user has spent a certain time on your blog. Let’s have a look at the below example of a timed popup, as used on Chris Brogan‘s blog. This one is currently timed to appear after 25 seconds.

● Scroll Intent: Provide your users an option to download some helpful guides only after they have scrolled down the page to a certain section.
● Sticky bars: A sticky header, footer, or sidebar are great sections for an opt-in form since they’re always present. For example, ProBlogger added a top sticky subscribe bar and their subscribers went up by 25%. See below.

Converting your blog traffic to leads can be simple, just place optimized CTAs in the right location at the right time.

What can Upward Commerce do for your business? Contact us to find out.