Powerful Ways to Convert Website Traffic Into Leads

More traffic to a website does not always mean more revenue, unless the revenue model is purely based on display advertising. When compared to all other revenue models, the display advertising model generates the lowest revenue per visitor, and some studies indicate that only 27% of internet visitors actually view a display ad. web-traffic-leads

One of the best ways to monetize internet web traffic is to convert them into leads and then promote a product or service to them via email marketing or a follow up phone call. This is also called Inbound marketing. Outbound marketing or interruption advertising is no longer effective because people are getting better at tuning out of interruption.
Content marketing is the most effective strategy for bringing visitors to a website. Content marketing is best done through blogging, social media and email marketing. However in this post we will not be covering how to attract traffic but rather we will talk about how to convert those traffic into leads.
All the tips below are based on my personal experience working on blogs which run on the WordPress platform. Even if you don’t use WordPress for your blog or content channel, these tips will still be helpful. Check out www.OptinChat.com – a new tool to collect email IDs of visitors via AI driven Chat!

1. Pages for Landing Landing pages are one of the most effective ways to convert a visitor into a lead. While the purpose of many content pages on websites is to provide information; landing pages are designed for collecting contact information. Very effective landing pages combined with targeted traffic can give a conversion ratio of as high as 50-60% and in some rare cases even more than that.
   landing-page
   Putting up several landing pages inside your blog or main content website increases the chances of more people coming to those landing pages via search engines, referral and direct traffic and hence it increases the chances of lead collection. You can also have different banners in your blog which link to one of your own landing pages. YouTube content marketing, which will be discussed in detail in a subsequent article, is yet another effective strategy for driving traffic to such landing pages. One should never rely solely on a single landing page because different landing pages are appealing to different groups or individuals. And its often a good idea to send traffic to the landing page via a blog and then measure which landing page performs better. HubSpot.com, a leader in Inbound marketing software and methodology recommends that a business should have as much as 40-50 landing pages with different offers.
   You can design a landing page on your own or you can use some plugins and themes that are available in the market which makes the creation of landing pages very easy. One such WordPress theme, Optimize Press, makes it simple to make landing pages. 2. Notification Bars
   Notification bars are the full wide banners on the top of the websites. Internet users have been “trained” to pay attention to the notification bars because the browsers usually display warning messages like a missing plugin or a blocked popup in the notification bar. These bars remain at the top of everything, and many of them can be set up to remain at the top even as users scroll down the website. It is a very good attention grabber.
   Either a link to one of the landing pages or an email form can be placed in the notification bar itself. The following image from ProBlogger.net shows an email optin form on the notification bar.
   email-optin-notificationbar
   HelloBar.com is a good solution for notification bars. They offer split testing options that let you see how well different words and call-to-action links work, and they have plans that change depending on how many clicks you get. However HelloBar.com is a bit pricey and if you want a free solution you can go for the WordPress plugin called Notification Bar. The options in it are limited and works only for WordPress. If you search around, there are many free and paid alternatives to put up a notification bar in your website.
2. Unblockable Popup Forms
   Unblockable popups, which can be found on a lot of blogs and websites, are one of the best ways to turn website visitors into leads. Anywhere around 2% to 10% of your daily blog traffic is likely to convert into leads based on the effectiveness of your offer.
   pop-up-domination-example
   For WordPress, there is a plugin called Popup Domination which can create aesthetically pleasing popup forms on your website. The plugin is a premium plugin and it also offers split testing and tracking options. The above image shows a popup domination form in action.
3. Opt-In Forms in Sidebars and Below Posts
   The sidebar of any blog and the area below the posts are great locations for opt-in forms. People pay attention to the sidebars when they are not interested in the content and there is a high chance that they will opt-in for a relevant offer. Also when people finish reading blog posts, they usually don’t know what to do. They will just leave if you have nothing to pique their interest. optin form below post
   The above image shows and example of an opt-in form which can be placed below blog posts. You can create your own opt-in forms or you can use WordPress plugins like OptinSkin where you can create beautiful forms for blog posts and sidebars. Click tracking and split testing are built into plugins like OptinSkin, making it simple to improve the opt-in form. 5. Greeting Redirects It is possible to send the first people who visit your blog to a landing page where they can sign up for something valuable like a free ebook or newsletter by doing so. Such plugins will only redirect new visitors and returning visitors will only see your home page. The image that follows demonstrates Mixergy.com’s use of the welcome redirect to turn first-time visitors into leads. welcome-redirect
   While this is a great option for rapidly generating a large number of leads, it is not the most efficient one. It has a number of different effects on the user experience. For instance, if a visitor returns but does not use the same device or location, he or she may be treated as if he were a new visitor and redirected to the landing page. Another problem with these plugins is that they won’t work if a cache system is turned on. The website will load slower and use more server resources if the cache system is disabled. Such welcome redirects can be used for a short period of time to get a boost in lea