Website traffic doesn’t directly generate revenue for a business, unless the revenue model is plain old display advertising. However, statistically even display advertising doesn’t bring a lot of revenue per visitor compared to other models.
Many studies suggest that only close 30% internet visitors actually check out a display ad. For an online business, monetizing traffic by converting them into leads is vital. These leads can then be provided with promotional messages or mails for a product or service.
For all this, you begin by directing traffic to your website. Pre-planned content marketing can help with that. And effective content marketing requires the marketer to post blogs, send emails, and leverage social media marketing tactics. Good search engine optimization makes a website more visible to people looking for information in search engines, thus driving traffic.
Conversion comes after attracting the traffic. Let’s delve deeper into that by exploring 5 effective ways to convert traffic into leads.
- Appealing Landing Pages
Landing pages in a website are literally where a visitor lands after clicking a link that directs them to the website. There could be other pages in the website that provides information relevant to a visitor. But landing pages, on the other hand, are seen as one of the most effective ways to convert visitors into leads.
Building many landing pages inside a main content website for the most popular keywords can in turn increase the chances of visitors getting directed to them via search engines, direct traffic, or referral. The key thing to note here is the fact that a landing page may not be appealing to all types of users. Analyzing the performance of landing pages can give the marketer a better idea on which landing pages attract which type of visitor.
- Popup Forms
You may have already seen popups just appear out of nowhere while browsing through a website. Truth is, these popups that you may just close on a whim are actually another effective way to convert traffic into leads. The key is in the effectiveness of the offer that’s shown on the popup. If it’s relevant to the visitor, and if the offer is attractive, the visitor can likely be converted into a lead.
- Notification Bars
These are screen-wide banners that you may see on top of a website page. Internet users tend to look at notification bars occasionally because that’s where warnings from the browser may appear like when it blocks popups or when a plugin is missing.
The bars can be configured to be displayed on top even when the visitor is scrolling down the website. Because they can catch some attention easily, it’s a wise idea to include email forms in the notification bar or some exciting offer that redirects visitors who click on it, to a different landing page for conversion.
- Opt-in Forms in Sidebars
Opt-in forms should be present in various sections of a website, particularly in sidebars of a blog. This is because when people find the content to be uninteresting, they may take a look at the sidebar. Again, if the offer is good, they may opt-in converting themselves into leads.
The area below the blogs are also a suitable place to include opt-in forms as this would be the first thing visitors would notice once they are done reading an interesting blog.
- Redirecting First-time Visitors
It’s much effective to redirect a first-time visitor of a business’ blog to one of their landing pages. The blog would attract them, and on clicking the link, they’d be redirected to a website with the display of an opt-in offer that promises something of relevance or value to them in return for opting in.
Plugins can be used for this, configuring them to redirect only the first-time users and not returning ones. However, this option is only useful for generating leads in a short time period. If not done right, this can affect user experience.
For instance, a returning visitor might be using a different device to access the website. The visitor will be treated as a new visitor by the plugin, and subsequently redirected. The plugins may not work when certain caching mechanisms are active. And if the caching mechanisms are turned off, the website may slow down. So it’s better to use this tactic in short bursts to generate leads quickly.
Conclusion
For the traffic part, businesses can either invest in their in-house marketing team or hire an integrated digital marketing solutions expert to do the job. For the conversion part, the business still needs to have an adept sales and marketing team, or rather ‘smarketing’ team.
These tips can up the chances of converting visitors into leads. The chances of failure depends on how well the marketing strategies are executed. Nevertheless, with proper analytics, the business can increase traffic and improve their lead conversion rates considerably.
