How to Convert Blog Traffic Into Quality Leads

Blogging is one of the best ways to drive organic traffic to a website. But that traffic is useless if your blog readers aren’t converting into leads.

Generating new leads and getting conversions must always be your primary goals. Sometimes these initiatives get lost in the shuffle when we’re blogging.

If you’re ready to turn your blog into a lead-generation machine, you’ve come to the right place. I’ll explain everything you need to know about using your blog to generate quality leads.

Importance of Blog Lead Generation

Getting people to land on your website isn’t easy. There are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of similar websites competing for the same keywords for any given search.

So when someone visits your blog, that’s a huge win for you. But this blog visit is just the first step in your conversion funnel. You need to take full advantage of this opportunity and find ways to convert this visitor into a lead. Otherwise, you’re just wasting the traffic.

Businesses that blog generate roughly two-thirds more leads than competitors that don’t.

Furthermore, 77% of internet users read blogs. These readers spend three times longer on blog pages than reading email content.

The great part about blogging for lead generation is the value you’re providing to the reader. People land on your blogs when they’re searching for information, so you need to strike while the iron’s hot and the reader is primed to convert.

Here’s something else to consider. Once you set up your blogs for lead generation and conversions, your incoming leads will scale as your traffic grows. As long as those conversion rates remain the same, a 10% increase in site traffic can yield a 10% increase in leads.

Best Lead Magnets For Blogs

The best way to turn your blog readers into leads is by providing them with supplemental content that adds value and enhances their experience.

There’s an endless amount of content you can create for this purpose. With that said, the best lead magnets are highly intentional based on the buyer persona and the type of lead you’re trying to attract. Ideally, you want the lead magnet to mesh with the type of blog that person is reading as well.

Here are some of my favorite lead magnets that you can consider adding to your blog:

Ebooks

Downloadable ebooks are invaluable resources for prospects that are evaluating multiple products or services within a category. These typically provide the reader with more information that can influence a purchase decision.

Depending on your brand image and customer persona, you can take an educational or entertainment route when you’re crafting ebooks.

Whitepapers

Whitepapers are typically a bit more formal than an ebook. These are concise academic reports that present new information on a niche topic to a highly specific audience.

Whitepapers can be used to position your brand as an expert within a particular field, and they’re more useful in the B2B space as opposed to lead generation for mass audiences.

Webinars

Webinars help you establish a stronger connection with your leads. These magnets are highly interactive and provide educational value to the attendees. Blog readers who opt-in for a webinar are much more likely to move through your marketing funnel, especially if they’re attending a live webinar.

While webinars require a bit more effort on your part to host, they are an amazing marketing tool for lead generation. The numbers speak for themselves.

One of my favorite tricks for webinar lead generation is offering the full recorded webinar to anyone who provides their email address. This increases your chances of getting leads, even from people who aren’t available at the exact time of the live event.

Cheat Sheets and Checklists

A downloadable cheat sheet or checklist is a quick and easy way to get your blog reader to provide their contact information in the early stages of their journey. You can attach them to “How To” guides for topics that directly tie into your product or service offerings.

For example, let’s say your site is a low-code app development platform. You could attach your “App Start Checklist” to a blog titled, How to Make an App.

Demos

Product demos are more useful for users who are more likely to convert. Signing up for a demo definitely shows more buying intent than downloading an ebook or cheat sheet. So you’ll want to save these lead magnets for your blogs geared toward readers who are past the initial search stage of the buyer’s journey.

5 Tips to Generate Quality Leads From Blog Traffic

The following five tips will help take your blog lead-generation strategy to the next level:

1. Use Natural CTAs Within Your Content

Some bloggers wait until the conclusion or summary section of an article to add a CTA. But you can use CTAs naturally throughout the content, as long as it doesn’t disrupt the reading experience.

This is a powerful way to generate leads while your audience’s interest in a topic is piqued.

Check out this example from HubSpot in the 5 Steps to Create an Outstanding Marketing Plan blog.

They’re using free marketing plan templates as a lead magnet within the copy. This is much more effective than placing a CRM buying guide checklist popup on the screen.

Shortly after this link, HubSpot makes it even easier for the reader to download the template. Rather than having to click something, they put a form directly within the blog itself.

So the reader doesn’t even have to leave the page to provide their information and become a lead.

2. Try Exit Intent Popups

Popups often feel intrusive and ruin the reading experience, making it frustrating for people who are trying to read a blog. So it’s generally not a good idea to have popups appear immediately after someone lands on an article or in the middle of the content consumption.

But exit-intent popups are different.

As the name implies, an exit-intent popup appears on the screen whenever a reader is about to navigate away from your blog. So you have an opportunity to capture the lead’s information before they leave the screen.

According to an OptiMonk case study, one blogger got 2,689 leads using an exit-intent popup on their blog.

3. Promote Exclusive Content

Offering a feeling of exclusivity is an age-old marketing trick that can be really helpful in lead generation.

The idea here is simple. You need to come up with a value proposition that entices the reader to provide an email address in exchange for something they couldn’t get elsewhere. It’s important to pitch content that’s highly relevant to whatever blog post the reader just finished.

There are endless opportunities to consider with this strategy. You can experiment with different options to see which ones are generating the best results.

4. Add a Floating Bar

Floating bars are a simple way to keep your CTAs top of mind throughout the entire blog post.

As the reader scrolls through your content, the bar stays fixed within their field of vision. So no matter where they are in the article, they can become a lead at any moment with a single click.

Here’s an example from one of Neil Patel’s blog posts.

In this example, Neil uses this strategy in three different locations on the screen—each with different CTAs and ways for the reader to convert.

Under most circumstances, three fixed CTAs on the screen might seem like overkill. But the two bars are thin enough, so they’re not obtrusive to the reading experience, while the third form is in the margin.

Neil is a master when it comes to content marketing, and it’s always a good idea to mirror techniques used by bloggers who have seen success using this strategy.

5. Prioritize Accurate Buyer Personas

You could have the best lead magnets and CTAs on the planet. But they’re useless if you’re not using them in the right place.

Making sure you pair the right lead magnet with a relevant blog is arguably the most important tip for success that you’ll read in this guide.

For example, your website might offer multiple versions of the same product or service geared toward different audiences. Maybe you have a small business version of B2B software, as well as an enterprise-grade version that offers complete customization and active management.

The buyer personas for these two offerings will be very different. So you need to identify which reader will be landing on certain blog posts and then use the right lead magnet and CTAs on those pages to attract those specific buyer personas.

Final Thoughts

Blogging has always been one of my favorite content marketing strategies because it’s so versatile. Not only can it help you drive organic traffic to your site, but it can also turn that traffic into leads.

Getting quality leads from your blog traffic isn’t that difficult. In most cases, you just need to make some minor tweaks to your CTAs and create a few new lead magnets.

Experimentation is crucial here as well. Continue running tests and trying new things to see if they change your results.