Converting Website Visitors into Leads [CRO Included]

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Author:

Michael Wicker

Published

July 25, 2024

Creating a stunning website that attracts visitors represents an excellent step toward marketing success.

However, it’s not the be-all and end-all. To secure strong business growth and establish your brand, you’ll need to convert visitors into paying customers.

So, how can you ensure your visitors don’t go wandering off as soon as they land on your site?

The internet is like a crowded marketplace, so you’ll need to learn and implement effective strategies that go beyond just having an attractive website if you want to convert traffic into qualified leads. You need to create an engaging user experience that compels people to take action.

This comprehensive guide unveils practical strategies for converting website visitors into leads. Our tested and proven techniques can transform your website into a powerful lead-generation tool, driving your business forward.

Let’s get started.

5 Reasons Why Your Visitors Don’t Convert

If your website traffic doesn’t measure up with your conversion rate, find out what you’re doing wrong. Let’s examine five common reasons for those low conversion rates.

1. Your Landing Page is Complicated

A landing page should be simple and have a specific focus. However, a cluttered design and a form field that requests too much information won’t lead to website conversions.

2. You’re Not Utilizing Google Analytics Insights 

Website data is now easily accessible with Google Analytics, a free tracking tool. It extracts data such as:

  • Traffic sources
  • Page views
  • Average time spent on a web page
  • Bounce rate

These metrics offer valuable insight into your website performance as well as your marketing strategy. So, ignoring Google Analytics means you won’t know which web page needs optimization.

3. You Don’t Have a Clear Call to Action 

Your web visitors need specific instructions on what to do or where to go next. They need a clear CTA. Your CTA button needs to be visible to encourage visitors to take the desired action.

4. You’re Attracting the Wrong Traffic:

If visitors leave your website shortly after arriving, it may indicate that they are having trouble finding the information they are looking for. This can happen when your marketing campaigns are targeting keywords that aren’t relevant to your business.

5. You Lack Social Proof

People buy from who they know or trust, and one way to demonstrate credibility is through social proof. Your website should include customer testimonials and product ratings. 98% of consumers say reviews are critical when making purchase decisions.

reviews stats

Image via Power Reviews

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13 Tactics to Turn Your Visitors into Leads

Understanding why your website doesn’t convert traffic only solves half the problem. We’ve compiled 10 proven tactics to help you engage your target customers, build trust, and guide them through the conversion funnel.  

1. Attract the Right Traffic

The first step to converting website visitors into leads is understanding your ideal customer profile to avoid engaging the wrong audience. This will guide you to create tailored, high-quality content that addresses their pain points. 

Also, use the right SEO strategy to ensure your content ranks well for the right keywords. Social media platforms and paid ads can help you reach your target demographic.

Remember, it’s not about attracting more website visitors but more qualified leads. Doing so will save you time and resources in the long run.

2. Navigation, Navigation, Navigation

What’s the first thing you do when encountering a website that’s difficult to navigate?

If you’re inclined to up sticks and leave, you’re not alone.

If you’re looking to turn visitors into customers, creating seamless site experiences is an absolute must.

So, where to begin?

Firstly, you’ll need to consider how you’ll classify and group your goods and services.

If you run a fashion e-commerce site, for example, you may wish to incorporate a drop-down banner with the following primary categories: clothing, jewelry, accessories, and bags.

When visitors hover over these categories, they should find further sub-categories to help them narrow their search. Of course, adding a conspicuous search bar is also super helpful for shoppers searching for a specific item.

If you struggle to arrange your web pages or create a navigation pane that works, why not check out your competitors’ websites? It’s not a great idea to copy them precisely, but other marketing strategists in your industry may have some great tricks up their sleeves when converting website visitors into leads.

3. Implement a Live Chat Function

Live chat widgets have become standard features on most reputable business websites – for good reason.

Live Chat

Instantly connecting web users to customer service agents (or bots, if agents are unavailable) improves your chances of boosting your conversion rate significantly. 

How?

Well, live chat lets you personalize the visitor experience directly and help users quickly find the information they need. In turn, this helps create a fabulous sales funnel designed to turn visitors into customers.

4. Create a Compelling Lead Magnet

website popup

Image via Flowium

Offering your target audience something they genuinely want can open doors to a valuable relationship with your brand. For instance, the lead magnet example above offers a free checklist in exchange for an email address.

Depending on your sector, you may consider giving away the following:

  • A free ebook
  • Discounts on first-time purchases
  • Access to paywalled articles
  • A chance to win a big prize
  • Access to a quiz
  • A free demo of your product or service

Once you’ve collected a substantial number of leads, you can start nurturing them through email campaigns, phone calls, or other direct marketing techniques.

5. Add an Exit Popup

exit-intent popup

Image via Sleeknote

Exit popups are the messages that appear on your screen when you’re about to close a page on your browser.

They’re designed to hold visitors’ attention and are super easy to implement with help from a service like Hello Bar. A well-executed exit popup could boost your conversion rate to 10% – not bad for such a simple technique.

You’ll need to design the style and goal of your exit popup around your business and customers. Common examples include:

  • Social media links: Before they leave, present visitors with links to social media profiles to encourage them to connect with your brand. Just remember to update your profiles regularly with engaging content.
  • Newsletter signup forms: Adding a ‘Subscribe Now’ button to your exit popup is a great way to grow your database of leads and keep time-poor website visitors engaged with your brand.
  • Discounts: Stop visitors in their tracks with a discount offer they can’t refuse.
  • Exclusive content offers: Why not offer your visitors access to paid content in exchange for an email address?

Whatever popup style you choose, remember to nurture any leads you collect and try to avoid using pushy language – you’ll only drive people away!

6. Don’t Coerce or Trick Your Leads

Some companies offer attractive free trials that lock people into deals they don’t need or want. Most web users can’t be bothered to read the small print when signing up for offers; something marketers can take advantage of.

While it may seem like a good idea to squeeze as much money as possible from unsuspecting customers, doing so will only harm your brand’s reputation. Although cancellations are frustrating, you can minimize them by delivering an excellent product and service.

7. Focus on Sleek Design

Did you know that 75% of a site’s credibility relates to its visual design? Web Users frequently base their judgments on the aesthetic appeal of the site. Therefore, it is essential to prioritize creating a visually appealing and error-free website with color schemes that don’t overload the senses.

8. Add an Inactivity Popup

Do visitors frequently drift away from your pages to open a new browser or tab?

Why not install an inactivity popup that reengages people who’ve stopped interacting with your site?

Adding a sound will capture your potential customer’s attention and help them re-engage with your goods and services. Just remember—the content of your popup should include a special offer or compelling reason to maximize leads and conversions.

9. Work on Your Calls to Action (CTAs)

Your CTA should be short, sweet, and easy to spot.

Work on Your Calls to Action (CTAs)

Whatever action you want your users to take, remember to spell it out in a few words.

If you’re including a CTA button, ensure it stands out using a striking color or bold font. Also, try to reduce any visual clutter surrounding the CTA – retaining plenty of negative space could increase your conversion rate by over 230%!

10. Place Your Popups and CTAs Strategically

Although popups and CTAs are excellent strategies for lead generation, they can be a major distraction when placed wrongly. So, consider using different popups to enhance user engagement:

  • Exit-intent popup: Captures visitors on their way out with an irresistible offer
  • Time-based popup: Displays after a user has spent some time on the web page
  • Targeted popup: Displays based on visitor behavior, such as showing a product recommendation after viewing a specific item

You can display your popups in a bar form, like banner ads above or below the page or experiment with other styles. For instance, you can place it at the center page, full screen, or slide-in by the side.

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11. Add Testimonials to Your Landing Pages

Tastefully arranged testimonials will build audience trust in your brand and help you stand out. Obviously, you should only use genuine testimonials gathered from social media, Google reviews, survey results, or other relevant sources.

Add Testimonials to Your Landing Pages

Don’t be afraid to address any grammatical errors, though – poorly spelled reviews could drive visitors away!

12. Segment Your Visitors for Better Lead Nurturing

Once you’ve captured visitor information through newsletter signups or gated content, categorize leads based on specific criteria. These can be industry, engagement level, or position in the conversion funnel.

You can expand your lead capture form to include fields like job title, company size, or specific pain points to achieve this. 

Next, assign a score to each lead based on their behavior and demographics. For instance, a key stakeholder in your target industry who downloads a whitepaper gets a higher score than someone who simply subscribed to your newsletter.

13. Retarget Your Web Traffic

Retargeting allows you to reconnect and convert your website visitors to leads. You can set up retargeting pixels across platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook. 

This way, you’ll send tailored ads after visitors leave your site. But be careful not to overdo it; otherwise, they may block your ads.

If visitors abandon their shopping cart, you can remind them of the items they left behind. If they visited a specific product page, showcase similar options or complementary products. You can even offer something more valuable like a special discount.  

FAQs

Q1. How can you convert website visitors into leads?

Here’s how you can convert website visitors into leads:

  • Target the right audience
  • Eliminate poor user experience on your website
  • Integrate live chats
  • Offer a relevant and valuable lead magnet
  • Strategically place popups and CTAs
  • Don’t trick leads; deliver on your promise
  • Add testimonials on landing pages
  • Segment your visitors
  • Retarget your web traffic

Q2. How do you engage website visitors?

The following strategies can help you engage website visitors:

  • Share expert knowledge for free using lead magnets
  • Post photos and videos of people interacting with your product
  • Display customer reviews on your website and landing page

Q3. How do you turn your website visitors into leads?

Here are some strategies for converting website visitors into leads:

  • Make your site mobile-friendly
  • Use relevant keywords in web content and ads
  • Segment your audience for personalized targeting
  • Use compelling CTAs to drive action

Q4. How to get 1,000 website visitors per day?

Create high-value content with well-researched keywords to attract at least 1,000 web visitors daily. Repurpose web content for different social media platforms and post consistently. Optimize your posts, use the right hashtags, and engage with your audience.

Q5.  Do websites make money from visitors?

Yes, websites can monetize traffic through the following ways:

  • Displaying ads and earning money through clicks or impressions
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Direct sales
  • Charging users for access to premium content or features

Turn visitors into customers with HelloBar!

As you can see, you can use plenty of straightforward tactics to maximize your site conversions. Popups represent one of the simplest and quickest ways to capture leads and ensure customers pay attention to your offerings.

If you’re unsure how to install popups, don’t fret—HelloBar is here to help. We offer a wide array of popups, sliders, and banners designed to suit your audience’s needs. We even use advanced targeting strategies to maximize your website’s impact. 

Keen to find out more? Don’t hesitate to get in touch or start a free account today!

Michael Wicker
Michael Wicker

Michael Wicker is a growth hacker and growth marketer that splits his time between the beaches of San Diego, California and the mountains of Utah. Known as "Wicker" to all of those around him, he geeks out on marketing and growth funnels, gets excited about running optimization tests, and obsesses about CRO and retention marketing. Wicker has helped lead growth efforts at companies such as Hello Bar, Subscribers, Qualaroo and Online Guru.