So, you started blogging for your business.

Excellent decision.

But is your blog helping you? Are you getting leads from your blog posts?

You write compelling headlines, beautiful copy, put eye-catching images; you create the perfect blog posts to attract visitors.

Readers like your blog posts, they love them, but you fail to turn them into your customer. All your time and efforts go in vain.

Now imagine this –

You’re putting fantastic blog posts out there, and readers are fascinated, mesmerized. They’re entering your sales funnel with happy faces.

A boost in lead generation, a boost in sales, and the start of relationships will lead to more sales opportunities.

Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Heck yes!

Today in this post, I discuss seven ways to make that awesome happen. These are simple tricks that you can apply easily.

Want more leads?

Duh… of course, you want. Let’s dive in!

Place Opt-In Forms In Your Blog

I browsed the Internet a few months back and landed on a blog post. The blog was about email marketing or blogging, I can’t remember. The post was beautiful and pleasant to read.

Being impressed by the writing, I decided to subscribe to their newsletter.

I searched for an opt-in email form to give them my email address. But I couldn’t find it.

I looked at the blog sidebar. But I couldn’t find any forms there either.

Now you tell me how they’d get leads from their blog posts?

As a reader, I was interested in them. I was ready to become a lead. But they didn’t grab the opportunity.

Losing interest, I closed the tab.

What could’ve they used to capture me?

Answer: Opt-in form.

An opt-in form is a form that you use to ask readers to put in their email. In return, you add them to your subscription list or giveaway a gift.

After getting their emails, you nurture them and turn them into customers.

See how Unbounce use opt-in forms effectively to get more leads –

Here you see a newsletter subscription box when visitors arrive at their blog. This opt-in is an effective technique to grab readers.

See how they used Copywriting to hook readers. Here is another example from their blog where they use an opt-in box in their blog sidebar.

It can be easily found, and readers can subscribe to their newsletter anytime they want.

Say Hello to Hello Bar!

Hello Bar is a bar that sticks at the top of your website. You can use it to direct people to a landing page or collect emails.

You can place a simple call-to-action linking to anything on your website or collect emails directly from it.

ProBlogger uses it to collect emails. They use an opt-in box and invite people to subscribe.

This sticky bar is also available on SumoMe. DIYthemes gained 1180 new email subscribers in just 30 days using Hello Bar.

Why is this so effective? Many bloggers don’t want to go with aggressive tactics like pop-ups. That’s where the sticky bar comes in.

It doesn’t push hard but invites people mildly. It also grabs attention effectively, just like pop-ups.

The sticky bar doesn’t irritate people by suddenly hopping on the screen like pop-ups. Instead, it sits calm but stays captivating as well.

You may be thinking now to put up a sticky bar right away on your website. Your sales funnel is flooding with leads, conversion rates are going high, loads of cash are flowing right through your website.

All these things are floating in your eyes.

Well, okay, buddy, that’d be great. But these won’t happen by a swing of a wand. You have to work for it. Here are a few quick tips to help you start the ball rolling – Offer a bribe.

This bribe can be an eBook, webinar, free trial, and so on. A sticky bar with a gift can give you 28% more clicks than a sticky bar without a gift.

Lead them to a landing page. You can easily provoke people to hand over their email with compelling copy, enticing images, and videos on the landing page.

Run A/B testing with button color, bar color, copy, landing page images, and videos. But don’t make the button and the bar look gaudy. This look will make people run away.

Place Opt-In Forms at the End of Your Blog Post

Your readers have finished reading your blog post.

Now what? You should give them instructions or directions to do something.

Otherwise, they’ll fly away.

You kept readers busy on your website with your blog post. After they have finished reading, you grab them and turn them into leads. Using opt-in forms right after your blog posts will help you capture leads quickly.

I placed an opt-in form right after a blog post on my blog.

Right after you finish reading, you’ll be asked to sign up for my newsletter—a clear direction on what you should do after reading my blog post.

Fancy Pop-Ups

You may be familiar with this. A page pops up while you browse, and it tells you to claim an offer, download an eBook, or subscribe to a newsletter.

There is a controversy that pop-ups don’t work. It annoys people. But there are a few positive sides to it, making it still functional.

See the screenshot above. Marketing Insider Group is clearly stating its offer.

You can’t help but notice the pop-up. In the case of going ahead in front of people with your offer, it’s a good go.

But the con is, you may irritate people by jumping right in people’s faces. And this may lead to losing interest in your brand.

Many bloggers argue on this factor.

Read this blog post if you want to dig deeper into this.

Use Your Navigation Menu

The navigation menu and header are your website or blog’s two most valuable sections because people see these two things first when they land on a website.

You can hold people immediately with these sections.

See how Elna Cain does this. She places a call-to-action right in her navigation menu, inviting new writers to join her writing course.

What do you first see looking at her blog homepage? The navigation menu and the header.

And she has used these perfectly.

People spend short periods while browsing the Internet. And keeping this fact in mind, she entices people on her blog header to sign up for her email course before they fly away.

To catch people’s attention right off the bat, she placed a call-to-action on her blog navigation.

Above the Blog Footer

People now scan blog posts. They don’t read the whole of it. Believe me or not, most of your readers don’t make it to the bottom of your post.

But who do make it to the bottom, you can surely take that they’re interested in your content. That’s why it’s crucial to use the footer and the area above correctly.

People who make it to your footer are red-hot leads for you. It’s your sacred duty to hold their hand gently, give them a sit beside you and coddle, cosset, and pamper them.

Are you getting the gist?

I’m talking about lead generation.

HubSpot, the master of inbound marketing, uses the area above their footer effectively. They invoke people to try their CRM software for free.

After people opt-in, HubSpot satisfies them with more goodies and earns their trust. Finally, they sell their product to them.

Utilize 404 Not Found Pages

On the 404 Not Found Page, broken links aren’t uncommon. But they’re embarrassing and can cost you money.

Readers bounce away when they land on a ‘404 Not Found’ page because they’re left with no instruction to follow.

You need to give them clear instructions. Tell them what you want them to do.

Leadpages does this perfectly. When someone arrives on their ‘404’ Not Found’ page, Leadpages doesn’t let people leave bare hands. They offer a free tutorial to keep people happy.

People generally get confused when they arrive on an error page.

But Leadpages uses this page as another weapon to collect people’s emails. Conclusion Your blog is a vital asset for you to generate leads.

Conclusion

You got an outstanding blog with lots of traffic and fantastic blog posts. But you won’t get anything from it if you don’t know how to cut the crops.

You sweated out all year long on your crop field. But when it’s the time for harvest, if you don’t know how to collect the crops, where is the worth of your sweat you shed?

So, be smart and act wisely. Know how to reap the benefits. That’s how you’ll do a profitable business.

Cheers!