In digital marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) often takes the spotlight for online visibility and customer acquisition. And rightly so – optimising your website for search engines is crucial for getting noticed online. However, there's a vital aspect that often gets overlooked: the customer journey.
For service-based businesses, having a clear customer journey on your website is just as essential as having excellent SEO. Here are 6 reasons why:
Visibility isn't everything
SEO helps you rank higher in search engine results, making your website more visible to potential customers. But getting visitors to your site is only the first step. Without a clear and compelling customer journey, those visitors may quickly bounce off, leaving you with high traffic but low conversions.
A seamless customer journey guides visitors through your site, making it easy for them to find what they need and take action like booking or buying from you.
Build a website people want to stay on
A good customer journey engages visitors from the moment they land on your site until they complete a desired action, like contacting you or booking. It's not just about grabbing attention; it's about keeping it and nurturing it into a sale.
While SEO brings visitors to your doorstep, it's the customer journey that invites them in for a cuppa and convinces them to stay. Learn more about creating a great homepage for your website here.
More than keywords
SEO focuses on optimising your website for relevant keywords to match what people are searching for on engines like Google search. But understanding user intent goes beyond keywords – it's about realising what users are looking for and delivering it effectively.
A well-designed customer journey anticipates customer needs at different stages of their journey, providing relevant information and guidance every step of the way.
Build trust and credibility with your customer journey
Backlinking as part of your SEO strategy may help to build credibility, but it will mean nothing without a solid client experience backing it.
A good customer journey builds trust by delivering a seamless and professional experience. From clear and easy navigation, informative content and intuitive forms, every aspect of the customer journey on your website should contribute to making the user feel that they can trust your brand and rely on your services. Even if they don’t convert immediately, your website should leave a great lasting impression on its visitors.
Balance tech with the human experience
Ultimately, the goal of both SEO and the customer journey is conversion – turning visitors into customers. But one won’t work without the other. While SEO is more ‘tech’ focused in lifting the website’s visibility through keywords, tags, backlinks and rich snippets, the customer journey requires you to think about consumer behaviour and the psychology behind marketing.
By strategically balancing both, in analysing user behaviour with SEO tools and optimising the customer journey, you’ll be able to identify pain points, remove barriers, and maximise the impact of your online presence.
While SEO is essential for driving traffic to your website, it's only part of the equation. To truly succeed in converting visitors into customers, service-based businesses need to complement their SEO efforts with a well-crafted customer journey. Remember, SEO might get them to your door, but it's the customer journey that welcomes them inside.
If you’re looking for someone to help with your SEO marketing, contact Breeze Marketing & Media. Together, we’ll design a website that both search engines and customers will love!
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